Destination Dallas: A Week 2 Recap

"When you see a good move, play it quickly before time runs out"
                                                               -Emanuel Lasker during time-pressure.

Missed opportunity was the theme of the night on September 1st as the Los Angeles Vibe faced off with the Dallas Destiny in week 2 of the 2010 USCL season. All four Vibe players had good, sometimes close to winning positions but failed to capitalize! This led to a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Dallas, a very strong team. Here are the individual results:

Los Angeles Vibe                                                     Dallas Destiny
GM Melikset Khachiyan    2590       1/2-1/2      GM Alejandro Ramirez 2645
FM Alexandre Kretchetov 2376       0-1               FM Tyler Hughes          2384
FM Joel Banawa               2416            1/2-1/2        FM Keaton Kiewra       2361
NM Ankit Gupta               2290             0-1               NM Nelson Lopez        2229

Unlike last week, I think the Vibe were favored to win this week. Boards 1 and 2 featured players of similar strength, while it was no doubt that we were favored to win on boards 3 and 4. Dallas is a loaded team, with several IMs on their roster, as well as GM Ramirez, so it was a shame that we couldn't win against a relatively tame line-up. The Vibe plays the Destiny again on October 20th, in what will be a thrilling rematch (hopefully)!

Here are the games:

And finally here is Ankit Gupta's game, who graciously agreed to annotate his tough loss.

So that concludes the games for this week. Let's move on to the awards!

I should have done this next one last week, but it's never too late!

Best Team Name
These are my 3 favorite team names (Obviously the Los Angeles Vibe are excluded from this competition)

1. Manhattan Applesauce (seriously, awesome name)
2. Boston Blitz
3. Baltimore Kingfishers

Kostya's Favorite Game of the Week (Really really not affiliated with the USCL Game of the Week)

Winner: GM Yury Shulman (STL)   0-1   IM Florin Felecan (CHC)
This was an outstanding effort from IM Felecan. Not only did he beat a top U.S. Grandmaster with black, but he evened out the match where St. Louis was practically penciled in as the winner. It's also really interesting that GM Shulman made very few errors in this game, making it a near-perfect win over a heavy favorite.

Other notable games: Gulko-Kacheishvili 1-0 A great IQP game
                                   Smith-Perelshteyn   0-1 An extremely interesting fight

Overall a very intriguing week from the USCL! Next week, the 1-1 Los Angeles Vibe play the 2-0 Arizona Scorpions!