CP NSPBCL W6 Report: Comeback Draw FTW

In week 6 of the Not-So Pro Blitz Chess League, the Chessical PROdigies boasted a 4-1 record, good enough to put them in a tie for 2nd place. This meant that when they faced Rock n' ROL, all that mattered was playoff seeding. Naturally, we weren't too concerned about it, given that we just have to win in the playoffs and that's all that matters. Admittedly, we didn't put up our best team performance of the season, as we had to come from behind just to tie it 12-12. I'm gonna be real with you guys, I did not think we would make the comeback, as it just wasn't likely. But, we did, and it was epic. So, let's see what happened!

The match started on b4 where, after lots of trash talking, @acastelino came through yet again with 1.5 off of @Roger436, who insisted he would win 4-0. Not only was it a close match, acas was actually the first to strike, leading 1.5-0.5 after the 3|2 games! acas has been a consistent b4, and we'll need consistency in the playoffs. Let's see his win over Roger.

Next up was @Tebow2Baker, going up against @whodatking010101, who many say is underrated. Tebow ended up winning 3-1, to give CP a 4.5-3.5 lead and a nice advantage in the match overall. Tebow has been a consistent b5 as well, winning nearly all of his matches. If he keeps it up in the playoffs, we've got good chances.

Up next was @winyou01 on b3, taking on RNR captain @ShaoniHiya. Now, many expected winyou, who was 100 points higher, to win at least 3-1, if not 4-0. Why? Because of the previously mentioned rating difference, winyou was on fire recently, and Shaoni has a history if getting crushed. Unfortunately, we didn't give Shaoni enough credit, as she was clearly ready for the match, surprisingly winning 3-1 over winyou. This was a tough one to swallow for us, as it flipped the match to RNR. winyou fought hard though, and probably should have scored at least 2 points. Before this loss, winyou had been on fire, so let's hope he can recapture his regular season form in the playoffs.

We are now down 5.5-6.5, but we were still feeling good, because we knew @neatgreatfire was going to get another 4-0 on b6, this time vs @Pmlegg. Shockingly, their b6 is a bit underrated and doesn't play like an average 1300.... neat ended up tying 2-2. Oddly enough, Pmlegg got accuracies of 94.4 and 93.1 in the games he won, which both lasted over 40 moves, but he only scored accuracies of 11.7 and 15.4 in the games he lost, which lasted for fewer than 26 moves each. Wow. Back and forth match then. Neat had a great start to the season, getting 4-0 win after 4-0 win, but finished slow as he played some unbelievably underrated opponents. If he gets back to 4-0ing people in the playoffs, we win every time

Now were are down 7.5-8.5, with b2 and b1 still to go. b2 was next, and RNR was confident they would win. Why? Because their b2 was 200 points higher than luisen, and has clapped people who are higher than luisen as well. Thankfully, luisen proved them all wrong and came up big for us, scoring 1.5 against @anandfan1692, and it could have been even more! luisen has faced some seriously tough opponents on b2 all season long, and he has really held his own. As long as he doesn't get 4-0ed in the playoffs and keeps winning some games, we're feeling good. Here's his win over anandfan.

With that, we are down 9-11, with my match being the decider. To keep us from losing, I faced a daunting task: Score 3 points vs @2Ke21-0. Honestly, I felt pretty confident, as I have a higher blitz and uscf rating. But, I had been told that ke2 was going to destroy me. Thankfully, I wasn't concerned with it too much, because CP was already in the playoffs. But, I still wanted to shock a few people, while getting some other people to quiet down about how Advaith was going to crush me. Anyway, to make a long story short, I did it! I won the first two, lost the 3rd, and pulled off a win in the 4th game. The first game was my favorite, because it was the only easy one lol he kinda blundered big.

With that, the match concluded in a 12-12 tie, while I picked up my second win of the season (the other 4 being ties :/) and a lot of momentum (new blitz peak a few days later). As a whole team, we have perfect balance throughout, which was the idea when building this team. b6 we should never lose a match on, b5 we win most of the time, b4 will never get swept regardless of his opponent, you can expect solid scores there, b3 can win big any week, but also lose big, but the winning has happened more  b2 will never get swept, despite playing people so much higher rated than him, and b1, I've proven I can get 2 off of anyone in this league  We are in the playoffs now, the 3rd seed, as a rookie team. Now, in our first season in the league, wouldn't it be nice if we won? It'd be incredible! While I keep saying to stay humble, and you should, I'm gonna be real here: We have a real shot to win it all. We match up really well vs our R16 opponent PCA (we should win easily.) and in quarterfinals, we might get a rematch vs ROARing Leprechauns, who we already beat, or the Bacteriophages, who we also have an advantage over. If we're still in it, we should be able to take out whoever we face in the semifinals, and then, we're in the finals! AS long as we 1. Stay Humble, 2. Stay consistent, and 3. Don't mess around, we should be considered a favorite to win it all, if not THE favorite. The Chessical PROdigies are ready for the playoffs -- We've got next. Let's get the job done.

(UPDATE: btw, we are doing our own playoff predictions for fun if you are interested, since the NSPBCL let us down. Enter your R16 Playoff Predictions here  )