News from the Saint Louis Arch Bishops


Arch Bishops Sting Scorpions

FM Doug Eckert's victory over FM Robby Adamson delivered the knock-out punch for the Arch Bishops.

 

The fourth round of the U.S. Chess League was pivotal for both teams, since the Scorpions were 1-2 and the Arch Bishops a paltry 0-3! But we were able to get on the scoreboard with a real team effort.

First to finish was yours truly, as I squeezed IM Mac Molner in an interesting double rook ending. The two advantages I held were enough to win, as I had a more mobile pawn majority, and my king was better. Currently I am the League MVP (although if Jorge Sammour-Hasbun keeps beating GMs, that will be tough to maintain).

Nick Karlow on board 4 was severely out-rated (unfortunately, this is the norm in the U.S. Chess League for the Arch Bishops) and ended up with a worse queen and rook ending against FM Atoufi. Eventually Nick went down in a lost king and pawn ending.

Although it looked like IM Goran Vojinovic was squeezing IM Levon Altounian with the black pieces, Goran realized Doug Eckert was winning and took a draw instead of pressing although a draw was likely) and waited for Doug to bring home the victory.

Doug did just that against FM Robby Adamson! Doug's game was unclear, and in mutual time trouble, Robby made a bad blunder losing a piece, and it was smooth sailing for Doug.

So the Arch Bishops win their first match of the season and we will try to build on our victory with the same line-up against our "arch" rivals, the Chicago Blaze in next weeks match against the League leaders. The Blaze are 4-0, and have many GMs on their team, but they are going down next week!

Info on the league can be found at: http://uschessleague.com/

Submitted by mwilmering on Fri., 9/23/2011 - 3:58 pm

U.S. Chess League: Round 1 Recap

The Mechanics' Institute building houses the oldest chess club in the United States. Pictured here is a more-than-100-year-old table in the playing hall of the Mechanics' Institute.

By GM Ben Finegold

The U.S. Chess League is back for its seventh season, and the Saint Louis Arch Bishops started the new season with a revamped line-up.

Round 1 saw Saint Louis paired against the San Francisco Mechanics. Unfortunately, we lost 2.5-1.5 in a tough match, but we cannot be too unhappy as we were out rated on boards two through four, and my opponent on board one was GM Jesse Kraai, against whom I have never won!

The first game to finish was on board two, where new Arch Bishop FM Jake Banawa lost to IM Daniel Naroditsky in a complicated Najdorf Sicilian. The game was about equal, in fact Jake was probably a bit better, but time trouble and tactics were a dangerous combination, and Jake made a blunder (23…Rfd8?? Instead of 23…Rae8) and lost.

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The next game to finish was Jialin Ding on board four. He had black in the Chinese Dragon variation of the Sicilian against youngest-ever USCF master, Samuel Sevian. Jialin seemed to know the opening better and built up a nice time edge to go along with his nice position. When Sevian sacrificed the exchange with 22.Qxh7+ Qxh7 23.Rxh7, Jialin should have declined the offer and played 23…Bxb3! with a nice advantage. As it went, the game petered out to equality and a draw by repetition.

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The match was effectively over when IM David Pruess overwhelmed FM Doug Eckert on board three. David played a QGA, equalized pretty quickly and then won material with some neat tactics.

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We were down 2.5-0.5, but I had a nagging edge against Kraai, and I was able to wrap up the point in a bishop ending after 89 moves and four hours of play!

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So we lost the match, but by the closest of margins. Today we play the Los Angeles Vibe, Tuesday, September 6, which, coincidentally, is my birthday!

 

Submitted by mwilmering on Tue., 9/6/2011 - 11:10 am

Week 1: August 31

GM Ben Finegold will be critical to the success of the new-look Arch Bishops. 

By Mike Kummer, Assistant Manager of the Arch Bishops

The Saint Louis Arch Bishops head into its second season in the U.S. Chess League with a revamped roster and a mission to make the play-offs. The team missed the play-offs in its inaugural season with a record of 5-5.

So this off-season, Team Manager Tony Rich and Assistant Manager Mike Kummer restructured the squad by adding six new faces to the 10-player roster. IM Goran Vojinovic from Serbia and Expert Nick Karlow bring talent and enthusiasm to the team. Aspiring GMs Kevin Cao and Jialin Ding will team up with GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Ben Finegold.

The team brought on two masters, both with a solid rating of 2346, to help balance the roster. Typically, the Arch Bishops will start FM Jake Banawa and NM Timur Aliyev together with a GM and a player rated under 2300. FM Doug Eckert and newly crowned Expert Margaret Hua return for the second season. Both were undefeated last year.

The U.S. Chess League is a 16-team league that is played over the Internet Chess Club (ICC). The Arch Bishops compete in the eight-team Western Division and need to finish in the top half to qualify for the play-offs. Come root on the Arch Bishops every week throughout the season. The first match is Wednesday, August 31 at 7:30 p.m. vs. the San Francisco Mechanics. See you there!

To learn more about the Saint Louis Arch Bishops, click here: http://www.uschessleague.com/StLouis.html. 

To find out more about the U.S. Chess League, click here http://www.uschessleague.com/index.html.

Week
Date
Color
Opponent
1
8/31
Weds.		W
San Francisco Mechanics 7:30
2
9/6
Tues.		W
Los Angeles Vibe  8:00
3
9/14
Weds.		B
Dallas Destiny 7:00
4
9/21 Weds.
W
Arizona Scorpions 8:00
5
9/28
Weds.
B
Chicago Blaze  7:00
6
10/5
Weds.		W
Philadelphia Inventors 7:15
7
10/11
Tues.		B
Seattle Sluggers  8:00
8
10/19
Weds.		B
Miami Sharks  7:00
9
10/26
Weds.		W
Seattle Sluggers  8:00
10
10/31
Mon.		B
San Francisco Mechanics 7:30

Submitted by mwilmering on Wed., 8/24/2011 - 6:51 pm

Arch Bishops take apart Mechanics

GM Ben Finegold and his son Spencer Finegold form half of the fearsome foursome for the Arch Bishops.By Spencer Finegold

The Saint Louis Arch Bishops faced-off against San Francisco's Mechanics on Wednesday, and there were no real surprises on any board. Though our opponents had a worthy line-up with GM-FM-FM-FM, they were no match for our big three plus one. I guess one could consider the Mechanics our rival as they too have a wonderful chess club in San Francisco, but The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis is of course nicer, and our victory over them karmically proved it.

GM Hikaru Nakamura showed up about 15 minutes late for his game against GM Josh Friedel, which would explain how Nakamura had only 30 minutes more than his GM opponent by the end of his victory?! Nakamura whipped out his first ten move quickly to equalize on time.

The Saint Louisian, commanding white, tried his hardest to get Friedel out of theory, and succeeded, I assume, within the first five moves. Such a strategy comes at a price, however, as I rather preferred the Mechanic's position out of the opening. The game quickly switched gears to a queenless middlegame, and with Black's rather weakening 19th move, Nakamura obtained a sizeable advantage. White's pieces were much too active, Black's camp had too many weaknesses, and our Arch Bishop cashed in in the ensuing rook endgame.

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Our board two, showing up on time as always from Chicago, did not have as pleasant a game as we had hoped. GM Yury Shulman played his trademark French Defense, and got his trademark bad position. It was an offbeat Tarrasch variation and young FM Daniel Naroditsky seemed to have the better of it. On move 20 it looked as if he was really penetrating into Black's camp, but couldn't find anything better than perpetual. Instead of Bxh6, essentially offering a draw, Re3 or Bxf5 should give White a nice advantage, but of course it is difficult to decipher over the board.

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On board three we saw GM Ben Finegold put in a fantastic effort for game-of-the-week. Finegold was white against U.S. Junior Closed participant Steven Zierk and, fearing some special Junior preparation, played in the style of Nimzowitsch with Nf3 b3 and e3. On around moves nine and 10 things turned sour for the young FM, he played much too aggresively abondoning his queenside pawns and kingside development for a mere check. Black played another inapproprietly aggresive 13th move and it was all over when Finegold threw down the spectacular 14. Nb5!! This knight was untouchable and Black was forced to castle into a fierce attack full of repetitions and another knight sacrifice on e5. Finegold sealed the deal with his 39th move cutting off all possible defenses and posing too may threats; Zierk resigned shortly thereafter.

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Fortunately for me all three games had finished before mine, so when I remembered my first grade math (there was really nothing of interest on my board by the time Yury’s game finished) I figured that win + win + draw = 2.5 and that 2.5 is more than half of 4! You can never resign with a clear conscience, but that is about as close as it gets. I played Black in an advanced Caro-Kann against my 350-point higher-rated FM opponent, Andy Lee. In the games I looked at of his on ChessBase I noticed he played 1.d4 about 95% of the time, so I was out of my preparation on move one. I played the rather timid 7...Nge7 instead of the theoretically better 7...f6 and got a similar position to the one on board two. The game went on and on with me slowly drifting into passivity, I should have play ...f5 instead of ...f6 or at least played it the next move. When I finally started to break out, my position was better than I thought, but promptly blundered with 25...g5 allowing a cute fork on the next turn. I foolishly kept queens on the board (exchanging would have provided drawing chances) and got crushed when my opponent put two pigs on the seventh; they weren't eating up pawns, but rather my bishop, and I was forced to resign.

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Submitted by mwilmering on Fri., 10/15/2010 - 4:48 pm

Arch Bishops torch Chicago Blaze

GM Hikaru Nakamura carried the Arch Bishops to a match victory by scoring a full point against GM Dmitry Gurevich.By Spencer Finegold

Last Wednesday, the Arch Bishops played our rival, the Chicago Blaze. Our previous encounter in week two was interesting in that we had our starting rotation: GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Yury Shulman, Ben Finegold, and myself (Spencer Finegold) and somehow only managed a draw. The difference this time around was that we were playing without Shulman on board two, who somehow lost with White in the second week, and to make matters worse they injected GM Mesgen Amanov to their line-up for this week’s showdown. All of the games were suspiciously played, as we were probably worse on all four boards at one point or another, but we managed a less-than convincing 2.5-1.5 victory to which I can recite the tautological phrase: "A win is a win."

We were all optimistic about our chances on board one. In week two the same players played, Nakamura with Black and Gurevich with White, and Nakamura managed a quick, clean victory. The only difference this week was that our guy moved first. The game took only two moves to get out of theory, and only six more to have an extremely complicated, materially imbalanced position. Nakamura played characteristically quickly as he preserved 80 minutes after 20 moves for the rest of the game, and obtained a nice advantage on the board as well. After some unreasonably quick moves, Nakamura saw his advantage disappear and the headshaking commenced. He would have been close to losing had Gurevich not elected to trade queens on move 26. The rest of the game was shabbily playedand ended with black hanging mate-in-two in a dead-equal position.

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Amanov-Finegold Sr. started as a Chigorin. Finegold deviated from his loss to Sargissian in Chicago 2008 with his sixth move (he had played 6...Nd6 against Sargissian) and White obtained a significant, but not decisive, advantage. After some trudging about in less-than theoretical grounds, White threw away huge chunks of his advantage with his hasty 14th and 15th moves. The game was creeping towards equality until Amanov traded queens, which gave Black's knight a wonderful e5 square in which to sit. Black grandmasterfully increased his advantage and could have had a near-winning position with 35...Rxa5. The text move however, throws it all away and his 36th move let White have all the fun (instead Rybka prefers 36...Rxf5). White then allowed Black's pawns to get a bit dangerous around move 45, but it was okay, Black was in no mood for an advantage and was completely lost five moves later. Instead of 50. Nd6 1-0, Amanov played the strange 50. Re4 and the game was drawn in a rook-and-two against rook-and-one endgame.

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IM Michael Brooks' game against Florin Felecan was particularly interesting to me because of the opening. As you may recall, I lost with White in a Sozin against Cindy Tsai, and I have played the Najdorf more than any other opening against 1.e4 and specifically this ...Bb7 move (instead of the more normal ...Be7) against the Sozin. Brooks decided he was fed up with having all his pieces and gave one away on move 10. This is a normal idea after 10. Bg5 Be7? where 11. Bxe6! gives White a huge advantage, but I hadn't seen it without Black playing the natural but inaccurate developing move. It wasn't terrible though, as White was not losing but maybe struggling for equality. To be completely honest there isn't much to say about this game, it had a few peccadillos but nothing serious. There was never a time where one side was winning; probably I would rather have had Black for most of the game but a draw was the right result. If anything can be taken away from this game, it's that 10. Bxe6?! doesn't give White much in the way of an advantage.

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I'll keep the synopsis of my draw with WIM Cindy Tsai shorter than usual considering all the variations I gave. The allure of this game was really at the end. I think my opponent wasn't aware that I could claim three-fold repetition; if I was her I would have played on forever. Low-rated players normally don't specialize in defending worse endgames for 50+ moves. Even though I may have had a winning continuation at one point, I was satisfied not only with the lucky draw to clinch the match in our favor, but also maybe with a little revenge for last time. Of course, normally one exacts revenge with a victory, but Cindy is obviously the stronger player and I'll take what I can get.

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Submitted by mwilmering on Mon., 10/11/2010 - 10:30 am
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