Chengdu Pandas Dispatch Las Vegas Desert Rats
Pandas are known for not doing much other than eating and sleeping. After Thursday's 10.5-5.5 drubbing we'll have to add brilliant chess to the list. The Pandas stunned the Desert Rats with precise, unrelenting play and their winning margin was the second largest of the day.
It helps when a team's board one wins every game. The rare feat of going 4-0 was accomplished by "super" GM Yu Yangyi. In round four he faced perhaps his greatest test of the day, GM Leinier Dominguez, representing the Desert Rats' top board. Dominguez found a killer blow late in the game (40. Bf7!), however Yangyi resisted to the maximum, and triumphed in a heart-stopping time scramble.
Perhaps the Panda's secret weapon was the board four upstart Chu Ruotong, (under)rated at 2173. Ruotong went undefeated, notably drawing Dominguez and defeating GM Andrey Ostrovskiy.
2018 PRO Chess League | Week 1 | Chengdu Pandas vs Las Vegas Desert Rats
| Pandas | Desert Rats | Leinier Dominguez | Melikset Khachiyan | Andrey Ostrovskiy | Nazi Paikidze | 5.5 |
| Yu Yangyi | 4 | |||||
| Ni Hua | 2.5 | |||||
| Ju Wenjun | 1.5 | |||||
| Chu Ruotong | 2.5 | |||||
| 10.5 | 2 | 2.5 | 0 | 1 | ||
