Week 5 Results

After a couple of really successful weeks, week 5 was a bit different. From my travels to an otb tournament making my schedule a bit more cramped than usual, to misclicks, disconnections and scheduling problems, week 5 was an interesting one. That being said, all but two games were decided over the board, and the matchups were interesting, with season long implications. The league leading and undefeated Team Lake Superior took the black pieces against tied for second place and also undefeated Team Lake Erie. On the flip side, winless Team Lake Ontario took on winless Team Lake Huron, the two last placed teams battling to see who will be the favorites to play in the bronze medal match. I wasn't able to devote nearly as much time this week to game analysis, so for the most part I'm just going to link the games, tally the results and give out the weekly awards. Let's get started.

Team Lake Erie vs Team Lake Superior


Board 2: @Mhm_Ham 1 - 0 @MinnesotaDude https://www.chess.com/game/live/35687863991
Board 3: @KidCharlemagne420 0.5 vs 0.5 @Gorgonops https://www.chess.com/game/live/35684786393

Board 4: @bspencer1967 0 - 1 @nd23903 https://www.chess.com/game/live/35688366863

Board5: @Mathyou86 1 - 0 @kmeier45239 https://chess.com/live/game/35705794005

Board 6: @Pawnscum76 0 - 1 @Srobocop0615 https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/35572716779

Board 7: @Mattlicious1 0 - 1 @Cosmosaic https://www.chess.com/game/live/35953124923

Team Lake Erie 3 - 4 Team Lake Superior

Team Lake Ontario vs Team Lake Huron

Board 1: @GoPikachu vs @NeatGreatFire 0 - 1

This game was about as clean a win as you can find. @Neatgreatfire played normally until his tactical senses started sending signals, at which point he unleashed a flurry of blows, ending the game with a king/rook fork. He played this entire game without a blunder or mistake, and only 3 inaccurate moves for a total accuracy of more than 90%. In a week of crazy short games this is a clear front runner for MVP.

Board 2: @lorookie vs @theKirbster 1 - 0

This Caro Kann game was nuts. 4 !Great moves, 1 !!Brilliant, great tactical vision by both sides, just wow. If this game didn't end up the way it did I would have had a tough choice for week 5 MVP, but thankfully, @lorookie unleashed such a sick checkmate that I was bound by the rules of league officiating to gift him the checkmate of the week award, allowing me to move to the more accurate but less outrageous @Neatgreatfire performance for MVP. @lorookie's vision in this one was tremendous, 11.Ng6 is just crazy, my untrained eye would never have considered that move, it looks like it just loses a Knight, but in reality if fx, Qx#!! But the real beauty of this game doesn't happen until move 39, when instead of maneuvering his pieces around to try to create a fork or win a pawn, @lorookie marched his king down the board to create threats! This reminded me of a great Tal game that I studied in a book a long time ago:

the presence of mind to push your king forward, knowing just what squares to land on and avoid any counterplay, really impressive. This king march ended up with a beautiful and smothering (not smothered) mate delivered with a knight, rook and king! Really well done by both sides in this one but that ending gets @lorookie a nice knockout of the night bonus.

Board 3: @CRUSHR vs @ngosman 0 - 1

@ngosman showed the tactical teeth of an opening not usually thought of in that way. He played the Advanced French to near perfection. The pawn structure dictates that black battles on the queenside, so that's just what @ngosman did, he brought his queen out to b6, and opened the position before @CRUSHR could castle, pouring on the offensive aggression until @CRUSHR resigned. I think this is the second time @ngosman has beat @CRUSHR and won the upset of the week, so if I had another viable alternative for the award I probably would have gone elsewhere, but nobody had anything resembling the nearly 300 point underdog winning like this. Congrats, @ngosman on the award.

Board 5: @a-blunderful-life 1 - 0 @Joey759 https://www.chess.com/game/live/35691986889

Board 6: @68ChessDaddo 0 - 1 @shiverosu https://chess.com/live/game/35771181537

Board 7: @littleshooters 0 - 1 @Go0setav https://www.chess.com/game/live/35963928941

Team Lake Ontario 2.5 - 4.5 Team Lake Huron 

So now we know, Team Lake Superior is the team to beat. They are unbeaten at 4 - 0 - 0, having beaten both Team Lake Michigan and Team Lake Erie at this point. This means it would be tough to find a way that Team Lake Superior doesn't end up playing for the Championship, likely against either Erie or Michigan, depending on how those teams fare in the second half of the season. 

Team Lake Huron's win against Ontario puts them in a great position to play themselves into the postseason, but nothing is written in stone and a hot streak by Team Lake Ontario could mix things up very quickly.

Weekly Awards:

Checkmate Of The Week: @lorookie

Upset Of The Week: @ngosman

MVP Of The Week: @neatgreatfire


Team Lake Superior: 4 - 0 - 0: 4.0pts
Team Lake Erie: 2 - 1 - 1: 2.5pts
Team Lake Michigan: 2 - 1 - 1 : 2.5pts
Team Lake Huron: 1 - 3 - 0: 1pts
Team Lake Ontario: 0 - 4 - 0: 0pts