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***Forward from League Commissioner: IM Greg Shahade***
Hello, this is one of many examples I hope to bring to the fans this
season of a team member/loyal fan writing an in depth report of the
action during a match. Take a look at the manager of the Sluggers'
thoughts during the game, the emotional high's and lows, and the
eventual finish in which Seattle scored the first ever 4-0 result in US
Chess League history. We are going to start the coverage from 11:55 EST
(8:55 PT, all times listed below are PT). To read more about the team
go to Slugfest.org.
1. IM Ron Burnett (TEN) vs GM Gregory
Serper (SEA) 0-1
2. IM Eric Tangborn (SEA) vs FM
Todd Andrews (TEN) 1-0
3. FM Peter Bereolos (TEN) vs FM
John Readey (SEA) 0-1
4. NM Nat Koons (SEA) vs NM Jerry
Wheeler (TEN) 1-0
8:55 pm Serper has managed to get a protected passed pawn, but at the cost of opening up the f-file that his doubled pawns are on. His back and forth maneuver with his Q-rook now makes sense. Could he have seen this endgame before he traded queens? If he can shore up his doubled pawns, that could decide the game as white does not seem to have enough of an advantage to neutralize black's bishop pair.
Now that he has expanded all he could on the kingside, Eric decides to expand on the queenside. If he can support both fronts, it should be a matter of time before some tactic will arise in his favor. Black does have the center though...
John's opponent has decided to "win" the exchange and also get an attack for this. Good thing John has three pawns in pocket. Hopefully he will be able to defend so he can cash them in.
Nat has managed to create some weaknesses in black's position. He did have to get one of his own, but things look good in this game.
9:05pm On board 1, white decided to get a doubled pawn of his own, must have been jealous of Serpers? It did get rid of one of the bishops, but now it's B+2R vs. N + 2R, black has a protected passed pawn. Things are getting close to the full point here, unless I missed something obvious, which is quite possible as I scramble from board to board, to and from computer, through sprinklers, etc.
Eric has gotten into the real estate business, seems like two thirds of the board is his. If space could be cashed in for a win, he should have no problems, but you can't do that. He has to find a way to convert the space into something a bit more valuable.
On board three John's opponent realized he didn't have enough of an attack to win, so he went to plan b, namely snacking on some pawns. Now, its a pawn for the exchange, but John's position looks much better than earlier, he should be able to hold.
Nat looks to be on a roll.
Everyone, except Serper's opponent is down to around 10 minutes. He will need all of it to try to hold a bad endgame.
9:15PM
What do you do with hard to defend doubled pawns? Give them away! Serper convinced his opponent to spend two precious moves to take his doubled f-pawns. He gets the exchange in return. So now white doesn't have to worry about the bishop pair anymore. He just has to hold a N vs. rook endgame, with weak pawns. Almost the full point here.
Eric has started his k-side attack. pawns are rolling, all his pieces are near black's king. He did graciously abandon the center to his opponent, now that it doesn't really have a big role in the game.
Board 3 has turned into a pawn eating contest. Not sure where the dust will settle on this one yet. Black's strategy was to munch a pawn and defend the attack and win in the endgame. What doesn't make sense is for white to have sacrificed the pawn and then take time to "win" the exchange, unless there is a forceful attack. However, the attack was two pieces short of even making any serious threats. All of a sudden there was this "waka-waka-waka" sound. It was PacMan! Black takes a pawn, white takes a pawn. Both sides are taking pawns as fast as they can. This is really good for John, as he has a head start on this PacMan thing in this game. Second to the table sometimes only gets scraps. There is that little detail of John being down the exchange though.
Nat seems fine, but haven't had a chance to look at it much.
Clock goes tick, tick, tick (electronically)
9:20pm
Serper looks to have a full point with proper technique. I can't see how the N can hold all the weaknesses and stop black's passed pawn(s).
Tangborn has a dominating position. Time pressure blunder is the only worry here.
John ended up in an exchange down endgame, but has the bishop pair and three pawn. Three monster passed pawns on the q-side. This also seems to be a technical win now.
Nat is better, but black can still hold. Nat needs to find a way to breakthrough.
Only a few minutes left for many of the players.
9:25PM
On board 1, Serper's opponent sacrificed two pawns in hopes of queening one of his two passed pawns. After analyzing it Serper took the a pawn, so that dangerous looking g pawn must not be able to queen. I hope.
Tangborn seems to be getting ready for a breakthrough. His darksquared bishop has limited mobility on g7, but its probably worth it with black's king on g8.
John traded off his last rook, so it is his bishop pair vs. white's rook and bishop, Good thing he has three pawns
Nat now has a passed c-pawn
If only there wasn't this thing called time pressure...
9:30pm
Due to all the technical difficulties on Board 1, it had a lot more time than the other boards. It was something like 20 minutes off. However, Serper was down to the same amount of time as the rest of the team, eg. single digits. Yikes! Good thing for that 30 second increment. Each move adds precious seconds to the clock. Without that, things will degrade to speed chess around here. So, Serper's opponent has stockpiled a lot of time. In time limited games, there is always this tradeoff of time vs. quality of moves. Play fast, you gain on the clock, but you might end up in a worse position. Take too long, you might get a great position, but not enough time to figure out how to take advantage of it, or even worse, making a blunder.
With what amounted to a rain delay during all the technical problems, nobody was really able to get into the game. Then when the technical patch (fancy term for our intrepid Commissioner substituting for Tennessee's Internet connection, hey, whatever works!) was implemented and more than a few moves could be played in a row and with most of the spectators settling into the skittles room for speed chess, the Sluggers all went into a deep think. I am not sure if there is a specific length of time that counts as a "deep think", but certainly a half hour think in a 40 moves in 2 hour time limit would count as that. In that case, it would be 25% of the time of 40 moves for 1 move. That's spending 10 times the average time. Using that, a G/75 (entire game in 75 minutes) with 30 second increment would have 135 minutes for a 60 move game. This is a bit more than 2 minutes per move. However, if the game only goes 40 moves, then it is right around 3 minutes per move. The only problem is that you don't know for sure if there will be a complicated endgame or not.
Anyway, it's a good thing there isn't an exact definition I know of for the term "deep think" as with everything going on, I was able to keep track of the exact time spent on any given move. Suffice it to say that the entire room as quiet and all of the Slugger's clocks were ticking. I felt that this was the critical juncture as each player planned how they will maximize their advantages and minimize their opponents play. Over the following moves, the Seattle players all improved their positions, but each was down to less than 10 minutes and some down to less than 5 minutes. Now, for some reason it takes longer when your position is worse. Not sure if this is psychological, but when your back is up against the wall, you cannot make a single suboptimal move. Of course, you shouldn't when you are ahead either, but you could and still not lose the game. It would just be you that is up against the wall.
All the Tennessee players except their board 1 used up all their time advantage, but they still had the worse position. That is the background going into the time scramble. For those not familiar with what that is, a time scramble is kind of like what happens to scrambled eggs. The end result is made of eggs, but it sure doesn't look much like what it started from. In other words, anything can happen. I have seen top grandmasters simply drop a rook, young, old, super strong, just strong, doesn't seem to matter. When the clock starts getting close to 0:00, the fact that you lose the game trumps all rational thought. And since there just isn't time to calculate all the variations, well, that's why they call it a time scramble!
Time Unknown:
I start hearing Eric muttering to himself. Not sure what language it is, but he sounds like he is pain, can't be good. Looking at the position, it is the calm before the storm. The big clash is yet to come and I certainly didn't have time to work out the details. I can barely play one game at a time at a longer time control and even then it's full of inaccuracies. I only hope this was just some bad variation that he saw, which means he can avoid it. However, maybe that means that his plan of breaking through didn't work? Nervousness. I was counting on the full point from board 2. Tick, tick, goes the clock. Down to 2 minutes. Ready or not, he has to make a move and he does. Ouch, it looks like his N is getting trapped. Was that all? Looks like a great time to sac a piece anyway :)
Aha! Qh5 and there is a mate threat from the trusty bishop on g7. I knew that had to be a good thing. It's great position purchased a move at a super critical point in the game. Now the N just hopes right in to replace the B who gave its life so the N could live. If you haven't heard about Queens and Knights working well together, especially around the enemy king, let me tell you that queens and a knight around the enemy king is really dangerous. The N just hops to the left, hops to the right. Before you know it there is some really horrible thing that the monster knight will do. It seems Eric already knew this and to make matters worse for his opponent, the N was hopping and attacking the enemy queen. What's worse than a Q+N is Q+N+tempo! Looks hopeless now for black and sure enough the Seattle Sluggers notch their first victory, EVER!
Thanks to IM Eric Tangborn. Not much is known about him, but we now have the answer to the first Seattle Sluggers trivia question. "Who was the first Seattle Slugger to win a USCL game". Answer: IM Eric Tangborn! Congratulations Eric! This is our first win ever and we just need one more win on any of the remaining boards to be assured of at least a tie. The Slugfest logo is to play for a win every game. Before the match, the Commissioner made a special point to me that winning the match 2.5 to 1.5 is what is important, so that if you have won 2 out of 3 games, a draw on the last game gets you the win. Getting anymore than that is only good for tiebreaker points. This was totally confusing to me as winning the tiebreak gets you draw odds in the playoffs, but the players are not allowed to talk to anyone during the matches, even about whether to accept a draw or not. That meant that we needed to be all in sync before the games started about when any draws would be accepted, offered, etc. My personal philosophy of win at all costs aside, there are times where a take no prisoners approach doesn't make sense. Especially in a team situation where what one person does affects all the others. Now, just because the manager of a team is some half (totally?) crazy lunatic madman attack when you ahead, attack when it is even and attack when you are behind, kind of player, it wouldn't turn the more balanced and logical masters into bloodthirsty players. Would it? Well, I can't tell you what we agreed to do, as I don't want to tip our hand to our next opponent on that score.
What did happen was that John's game heated up next. Last I saw, he was getting ready to start pushing his pawns. You've heard of PPMBP (passed pawns must be pushed). I think there is a new one called TCPPMRBP (three connected passed pawns must really be pushed). Sure enough, the three pawns started rolling and usually two connected passed pawns are like a full piece. Three is a monster. White had no choice to sacrifice the exchange back, but even with opposite colored bishops, white is down two pawns, which is usually enough. In this case the two pawns were connected, passed and in motion. To make things even better for John, he gains a few more moves threatening to trap white's king permanently. This let's his king walk right up to his pawns. I'm no endgame master, and I know there are ways of drawing bishops of opposite colored endgames being two pawns down. However, when your king is passive and the best thing you can do is sacrifice a pawn, just to buy a few moves. Well, it is really time to resign. OK, there's our second win!!
Now, I finally get a good look at Nat's position and sure enough he looks like he is doing quite well. Nice control of squares, good pieces, black's only positive is that Nat's king is a bit loose. With Nat's opponent running low on time too, the quality of moves is bound to be spotty and just when they both need it most with all the complications hitting. But black lets Nat attack a piece with a pawn, gaining a tempo. Doesn't he have to move it, which would then allow a pawn-fork? Sure enough, there it is, a good 'ol pawn fork. What can black do? Qh5. Gulp. That looks really dangerous. Nat has 30 seconds to decide if he should take the piece on e6. I have a very bad feeling about this. With the enemy R on g8, N on g4, Q on h5 my sense of danger went to high alert. It sure seems to be better to take that N on g4, but then the R takes back and threatens the white B on g3. Maybe there is no time to take the B on e6? Tick, tick. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 seconds left and Nat does take the B. That was close, 6 more seconds and Nat would have lost on time. Black goes NxB on f2 with check, that's easy, Nat recaptures. Black takes B on e2, but white is up a piece and black's pieces are all over the board and far from coordinated. If anything white's pieces are better and Nat has an extra one. Could we go to 3 wins and no losses? After Nat keeps improving the position of his pieces by simply threatening to trade queens, black realizes that there is no compensation for the piece and the best move is to resign.
After the match was finished. The Commissioner called to congratulate us on our victory, but said that Nat was mated in 2 moves. I know it was a confusing night, but I could have sworn that Nat won the game. Oh, what he was saying was that Nat missed a mate in 2. No, no! It turns out that Nat could have been checkmated in 2, right after he took that bishop on e6!! It was a cleverly poisoned bishop as black had a queen sac on h2 with check. White is forced to take with the B and with the black rook on g8 controlling the g-file, Nf2# would have been a checkmate. That was a hxx call. Things could have easily been 2-1 at this point, but remember that thing about scrambled eggs? Sometimes you get the benefit, sometimes you don't. Tonight, Nat benefited from the time scramble, though I am sure he wouldn't have fallen into it had he had more time.
Now we had just one game left and Serper has been busy pushing pawns keeping the white N at bay. However, white has advanced his king all the way down and could this be right? I just saw a variation where Serper queens, but then gets mated by the N. Yikes! Oh, wait, it's his move. Thank goodness. In that case there is time to avoid that nasty mess. Yes, there it is, no more mate threat, but now it looks like black will queen his g-pawn. There's no way a GM would overlook something like this, is there? Nope. When your opponent is about to queen a pawn, just take it even if it costs you a rook. Now Serper has no pieces, but instead two advanced passed pawns. A N is the absolute worst piece to defend against this. In fact, even a B would have a hard time. Things are so bad, Serper can make an extra king move to eliminate any threat of the other passed white pawn ever had of becoming a queen and now unless I am totally missing something, there doesn't seem to be a way for white to stop both pawns. Black can just push one pawn to get the N to move far, far away and the other queens without a worry.
Of course, no master wants to suffer through this sort of lost endgame, especially when it is broadcast live and the only game left. White did the logical thing and resigned.
Now we have the second trivia question. "Which was the first USCL team to sweep an opponent 4-0?" Answer: Seattle Sluggers!
So, the early prediction of a 2.5-1.5 Seattle victory was only correct in the fact that it predicted we would win and my internal prediction of a 4-0 sweep came true. I did not broadcast this as I didn't want our opponent to get motivated by what I say, but since we were higher rated on every board the odds of us winning every game was a bit better than 1 chance in 16. Nothing close to the lottery like long shot that I did at the US Open, but it took me 30+ hours and 5 games to beat 4 ~2200 masters. The Sluggers took only 4 hours to get 4 scalps! Only one of the 4 was a 2200, the rest were 2300+ and with an IM playing white on board 1, regardless of what the rating system says, it is just not an easy thing to beat such a strong player when you are playing black. Considering that no other team has ever swept another team in the entire history of the USCL shows that the real life odds are much greater than 16:1.
How did we do it? I certainly can't take any credit for this historic result as it was the will to win that each and every Slugger brings to every game that is combined with the fact that these guys are really good! I can't give a detailed analysis of the games, but my sense of the ebb and flow of each game is as follows:
Board
1.
Very early in the game, Serper gets the bishop pair in exchange for a doubled pawn. Probably pretty even, especially with his king still in the middle of the board and many places for the white N's to go. Then when white declined a Q trade with 11. Nb3, my chess physics says that black could now be equal, but that would depend on if the tempo spent on Nb3 would come back with interest, or if it would be wasted. As Nb3 did not prevent black from castling and completing development, the temporary advantage white had was dwindling and the permanent bishop pair advantage black had was still fully there. When white couldn't find anything better to do that move Nb3 back to d4, I knew that black had definitely equalized, but even more should now have white up against the wall, eg. one suboptimal move away from a loss. The reason is that black was able to develop his Q to b6 and since white didn't go into a slightly worse endgame and played 11 Nb3, black gained a tempo and was now playing white. Then when white played Nb3 back to d4, that is the second tempo. After all the trading, white has to spend a move with the rook recapturing. Now if this is a good square to move the rook to, maybe white is only down a tempo, but how often is d4 a good square for a rook?
Serper spent about 5 minutes thinking about the Q trade after 16 Nd4. After the game he said that he didn't calculate things out at this point to the R vs. N endgame, which made me feel better :) Really, the only assessment that was needed was whether this would be a good endgame to get into. With two bishops, relatively open board, no tactical shots, really the doubled f-pawn weaknesses was the only hesitation, but that wasn't enough compensation for white. Now, after the trades happened on d4, that is when he went into the deep think and calculated the pawn vs. N endgame. Ah, you don't believe he did a 56 ply lookahead? :)
I was at first mystified by his rook maneuver, but now I see that it "simply" threatened to take the g-pawn. With queens off the board, all of a sudden the value of all pawns immediately go way up. This game will be about winning a single pawn, so white has to defend it. Then h4 threatens to mess up the precious pawns and let black's rook in, so h3 is pretty much forced. With two simple moves, black forces two tremendously important things. First, his king side pawns are now immobilized and there are no more moves that can be made. This could be decisive, especially in an endgame with a N that can't make a "do-nothing" move. Can you spell "zugzwang"? That is a German word that means "I really don't want to make a move and I want to pass so you can move, but that's against the rules, so I will say a word that can't be printed" see "zugzwang". But I get ahead of myself, there is no zugzwang anywhere in sight, but Serper got this for free. His h-pawn is also one step closer to queening, but really more important is that the energy level of white's B is much reduced. It used to be like a real B, going to the left and to the right, in front and in behind. Now it is more like an overgrown pawn. Sure, it supports an important center pawn and protects the g-pawn and being on that diagonal spying the tasty b7 square next to black's king probably made white think that it was really not such a bad square. When something is the glue that holds a position together, it has been converted from a fully functional piece to a glob of glue. I don't know about you, but as fun as a glob of glue is, I fancy fully functional pieces more.
Then with Rc8, 3 moves after the think Serper is clearly the one with the initiative. Now, how can he be dictating things as black? Chess Physics says that you lose a move as white, you are now playing black. You lose two moves, now black gets the initiative. If you don't play totally precisely when your opponent has the initiative, it's over. Chess at the high level is played with very close to zero margin of error. It's like in sudden death overtime in football. The side with the ball just needs to get into field goal range and short of a kicker malfunction, you win the game. So, in chess you start where white goes first and usually that is good enough to get things rolling and getting the initiative. Think of this as a loose ball bouncing all around and whoever gets control of the ball, gets to go on offense. The ball is bouncing around in the white side of the field, so white gets to dictate how things go at first. In this game, white used this advantage to double up black's pawns, but at the cost of a bishop vs. knight. Then white punted with the Nd4 to b3 back to d4 sequence and now it was Serper who had the ball and was driving toward field goal range. Now, after Rc8 there must be some tactical reason why the N on c3 retreated to d1. However, it is almost 2am now and I can't figure it out. I mean the queens are off the board, so is the exchange sac Rxc3 really something to worry about? If so, that means black was already in field goal range after the Q trade! If not, this is the move that my chess physics says pushed the game into the win column. You just can't make 3 moves against a GM that aren't fully productive and by my count, this is #3. Did black make any moves that didn't have full value? That would be white's only hope. Looking over it quickly (and tiredly) 9 ... a6 is the only move that might not be fully productive, but taking away the b5 square from the enemy N is certainly very valuable, especially with a potentially weak pawn on d6.
So at this point a GM should be able to find a path to a very big advantage, possibly enough to win. Sure enough, I think Serper sensed this and started to think more than usual again and with d5! finds a way to maintain the initiative and continue dictating things. At first I thought it was a pawn sac to get a nice protected passed pawn, but then I realized the reason he took so long to think about the natural looking d5 was to make sure that his B (after Bxf5) would be safe against discovered attack by the B on f3. Remember the B moving to f3 and becoming the glob of glue? This particular glob of glue blocks the protection of the f-pawn by the R on f1. Now, since the f-pawn is protected by the e-pawn, that doesn't matter, unless white plays exd5 in response to d5. Since Nd1 allows black to play d5, that is further weight to Nd1 being the critical move.
I wonder if Rd2 to f2 would have been better than c3, but I guess that would have allowed black to go Bc5 and maybe white didn't want to repeat positions and get a draw? If I am right though, white should be happy with a draw at this juncture considering Serper is close to field goal range. With white having to retreat his rook (I had a feeling d4 wasn't going to be very happy for the white rook), a defensive c3, while black is fully activating both his bishops, even taking one with check and did I mention a protected passed pawn that wins all king and pawn endgames. White has a backward g-pawn, less space on the kingside, and relatively passive pieces. Without the passed d-pawn, the position would be hopeless, but against a GM could anybody really defend this position?
Soon comes a move that Fritz would say something like, "that doesn't get the cat off the tree" or the plain old "bad move in a difficult position". I have no idea if there is a saving plan for white, but Bg4 seems to be going down a doomed path. As bad as it was, letting black get in Bc4, e4 and d5 might have been an easier path to defend than the game. After Bg4, its an express lane to a R vs. N endgame that seems dead lost, though it did get pretty tricky. GM's simply don't botch endgames like A-players though, that's why they are GM's.
A very instructive game by GM Gregory Serper on how to take advantage of white's turnover of the initiative and simply pushing the single possession all the way to the full point. Notice after 16 Nd4, white never really was able to do more than respond to black or make threats that were too little too late. I think I am finally starting to understand these type of games, at least enough to play armchair quarterback. I am sure there are plenty of tactics that I have missed as I am not using a computer to analyze this at all.
Board 2
(With black to move this was the key moment of the game
Black needed to play 35....Rxg5 36.Qxg5 Ne6 with a playable position.
The bishop on g7 looks really dangerous but it also blocks white's
pieces
sometimes. Instead black played 35...Ne6? 36. Rxg6 hxg6 37.Qh6 Ng7
38. Ng7 Rf8 39. Ne6! Rc8 40. Ng5! forcing black to resign. - Note by IM
Greg Shahade)
Looking over Eric's game what stands out is the repositioning of his pieces from move 15 to move 20. At move 10, white certainly had a good position, but something critical must have happened between move 10 and move 15 as by move 15, I am really liking white's position. Of course, I couldn't figure out how to convert the good feeling into a tangible set of moves, but that is why Eric is an IM! He sure figured it out. I think 15 Rh1 is the key. Sacrificing a full move to move the rook back to f1 is really hard to find. I had thought that the R on f3 could be used to protect the weak d3 pawn, but I guess shoring up the back rank and clearing a path for the Q is worth it. Then when then next move is Qd2, I start to wonder if I actually understand anything at all, but it is 2:30 am, so I will just chalk it off to the late hour :) At least by move 20, I finally figure out what Eric did before he played 15 Rh1, basically he had to get his N into the game and g3 was the only square that could efficiently do that. Rh1 had full value by eliminating a nasty N jump to d4 with tempo. N's are tricky enough without having to worry about what they could do with two moves and with two of them right next to each other, it reduces the power of the N significantly and that make 15 Rh1! what I think is the key move of the game. After this, the rest of the game seems to flow pretty naturally. White improves all the pieces as much as he can, including his queenside pawns, while black has to wait for white to launch the attack, though maybe black would have been better off fighting back in the center instead of waiting? Waiting for your opponent's attack is very dangerous and after 28 Nh5, black's last chance was to close things up with e4, but that would probably just lead to a different way of losing.
Was black's 11 ... f6 the reason he lost? Was it trading bishops on f3? Not sure. There just doesn't seem to be a move that stands out like in the Board 1 game. Black didn't make any really bad moves, yet he seems to lose by force. I think this is why they call Eric, the International Master of Mystery. When you play against him, somehow mysteriously your position gradually worsens until you are lost. The mystery is where you made a game losing mistake. Everybody knows that a properly played game of chess is a draw, right? Well, if you believe that, you will need to show me where black went wrong in this game. Maybe, there are some paths the side with the initiative can take that leads to a win? Kind of like not really being able to defend against a team that can kick 60 yard field goals and the first team to score wins and the team that can kick the 60 yard field goal gets to go first, from their 40 yard line. Ooops. Black's 11 ... f6 does standout as a move that doesn't have full value and if anything has negative value as it reduces the dark squared bishop's power. Also, trading the light squared bishop let's white get rid of a potentially problem bishop and eliminates one of black's better pieces. Still are those two moves enough to lose the game? Well, if you are black, the margin of error is very, very small. 16 ... Qe8 also stands out as a move without full value as it lets white play Nd5 with tempo, so maybe that is strike three? Could that be the straw that broke this camel's back?
Board 3
I didn't see it when white played 17 Ne4. That momentarily blocks the bishop's protection of the pawn on c6. Already being a pawn up, John doesn't hesitate and sacrifices the exchange. At the time, I thought that white decided to cash in his piece activity advantage for the exchange, which didn't make sense at all. After the dust settles with the exchange sac, it becomes clear that all of black's problems are solved and white is the one that has problems. Seems fair to say that 17 Ne4 was white's turnover, kind of like an interception thrown on your side of the field. White was on the run after that and John efficiently mopped things up.
Board 4
(Ouch, in the time scramble NM Koons played 36. fxe6
overlooking that black could play 36....Qxh2 37.Bxh2
Nf2 mate. Fortunately for Seattle NM Wheeler missed
this chance as well - note by IM Greg Shahade)
Too tired now for much more in depth stuff, but I have to look at Nat's game for a bit. I can't believe he missed a mate in 2. I'm the one that's supposed to do stuff like that :)
OK, it's clear that Nat got his dominating position due to black losing a couple of moves with getting his Q out too early before it was safe. Then that time scrambled eggs thing happened to tarnish an otherwise nicely played game. Nat was doing a great job continuing to increase his advantage, until the poisoned bishop on e6 that he didn't see. Luckily, neither did his opponent.
The Seattle Sluggers are now in sole possession of first place! We will have this for two more days, but even then, we should still have the best tiebreaks as this 4-0 sweep thing is unlikely to happen on Wed by any team. Also, while we did have the best possible result, it could have easily been the predicted 2.5 - 1.5, with a loss on board 4 and a draw on one of the other boards. I was most nervous about board 3, but after 17 Ne4 that game was pretty much decided, so Tennessee's chances would have been to draw on board 1. With best play white probably could have drawn, but how is anybody supposed to be able to do this "best play" stuff when you are down to 30 seconds per move? That make the initiative worth that much more.
Next up are the Carolina Cobras. Wish us luck as it sure comes in handy during time scrambles!
Clint