San Francisco Plays Blog about the USCL -------------------------------------------- by San Francisco
Mechanics --------------------------------------------
This blog can be found at http://sfmechanics.blogspot.com/
and is expected to be continuously updated for Mechanic fans during the
season. I will post the entries so far on the site, but you will get
faster updates by visiting the team blog! August
26 2006- by IM Vinay Bhat
On your mark ...
Hello everybody!
Welcome to the blog of the San Francisco Mechanics, the 2005 Western
Division winners of the US Chess League (USCL; http://www.uschessleague.com).
We'll post our league match results and thoughts here as the season
progresses.
The
first match of the 2nd season of the USCL begins with a Monday night
matchup between the two new expansion teams (Tennessee and Seattle) on
August 28th; the Mechanics' first match is on Wednesday, August 30th at
5:30 PM, with the regular season running through until Wednesday,
November 1st. Hopefully we advance to the playoffs, with the final
championship match on Wednesday, November 22nd.
Hi
folks. Dmitry's here. First
game against Igor Schneider went pretty
well. I played Slav(Marshall) Gambit and managed to create some
problems for him. 9.Ba5 is the most principled move in my opinion, so
Black needs to play carefully. Looks like Qe8 is a novelty for Black,
I'm not sure it's that good. Main move is Bb7. Alright, it was fun
game, hopefully I can continue to play solid chess down the road.
P.S. 75 + 30 is way better than 60 + 30 we used last year. (Editor's Note - Sorry Dmitry, you'll
still be using 60+30 for 40% of your team's matches, including
next week vs Miami!) August
30th 2006 - by Team Manager IM John
Donaldson
A good start for the season
Today we got off to a good start by
defeating a strong Dallas team 3-1. Vinay was the first to score when
he sacrificed two pawns in the
opening against GM Panchanathan. Black's
...b6 was played a few times before but somehow the GMs Queen was soon
in big trouble. Mark Pinto won a
huge game with the Najdorf against
Keaton Kiewra who is closer to 2300 in strength instead of 2200 (This
game was awarded the game of the week prize - ed). This
makes Mark 3.5 from 4 over two seasons. Well done Mark! Next week we
play another division rival in Miami. Last year we beat them twice
during the regular season but then lost a heart breaker 2 1/2 - 1 1/2
in the playoffs. Miami has strengthed their team over the offseason so
it should be a tough match.