The c3 Sicilian?!

I'm not one of those people who has nothing but disdain for the Alapin Sicilian. In fact, it's just the opposite. I've been playing 2.c3 for most of my tournament career. It's the only move I play against the Sicilian (unless I'm absolutely sure you play 2...Nc6, in which case I might play 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3!). One of my most memorable wins occurred on the White side of the c3 Sicilian. I keep the Rozentalis & Harley book on my night table and I have a poster of Sveshnikov over my bed. Well the part about the poster isn't actually true, but if I didn't think my wife would divorce me I might just try to put it up.

Despite all this...

Larry! What were you thinking playing 2.c3 against Pascal? The line is the antithesis of the "Storming The Barricades" approach to chess. Strong GMs play it as White when they want to draw, but the Blitz' strategy for the match really depended on a win on Board 1.

I know what people will say, "Christiansen lost his last two encounters to Charbonneau in the Open Sicilian. He needed to try something else." First off, everyone seems to forget that Larry had an easy draw in last year's encounter and lost only when he tried to win an unwinnable position because the overall match score required it. Second, I can't believe that Pascal has actually refuted 3.d4 in the Sicilian (one would think that New In Chess would have had an article about it). Surely there must have been improvements for White in the earlier games. Among the GM class, if you need to generate winning chances against 2...c5, isn't an Open Sicilian the best chance? Lastly, even if I grant that Charbonneau has managed to get into Christiansen's head in such a way that Larry believed he needed to try something else, I just can't believe that 2.c3 was the best choice for trying to achieve the kind of attacking positions he thrives on.

I know what people will say, "It didn't matter anyway. Another half point from Board 1 wouldn't have changed the outcome." I certainly grant that Foygel's loss to Krush inflicted great damage on the cause. Had you told me in advance that New York would score a full point on Board 2, I would have had to agree that New York would be favored to win the match. Nevertheless, as things turned out a win on Board 1 could have made all the difference in the world because Riordan came out of the opening with a strategically superior position against Hess. Whether Charles would have actually scored the point will never be known (it's not as if he played perfectly after 15.c5), but he might have and with draw odds that could have been enough to propel Boston to the finals.

At this point, journalism professors everywhere are adding this post to their folder of examples of 'burying the lead'. So for those of you who didn't watch the match or don't actively follow the league, let's start over...
It turned out to be a Boston-New York matchup where the team from the Hub played the role of the 2006 Yankees. After dominating the Eastern Division during the US Chess League regular season, the Blitz fell 3-1 to the Knights in the second round of the playoffs. Instead of playing the San Francisco Mechanics in two weeks for the USCL Championship, the guys will be at home watching New York, a team that finished the regular season with a losing record, take a shot at the crown.

How could this have happened? Let's take a look at some key positions.

On Board 1, the first critical moment occurred after move 1 when GM Christiansen responded to GM Charbonneau's Sicilian with 2.c3. Oh wait, I think we've already covered this... The fact is that Larry did get some attacking chances when Pascal chose reasonable, if not the best, continuations. For example, instead of 7...Nc6 Black might have tried the plan Bc8-d7-c6 with Nd7 and 8...dxe5 9.dxe5 g6 is a good alternative to 8...Be7. Larry had options as well like 10.Re1 in place of Qc2 and/or somehow finding time for h2-h4-h5 to loosen up Black's Kingside. In the end however, while it's hard to find fault with Christiansen's play the position just never offered him enough to generate real winning chances. This, I believe, can be traced back to the choice of opening.

GM Christiansen-GM Charbonneauafter 7...Nc6 8.Bd3

With no win on Board 1, the result on Board 2 became crucial for the outcome of the match. To her credit, IM Krush played well to avenge her previous defeat at the hands of IM Foygel. The key position in this game occurred after 20.e4. Igor's 20...f4 allowed White to begin exposing Black's King by taking the h7 pawn (after 21.e5 Nxe5 22.Bxh7+) but more importantly, made it difficult for Black to defend the white squares on the Kingside. Ultimately these factors led to Foygel's demise. For the record, our silicon friend Fritz prefers 20...Rae8.

IM Krush-IM Foygelafter 20.e4

I can't move on to the next board before responding to Jennifer Shahade's comments at USChess.org. Since I'm about to complain about being taken out of context, let me quote her comments in full so I won't be accused of the same:

As manager of the New York Knights, it's my job to rile up my team. So, I sent them a link to a blog by Boston team supporter [DG] including predictions such as:

LarryC is overdue for a win against Charbonneau....Their (The Knights) most likely winning strategy against it is securing a half point on Board 1 (surely they can't expect Charbonneau to defeat Christiansen three times in a row) and sweeping the lower boards 2-0.

After reading this, Irina Krush said: ""It's like he thought there was a freaking vacancy on board 2 for the Knights." In quiet retaliation, Krush spent all of Monday and half of Tuesday studying to avenge her earlier loss against Igor Foygel. Her preparation paid off, and her game clinched a spot in the playoffs for the Knights.

If you read my original post carefully, you will notice that my comments refer to the strategy New York should pursue if facing Boston's two GM lineup, not the lineup they actually faced in the match. In that case, Krush would have been up against GM Perelshteyn and while anything can happen of course, in my view depending on Irina to score against Eugene would not have been the Knights' best plan of attack. I stand by this point. Nevertheless, kudos to Shahade for finding any edge she could for her team even if it was based on misinterpretation. And while I'm at it, let me say that now LarryC is really overdue for a win against Charbonneau!

The one bright spot of the evening for the Blitz was Board 3. NM Riordan clearly got the best of FM Hess in the opening and with 15.c5 secured a position which was probably winning from a strategic point of view. Nevertheless, Robert did well to generate some counterplay through piece play and may very well have equalized the position when a draw was agreed. However, had the match still hung in the balance I'm sure Charles would have continued and Black's split pawns on the Queenside surely would have given him something to work on. Besides, (and I know this will be confusing to those of you who haven't followed Riordan this year) he was in time trouble and that's almost always the precursor to good things for Boston.

NM Riordan-FM Hessafter 15.c5

Board 4 went quite badly for the Blitz when Herman showed that New York didn't need a 2300 player in order to secure the point. During the game I thought Krasik just played badly. And while he did make some really poor moves near the end, he was already in trouble at that point. In point of fact, his counterattacking ideas with 16...d5 and 17...Bc5 almost worked. In looking for an improvement, I had to go all the way back to 15.f5 where Fritz suggests that passive defense with 15...Bc6 16.g4 h6 17.h4 Nh7 is the way to go. It was certainly a tough night for Ilya, but no one should make the mistake of thinking that this match was lost on the lower boards.

Herman-NM Krasikafter 15.f5

Off the boards, Team Manager Matt Phelps has expressed the concern that fans might hold him accountable for the loss because of his lineup choice. In my view this would be misguided. Both the two GM lineup and the one Matt chose were perfectly reasonable. Even if Perelshteyn were on Board 2 and did beat Krush, who's to say that Hess wouldn't have taken care of Martirosov? No, the manager did his job just fine; unfortunately, for one of the rare times this season his players let him down. Too bad it happened during the playoffs.

So that's it. Congratulations to the Blitz for a great regular season that kept chess fans around here highly entertained for the past several months. And congratulations to the New York Knights who played a strong match to earn their shot at the Championship. Who will I be rooting for in the finals -- the divisional rivals who vanquished Boston's dreams or the Friedel-led car fixers? I'll take the traditional, parochial Bostonian point of view -- What Championship match? Isn't the 2006 season over?
*****
On a personal note, I hope you have enjoyed the 2006 coverage of the Boston Blitz and the US Chess League here at BCC Weblog. Even if you're one of the people who thought the coverage often conflicted with your opinion or pissed you off let me still say, "Thanks for reading and leaving comments." I hope you'll keep coming by this little corner of the blogosphere as we shift back to our regular programing schedule and we'll see y'all next year for the 2007 US Chess League season.

Ready, set ...

So we are not going to see the two GMs from Boston after all. The lineup for the US Chess League Eastern Division playoff match is out and team manager Matt Phelps opted for the alternative to the two GMs mentioned in my previous post. Matt was quick to point out that the post and related discussion was not a factor in his decision, and there is no reason to think that this isn't true. Nevertheless, his choice to characterize the piece and the opinions of his team's fans as "wild rantings" is rather surprising. A kinder, and I think more plausible, description would be that reasonable people looked at the same data set and came to similar conclusions.

[Note: Matt would like to clarify that the phrase "wild rantings" was intended to be a joke.]

Here are the matchups versus New York; the Blitz have White on Boards 1 & 3:

GM Larry Christiansen - 2633 vs. GM Pascal Charbonneau - 2500
IM Igor Foygel - 2533 vs. IM Irina Krush - 2445
NM Charles Riordan - 2283 vs. FM Robert Hess - 2369
NM Ilya Krasik - 2162 vs. Matthew Herman - 2172

The Knights' decision not to put a 2300 player on Board 4 is rather surprising given the ratings disadvantages they face on the top two boards. This is not to say that New York can't win the match. In fact, from a fan's perspective the match should be quite exciting with competitive games on every board.

Choosing what cards to play

Whatever the sport, it seems that achieving Boston's aspirations always requires going through New York. With the US Chess League first round playoff matches decided, the discussion of lineups can now move from general to specific.

Poker offers a useful framework: Some people play their own cards; others play based on what they believe their opponents are holding; and the best players make their decisions based on what they think their opponents believe they are holding.Playing your own cards - Especially given that they hold draw odds in the match, this is fairly straightforward for the Blitz. The two GM lineup of Christiansen, Perelshteyn, Martirosov and Krasik rates out right at 2400. If ratings mean anything, then LarryC is overdue for a win against Charbonneau. That, combined with the fact that the Knights don't really have anyone who matches up well with Perelshteyn on Board 2, means that Boston should be favorites to advance to the Championship just based on the top boards. Should the GMs surrender a half point, they can still fall back on the lower boards where both Martirosov and Krasik have been able to score points against higher rated competition.

Playing based on your opponent's cards - In setting their lineup, New York has to assume that they will be facing the two GM lineup. Their most likely winning strategy against it is securing a half point on Board 1 (surely they can't expect Charbonneau to defeat Christiansen three times in a row) and sweeping the lower boards 2-0. Given this, one has to expect them to choose the two 2300 players who they think are most likely to win on Boards 3 & 4 from among Hess, Molner, Bonin, Privman, and Shahade (I know they've been using Herman on Board 4 from time to time and that he did beat Krasik earlier in the season, but I think it would be very risky for New York to give up the 200 rating points on a board they must win). Hess and Molner are not a feasible combination (on Boards 3 & 4) based on ratings and a few combinations work only if Krush doesn't play Board 2. Given this, here are some likely New York lineups:

• Charbonneau, Krush, Bonin, Privman - 2409
  
• Charbonneau, Krush, Hess, Shahade - 2408
• Charbonneau, Krush, Molner, Shahade - 2408
  
• Charbonneau, Hess, Molner, Bonin, Molner - 2398
• Charbonneau, Hess, Molner, Privman - 2394

If the Knights are not committed to the Pascal-Irina "coupling", I wouldn't be surprised if they chose to sacrifice Hess on Board 2 to make Bonin Molner a force on Board 4.

Playing based on your opponents beliefs about your cards - Here's where things might get interesting for the Blitz. If they think there is a good chance that New York might be weak on Board 2, they could consider a lineup of their own which trades off some strength on Board 2 for more power on the lower boards. One possibility would be Christiansen, Foygel, Riordan and Krasik (avg. rating 2389). IM Foygel ought to be able to handle Hess as well as Perelshteyn would. And just in case the Knights do keep Krush on Board 2, keep in mind that Igor did beat Irina convincingly when they met in Week 8. In return, Boston's hottest player would get a shot on Board 3.

Would I go with this lineup? I'd think about it! Yea, but would I actually submit it to league headquarters on Sunday night? Fortunately, that's Globular's problem, not mine.

Of course, the poker game doesn't really end there. If New York thinks that the Blitz might actually put Foygel on Board 2 then surely they will keep Krush there. This is turn will influence Boston to stay put with the two GMs, at which point the Knights need to think about Hess on Board 2 again ... and on and on it goes.

Break out the slide rules

Here is some input for those of you contemplating what lineup the Boston Blitz should employ in the US Chess League playoffs. Below are regular season statistics for each member of the team sorted by the differential between their Performance and USCL Rating (Data format: Player Name, Score, USCL Rating, Performance Rating, Differential):

NM Riordan, 4-1, 2272, 2565, +293
FM Kelleher, 4-1, 2402, 2595, +193
NM Krasik, 4.5-2.5, 2162, 2330, +168

NM Martirosov, 3-3, 2259, 2307, +48
GM Christiansen, 4-2, 2633, 2669, +36
GM Perelshteyn, 3-1, 2614, 2628, +14

IM Foygel, 2-2, 2533, 2443, -90
FM Winer, 1-2, 2422, 2189, -233

Conventional wisdom says that the Blitz will be using their two GM lineup (Christiansen, Perelshteyn, Martirosov, Krasik - avg. rating 2400) throughout the playoffs, and that may very well turn out to make the most sense. However, notice that this lineup does not include either of the best performing players on the team. In addition, while NM Martirosov does have a positive performance differential for the year, he has only two draws in his last four USCL contests. Further, if opponents know exactly what Boston's lineup will be in advance they can carefully select their own lineup in a way which improves their chances, e.g., using a balanced lineup against a top heavy one or guaranteeing a specific matchup on a particular board.

With that in mind, let's consider different lineups which include the top performers and still maintain a high overall average rating. There appear to be two feasible alternatives, though each has its drawbacks:

1. Either GM, Foygel, Riordan, Krasik - 2389
2. Either GM, Kelleher, Riordan, Martirosov - 2381

Whether either of these makes any sense will depend on specific matchups. For that, we need to wait for the outcome of tonight's contest between New York and Carolina.

Game of the Week honors for Kelleher

FM Kelleher's attacking win over FM Enkhbat was selected as the US Chess League Game of the Week for Week 10.

Blitz sink Baltimore's playoff hopes

Apparently controlling your own destiny isn't all it's cracked up to be. Baltimore just needed not to lose to secure a place in the US Chess League post season tournament but couldn't find a way to do so against a GM-less Boston lineup. Carolina, on the other hand, needed a specific series of events as improbable as coming back from a 3-0 deficit against the New York Yankees in a seven game series in order to qualify. Guess who's playing next week.

The match turned out to be fairly meaningless for the Blitz. New York qualified for the playoffs by drawing with Philadelphia, so another encounter with Boston's Canadian nemesis may await. And San Francisco's draw gave the good guys no chance to secure color choice in a potential Championship match. Nevertheless, if one takes the time to sit down at the board they might as well try to win. To the Kingfisher's chagrin, that's just what the Blitz did.

On Board 1 GM Blehm won a pawn though IM Foygel managed to simplify to a 4 vs. 3 pawn rook ending with all the pawns on one side. One might have thought that the position offered reasonable drawing chances (considering the old "all rook endings are drawn" cliche) but the GM actually dispatched the IM quite easily.

At the other end of the virtual table NM Martirosov was also up a pawn in a rook ending with all pawns on the same side. However in his case it was 2 vs. 1 and winning chances were virtually nil. WGM Rohonyan showed some flair by ending the game with a rook sacrifice that led directly to stalemate.

Martirosov-Rohonyan after 53.Re7Katerina ends the discussion with 53...Rf4+!

The match was won on the middle boards. FM Kelleher has quietly put together a very nice season with the Blitz. This time he broke through on the Kingside against FM Enkhbat's Caro-Kann and won easily when his opponent overlooked a mate (to be fair, Bill's position was much better at the time). As for NM Riordan, he played a crazy game against IM Kaufman. When he had to give up the exchange on f4, many thought Charles was losing. But then in response to a knight check Larry moved his King towards the center and suddenly White's pieces starting falling everywhere.

Kaufman-Riordan after 31...Nd3+Although Black is down an exchange for a pawn, he is actually
much better. Charles went on to win after 32.Kc3 Re3.

The 2.5-1.5 win was a nice way to end a very successful regular season for the Blitz. Baltimore, on the other hand, is left to ponder their fall from last year's heights.

Next week New York and Carolina will face off to see who will get to take on Boston in the Eastern Division Finals. However, around here we'll be focusing on more important things, like the final round of the 2006 Boylston Chess Club Championship and possible lineups for Round 2 of the playoffs.

Two GMs or not two GMs, that is the question.

Coasting in to the finish

Wednesday night marks the end of the US Chess League regular season for the Eastern Division Champion Boston Blitz.

With no GM in this week's lineup, it looks like the Blitz have decided to take it easy and not be proactive about trying to spoil Baltimore's playoffs chances. Of course this doesn't mean that Boston can't win or draw the match, but they have ceded the Kingfishers an average rating advantage of 2407 vs. 2369.

Here are the match-ups; Boston has White on boards 2 & 4:

IM Igor Foygel - 2533 vs. GM Pawel Blehm - 2593
FM William Kelleher - 2402 vs. FM Tegshsuren Enkhbat - 2414
NM Charles Riordan - 2283 vs. IM Larry Kaufman - 2359
NM Vadim Martirosov - 2259 vs. WGM Katerina Rohonyan - 2260

Boston preps for playoffs with "practice" draw

Surely it was Boston Manager Matt Phelps' plan all along. Having secured the top spot in the East and the draw odds in the second round of the playoffs which comes with it, Phelps wanted to see if the Blitz could achieve a draw under tough circumstances. So he had his lower boards throw their games and put all the pressure up top. Christiansen and Kelleher came through giving Boston confidence that the Finals are easily in reach.

Plausible? Maybe not. How about this? Boston's plan to throw the match to Carolina and make an even bigger mess of the Eastern Division playoff race went awry when someone forget to tell LarryC he wasn't supposed to win.

Don't buy that either? I guess we'll have to default to the parity excuse. 2-0 above and 0-2 below -- not that unusual when two relatively evenly rated teams in the US Chess League match up against each other. As has been the pattern this year, Boston's opponents got out to the early lead.

It was time trouble which caught up with NM Riordan. After several weeks of excellent play with just minutes left on his clock, Charles finally succumbed to the never-ending march of time. He and FM Zaikov were playing a very interesting game in which White had a couple of pawns for the exchange. However, with the last few minutes winding down Charles starting making inaccuracies. Small ones at first, like avoiding the Queen trade on c4, led to a big one at the end and suddenly it was 1-0 Carolina.

NM Riordan-NM Zaikov after 24...Rc8

An interesting struggle before time took its toll

Vadim's game against NM Jones offers the best evidence for one of the above conspiracies. Who plays the Benoni and realistically expects to win!? White's position just kept getting better and Martirosov's counterplay never really materialized. Two games down and no points for Boston.

NM Jones-NM Martirosov after 1...c5

Evidence of a conspiracy?

Boston's comeback began with FM Kelleher who just decimated FM Hoekstra's Exchange Slav. It's a line I'm definitely going to remember as Black; White's moves seemed pretty natural but then all of a sudden Matt was lost.

FM Hoekstra-FM Kelleher after 12...Nc5

The Knight is heading for d3 with a big advantage

With the score at 2-1, GM Christiansen needed to win to secure the drawn match. However, the prospects were uncertain with most of the gallery claiming that his endgame was a draw. Larry seemed to have a nice attack going earlier in the game. However, it petered out and the best he could find was a pawn up rook ending. Someone who knows more about these things can tell us whether it was a theoretical win or draw. In any case, Christiansen played as though it was a won position and it wasn't obvious to me what Milman could have done better. Larry's win closed out the match at 2-2.

GM Christiansen-IM Milman after 45.Rxb5
Theoretically, a win or a draw?

Next week the Blitz close out the regular season against Baltimore. The Kingfishers are fighting to secure a playoff berth and will undoubtedly come ready to fight. What about Boston? Well, they do have a couple sources of motivation. Since they could very well meet Baltimore in the playoffs, the Blitz may not want to give them any confidence going in. Then, there's always the matter of choosing colors in the Finals. I'm not sure how much of an advantage that really is, but I suppose it's better to have it than not.

Blitz keep fighting to the finish

If Carolina was hoping that Boston might coast the rest of the way through the US Chess League regular season then they must have been disappointed when this week's line-up was posted. The Blitz are bringing out another strong foursome led by GM Christiansen and anchored with NM Martirosov. With an average rating of 2395, they outrate the Cobras by 13 points per board. Of course, the disparity is primarily at the top with close competition on the other boards.

Here are this week's matchups; Boston has White on Boards 1 & 3:

GM Larry Christiansen - 2633 vs. IM Lev Milman - 2523
FM William Kelleher - 2402 vs. FM Matthew Hoekstra - 2401
NM Charles Riordan - 2283 vs. FM Oleg Zaikov - 2325
NM Vadim Martirosov - 2259 vs. NM Craig Jones - 2280

Oy Canada!

The Boston Blitz didn't need to beat New York on Wednesday night and they didn't. Furthermore, should they meet the Knights again in the US Chess League playoffs, they won't have to beat them then either.

Boston's draw with New York combined with Baltimore's 0-4(!) loss to Dallas guarantees the Blitz the top seed in the East with two weeks to go. With Boston the only team in the Eastern Division with a winning record, it is very likely that at least one team with a losing record will make the playoffs. This seems a sufficient indictment of the decision to invite 60% of the league to participate in the post season tournament (not to mention the inevitable comparisons to the NHL).

A drawn match is likely to generate similar amounts of good and bad news, and that's certainly the case here. Let's start with the bad:

• Boston simply has no answer for Pascal. GM or IM, Black or White, Baltimore or New York -- Charbonneau wins, Blitz lose. GM Perelshteyn's Alekhine's Defense was no solution. And beating up his girlfriend on board 2 isn't likely to help either.
  
  
• While he's had an excellent season so far, against the Knights we caught a glimpse of the 2005 version of Ilya Krasik -- a reasonable position blundered away. We'll all be looking for a reversion to his 2006 self starting next week.

And now for the good:

• I never fail to appreciate how well IM Foygel plays -- few flashy tactics or daring attacks, just one solid, strong move after another. Take a look again at his game with IM Krush. While she didn't seem out of it until the end, in retrospect she never seemed in it at all.
  
  
• Charles Riordan surely has ice water in his veins. He doesn't even bear down and get serious until he's under five minutes on the clock. How many people play better with time pressure than without it? With the Blitz losing 2-1, Charles convincingly outplayed IM Bonin in what certainly appeared to be an equal endgame.

With the division crown clinched, Boston has some interesting decisions to make in the next couple of weeks. Take it easy and cruise the rest of the way in or play hard and maintain the momentum? With matches against division foes Carolina and Baltimore coming up, their choice could have a significant impact on who captures the remaining playoff berths. You didn't hear it here... but if both opponents were to do well over the next two weeks, New York might find themselves on the outside looking in. That might be one solution to Boston's pesky Pascal problem.

Heat or Light?

Apparently there was some controversy swirling around the US Chess League last week. I happened upon it somewhat inadvertently.

You may have noticed this line of text under last week's Blitz-Tempo match results:

Tennessee will have a 5 minute penalty on each board for submitting the lineup after the deadline.

Since I wasn't fully conversant with the rules governing this infraction, I checked them out. And, to be honest, having reviewed them I'm still not really sure where the 5 minute penalty came from.

Rule A9 covers the case where a team makes a change to their lineup after the Sunday night deadline. However, I didn't see a rule which specifically addresses the penalty for not submitting any lineup at all by the deadline. If A9 had been applied, i.e., if the late line-up was viewed as a change in lineup after the deadline on all four boards, then according to the rules each member of the Tempo should have been penalized 1/6th of their time (~12 minutes since they were playing G/75). So unless the league office does its mathematics in base 3, it's hard to figure out how 12 became 5.

While it probably would have been helpful for the Commissioner to provide a clarification on all this, since there didn't seem to be any complaints from Boston or Tennessee I figured there really wasn't much of a story here.

However, since I had now made a study of the rules, I became further perplexed when I noticed a related ruling in the San Francisco-Seattle match.

The lineup for this match has changed, and the time control on both boards 2+3 will be 85 minutes for San Francisco and 65 minutes for Seattle, due to the late lineup change by Seattle.

Obviously Seattle made a change to their lineup which affected boards 2 & 3. According to rule A9 if the change occurred prior to Monday 9:00pm then Seattle should have lost 1/6th of their time (~12 minutes) on these two boards, if by Tuesday 9:00pm, then 1/4th of their time (~19 minutes). So why did Seattle lose 10 minutes on these two boards and San Francisco gain the same amount? I suppose it might have been deemed the most appropriate way of docking Seattle 19 minutes, but nevertheless this approach to adjusting the clocks is not discussed in the rules.
While I was hung up in the mathematics of it all, it turns out that charges, counter-charges and accusations over the substance of the infractions were flying around elsewhere. Here are some relevant links for your reading pleasure:

• 10/11/06 USCL "rules" can change at anytime! - Seattle Sluggers Manager Clint Ballard
• USCL Rules page Tuesday 10/10/06 - as posted on Ballard's Slugfest7 website
• USCL Rules page Wednesday 10/11/06 - as posted on Ballard's Slugfest7 website
• USCL Rules page - as currently posted on the US Chess League website
• 10/11/06 Match Recap - Seattle Sluggers Manager Clint Ballard
• NW Chess Forum: USCL Rd. 7 - includes posts by both Clint Ballard and Commissioner Shahade
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - San Francisco Mechanics blog

I've read through all this material and, quite honestly, I still don't really understand who did what, who's right and who's wrong, what the current rules are now, or how the 5 min and +10/-10 min penalties were calculated. I certainly think it would be helpful if the Commissioner laid out his position on these matters and explained his rulings since none of this is currently covered on the official website. At the same time, I think Clint needs to get a grip. Making accusations about East Coast bias hardly helps his cause. The Sluggers were playing San Francisco after all, not New York. And if the Commissioner is trying to help the Knights this season, he's doing a pretty pathetic job of it.
*****
Speaking of New York, the Knights are under great pressure to win this week's match with the Blitz in order to maintain their slim hold on the last playoff spot in the Eastern Division. Here are the matchups - Boston has white on boards 2 & 4:

GM Eugene Perelshteyn - 2614 vs. GM Pascal Charbonneau - 2500
IM Igor Foygel - 2533 vs. IM Irina Krush - 2445
NM Charles Riordan - 2283 vs. IM Jay Bonin - 2354
NM Ilya Krasik - 2162 vs. Matthew Herman - 2172

Since LarryC has had his troubles with Pascal in past matches, Boston is substituting in their other GM (what a luxury!). I also like Boston's chances on the other three boards as well. Of course, by now it should be clear to everyone that waiting for JG's prediction before putting down your money is the prudent thing to do.