Week 4 Results

Week 4 was our first week that had every single game decided over the board! We had an upset, some beautiful checkmates, crazy accurate endgame play and more dazzling dominance by @bluberrie_tea. In addition to all of the individual game curiosities, the teams have started to separate in terms of overall record, and the long term picture of who's going to be battling to play in the Championship Series is becoming clear.

This week Team Lake Huron took the white pieces against the universally higher rated Team Lake Erie, and in a battle of two of the top teams in the league, Team Lake Superior played first against Team Lake Michigan. Let's get started.

Team Lake Huron vs Team Lake Erie

Board 1: @neatgreatfire vs @practicality 0 - 1

In this game, and in the Huron vs Erie match altogether, Erie is considerably higher ranked. This isn't something we planned on, but the weird team mixups in weeks 1 - 3 made some teams stronger than others. Let's keep that in mind while we analyze these games.

This game was a London, but not the normal calm London you're thinking, more like London during an early Viking invasion (had to go way back to prevent myself from making Nazi references), the center was opened pretty early on, and in that void a battle took place. Both players maneuvered around a complex and tactically rich center until @practicality was able to win an exchange and a pawn, winning the game.

Board 2: @TheKirbster vs @Mhm_Ham 0 - 1

This is another lopsided game in terms of ratings, but @TheKirbster didn't care about that, as he came out swinging with h4 on move 3! This is a book move in the Trompowsky Attack, but I didn't know that during my first viewing of this game so I noted that it looked bold and confident. Unfortunately for @TheKirbster, the next few moves took them out of book, and @Mhm_Ham was able to play on the kingside with some awesome accuracy, doubling whites pawns and eventually winning the d pawn outright. After the d pawn was lost, @Mhm_Ham pushed his imposing center and overwhelmed the white king.

Board 3: @ngosman vs @KidCharlemagne420 0 - 1

@KidCharlemagne420 had @ngosman by 120 rating points in this game and he flexed that muscle early on, exiting the book on move 4 and giving white double isolated pawns on the b file on move 8. Even though this looks to me like black has long term advantages, the computer doesn't give black an advantage until he decides to leave his king in the center to push pawns on the kingside! The computer gives black a 6 - 8 point advantage in the next few moves, not because of material, they are equal in that sense, but because of the bishop pair and activity vs defensive passivity of the pieces. @KidCharlemagne420 played these positional advantages out perfectly, eventually winning material and forking the family for the win. @KidCharlemagne420 played this entire game with an accuracy of 96.2, no blunders or mistakes, one inaccuracy that changed the eval bar by half a pawn. Definite MVP candidate here.

Board 4: @Gherkins54868 vs @bspencer1967 0 - 1

This game was relatively evenly matched, and @Gherkins got out to a material advantage pretty early on. Eventually though, @bspencer1967 showed that a couple of connected passed pawns can be worth way more than a piece or two, if you play it correctly. He created passers on the kingside and while @Gherkins54868 was headed over there to defend, he created another one in the center! a couple of moves later @bspencer1967 won by resignation when it was clear at least one pawn was going to promote. I've made this mistake too many times to feel comfortable admitting, you rest on a material advantage and fail to take some passers seriously and this can be the result.

Board 5: @Joey759 0 - 1 @Mathyou86: https://chess.com/live/game/34977111945

Board 6: @shiverosu 0 - 1 @Pawnscum76: https://www.chess.com/game/live/35071197351

Board 7: @Go0setav 1 - 0 @Mattlicious1: https://www.chess.com/game/live/35326686019

Huron 1 - 6 Erie

Team Lake Superior vs Team Lake Michigan

Board 1: @houghton24 vs @bluberrie_tea 0 - 1

This Pirc game was very high level stuff through the first 24 moves. Both players played it perfectly until that point, finding Great Moves and putting the pressure on when possible. Eventually, @houghton24 found he had an oddly placed rook, and @bluberrie_tea punished him for it, bringing the bishops in to pin and fork the whole lot of white pieces in the center. After some nearly forced trades, @houghton24 saw @bluberrie_tea's king was vulnerable so he sacked the exchange and won a pawn, but giving @bluberrie_tea any type of material advantage is risky business, and he succumbed to the consistent and building pressure some 30 moves later. @bluberrie_tea played this 53 move game with a 93.2% accuracy, as usual, no blunders at all.

Board 2: @MinnesotaDude vs @tewald 1 - 0

This French Defense game was decided by some tactics, and it doesn't surprise me that @MinnesotaDude was able to win this way, after all, he plays high level blitz and a lot of it. As I'm writing this he is 30 games away from hitting 23,000 games played on this site. Give him a free pawn with some forking possibilities and he's likely going to take advantage. This is exactly what happened in this game, @tewald retreated his knight with plans on rerouting for attack, but hung a pawn in the process. It wasn't just a pawn though, the square the pawn was on was a jumping off point to a family fork. After these moves, @MinnesotaDude was up 3 points in material but 6 or 7 points on the eval bar, and he didn't let up. Simplification was followed by the pushing of some passers and the game ended on a tricky knight fork made possible by a pin on the king. A Tactician's Delight.

Board 3: @Gorgonops vs @blinddd7 1 - 0

This Caro Kann game entered the endgame pretty early on, and @Gorgonops played this endgame perfectly, as far as I can tell. He won a pawn, simplified, and activated his king all over the board. After about move 55, his awareness to leave the pawn on c4 as it was untouchable by black's opposite colored bishop or king, and head directly over to the kingside to destroy some pawns was spot on. On move 58, @blinddd7 needed to find a tricky bishop move, essentially anywhere on the a7-g1 diagonal, in order to leave his king defending the vulnerable pawn on f6 and retain the ability for Be3 defending the h pawn. When almost all of the play is surrounded around kings and pawns it is really tough to see an empty bishop move as being the most accurate, all I know for sure is I would have lost this one from both sides. Really well played here by both players.

Board 4: @nd23903 vs @miahg 1 - 0

This queen's pawn got pretty wild pretty quickly. @nd23903 started a pawn storm really early on, with almost none of his kingside developed, but eventually they would long castle and maneuver the pieces to optimal squares behind his space grabbing pawns, while finding tricky moves like Kb1 to defend and maintain structure. Eventually, the closed but threatening pawns on the kingside needed to be dealt with, and @nd23903 found a !!brilliant to do just that, taking the advanced but defended pawn on h5 with the knight. This allowed the already perfectly placed rooks and queen to swarm in and end the game quickly. @nd23903 will win upset of the week for this impressive win, not only because this is the only real upset of the week, but because this game deserves to be awarded somehow. As far as I know this is the only !!brilliant we've had in the first four weeks of the league. Really cool, very well done, congrats on the award, @nd23903. This game also proved to be extremely important in this close matchup between Superior and Michigan. Possibly the clincher, depending on exactly when it was played. All I can say at this point in the analysis is, the outcome wouldn't be what it is without this impressive win.

Board 5: @kmeier45239 0 - 1 @2288sam: https://www.chess.com/game/live/35171268107
Board 6: @Srobocop0615 1 - 0 @nb1258: https://www.chess.com/game/live/34903312505
Board 7: @Cosmosaic 0 - 1 @60_Minute-man: https://www.chess.com/game/live/35342219801

This matchup was about as close as you can get and not be a tie. Superior pulled out the win to stay undefeated and emerge as the #1 team in the league, with a score of 4 - 3.

Superior 4 - 3 Michigan

At this point, it looks like there are 3 teams vying for the opportunity to play in the Championship series, Team Lake Superior, Team Lake Michigan, and Team Lake Erie. Some of this is due to the aforementioned rating disparities, but nonetheless it leaves us with an exciting and compelling storyline for the rest of the season. These three teams will battle it out to see who gets the nod to the Ship, and Ontario and Huron have to battle to see who will get the opportunity to salvage some optimistic outlook by clinching a spot in the battle for 3rd place. Ontario and Huron are playing each other this week, so we'll definitely have more to say about that in next week's Results Analysis.

On to the awards...

Checkmate Of The Week: @bluberrie_tea

Upset Of The Week: @nd23903

MVP For Week #4: @KidCharlemagne420


Standings after week 4:
Team Lake Superior: 3 - 0 - 0: 3.0pts
Team Lake Erie: 2 - 0 - 1: 2.5pts
Team Lake Michigan: 2 - 1 - 1 : 2.5pts
Team Lake Huron: 0 - 3 - 0: 0pts
Team Lake Ontario: 0 - 3 - 0: 0pts