Ouch, the Arizona team lost its second match in week 3. It looked like the Pioneers had raised Arizona, scraped the desert clean and erected high rises with built in gambling saloons!
First to finish was Mark Ginsburg losing to Alex Lenderman in a one sided game. Mark used the English Opening and hung on in a rather hectic game until surrendering on move 39 with 3 minutes clock time left.
Another Alex! Alex Stripunsky played a closed Ruy Lopez against the Scorpions highest rated player, Rogelio Barcenilla, 2560. Rogelio managed to get a winning position deep into the game, but , alas, lost it and had to draw on move 43. [Score: Scorpions 0.5, Pioneers 1.5].
Board 4 finished next where Scorpion Team Manager, Leo Martinez had White and a 100 point advantage over Ben Katz of the Pioneers. Katz played a Sveshnikov Sicilian and Leo played the Opening well keeping the iniative. But gradually Leo's lead slipped away and Katz took over the advantage. After 44 moves Katz offered a draw; not sure why but maybe he saw the remaining game and was confident the Pioneers had a win even if he drew. [Score: Scorpions 1, Pioneers 2]
Does rating advantage mean anything in this league?? Apparently not in the final game to finish because Danny Rensch of the Scorpions had Black and almost a 200 point advantage over Parker Zhao of the Pioneers. Zhao played the Sicilian defense and the game became rather unfamiliar to a patzer like me. But by move 53 it had turned into a Rook-pawn Endgame with Zhao having a 1 point advantage and some strong central pawns. Danny played on valiantly trying to save a match draw for the Scorpions but Zhao performed well and Danny finally succumed at move 75.
Final Score: Scorpions 1, Pioneers 3.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment