"Week 1 Rebuttal" A Review of the Chess.com panel's comments on The Champions vs. The Kings
As in sports when ESPN critics make predictions of teams; those team’s public relations departments often respond to critical comments that they feel are inaccurate. We have made notes about the predictions made by the chess.com panel related to our team “The Miami Champions”.
Chess.com Week 1 Panel predictions:
IM Robert Ris:
Atlanta-Miami 6-10
“Dominguez brings home the points to South Beach with 4-0.”
NM Alex King:
Atlanta –Miami 8.5-7.5
“Kazim Gulamali as the deciding factor.”
NM Pete Karagianis:
Atlanta Kings vs. Miami Champions:
Atlanta – Miami 9.5-6.5
“Lenier Dominguez will be exciting to watch as he blasts the field apart with precisely zero mercy, but Atlanta has good chances in the remaining three matches any given round.”
“Also, Miami clearly hasn't learned anything from their erstwhile "champion," LeBron James. Don't crown yourself before you win! "Champions"... what's in that name?”
Tarjei Svensen:
Atlanta – Miami (Atlanta wins)
“A completely open match with Cuban superstar Lenier Dominguez on Miami, but I'm leaning towards a win for the Kings because their first board Gadir Guseinov is my buddy.”
Our Thoughts:
by NM Bryan Tillis & National Expert Steve Abrahams
Overall, the predictions range from a reasonable critique to laughable tripe. The only PROfessional chess player in the list got this one correct (IM Ris), Dominguez is indeed a powerhouse who will be extremely hard for the Atlanta team to cope with. Even their strongest board Guseinov’s ‘friendship vote’ from Svensen won’t help him in their one on one encounter.
The deciding factor being Gulamali is also an ‘interesting’ note. He has played only two tournaments in the last 12 months. Gulamali is an extremely gifted tactical player who once won the U2500 section of the Millionaire tournament, but with all players, without him having taxing competition recently his skills have likely faded.
The deciding factor leans much further for us. Our 4th board, Nikhil Kumar has a locked in rating for the league of 2076, which far undercuts his skill. Since September he has gained roughly 300 FIDE rating points! He also tied for first in the prestigious National Congress in Philidelphia with an over 2700 performance, as well as winning gold at Open Under 12, World Cadets in Batumi.
https://new.uschess.org/news/nikhil-kumar-from-gold-in-batumi-to-congress-king-in-philly/
As for the comment “Don't crown yourself before you win! "Champions"... what's in that name?” We will definitely have to wait and see!
For sports fans who saw his further reference to the Miami Heat, if I do remember correctly, despite some challenges they won the league in both 2012 and 2013. We will be striving to do the same with our “Big Three” GM Nakamura, GM Dominguez & GM Jobava.
