Good morning everyone!

     I hope no one had too much chocolate and candy last night. I know I didn't. Honestly, I didn't have any. I learned that chocolate is not good for me. Oh well. I didn't post this to talk about me eating chocolate and I know you guys have better things to do than to listen to me on a soapbox LOL. So I will get down to business.

     I've been studying the progress of the team matches this past week or two but I haven't been feeling so well, plus as some of you know, I've been covering Bilbao, Nanjing, and now the SPICE Cup, so that's been eating a lot of my time away.

     I also got an Alert last week about a team, a very small team, challenging us to a Team Match, and since then, I've been meaning to look at the ongoing team matches, plus the pending ones that have been sitting.

     I noticed that the team "The Power of Chess" or TPOC, have been our opponents for 4 or 5 of the matches. From what I can tell, we have a 2-1 record against them, and are winning a game now against them 10.5-8.5 that's 95% done. I think this says a lot about this Group. TPOC is the best team on this site in VC/TM and we've kicked their butts. They have about what? almost 2800 members and we have a little over 100. That shows a lot about what this team is capable of, and it's a very cool thing to see. I know I haven't been around here that long and haven't played much myself, but I'm proud of this team, and glad to be a part of it.

     As far as the other matches go, it looks like we have pretty good commanding leads in 5 of our active 6 games, and that is a great thing. The one team, the Smiling Assassins, are the only ones that are up on us and it's 97% completed. I think, if I may be so bold, we have to challenge them again if they happen to defeat us. I would like to break even against them if everyone else would be up for it. 

     I'm going to sticky this topic and see if anyone has any opinions on these matches or any others they want to talk about or suggest. I hope you don't mind TJ. I haven't been that active lately here, but since I don't think I'm covering the SPICE Cup anymore because not all of the games are being broadcasted on Chessdom?MonRoi or even Fritz 12, I need to get back to playing and studying chess, and not just reporting it. 

     Have a great day everyone!

   -Mark

  EDIT: I reposted this because I mis-spelled a word in the original topic heading.

I think this shows that Texans have it wrong.  It isn't "Don't mess with Texas."  It's "don't mess with the dirty Jerz."  :D

(also, feel free to shoot me for using "dirty Jerz")

Hmmm...Dirty Jerz, huh? Never heard it, but it suits certain parts of Jersey! lol

  That is definitely the truth. I guess "Toxic Refinery State" doesn't sound too good on a license plate  LOL

   -Mark

EDIT: Let's not try to spam TOO bad in this thread 

Great job in the Utah match, everybody! I know I'm being a little bit premature.  We've clinched a tie at 9 points and I'm sure we'll pick a half point in one of the remaining games (most likely a lot more). On to round 4! This team is a juggernaut!

   mistergort - yes this team is a juggernaut. We've defeated the top team on this site the last 2 out the 3 games we've played against them. That's says a lot about us. But I don't want us to get too cocky. i want to get a rematch going vs. the one team that is beating us the Smiling Assassins, but that will wait until the one going on now is over.

   I've been doing research for upcoming matches on a few times just above us in the points ratings in the team match points ladder. Now, what I am going to do, might be a little different. I want to throw out some names of teams that I have an idea of going up against, and maybe do a little democratic thing here where you guys decide on what team(s) we'll go up against next. I might do a seperate thread for this, I really haven't figured that out yet. I'm very under the weather with the flu, so I won't be doing anything like this until I get better. I hope that method is ok for everyone. If it doesn't work that way, not a big deal.

   Thank you again to all the players on this team, but hopefully, those who haven't been playing will step up and participate more.

   -Mark

Okay, it's official now :) Super12345 put us over the top, as I knew he/she would!

  Yeah baby!  Chalk another one up for the N.J.C.T!! 

   -Mark

I would also like to add, "Weedy, Polluted, Expensive Garden State". But the culture of NJ makes up for all that.