Season 7 NSPCL recap
Well, this is it. The final season of the Chess Vikings in the NSPCL. It really has been a great run over the past seasons, but due to a variety of reasons, including the fact that college has started for some of us, and the fact that it is getting increasingly harder to make our team fit under the rating cap, this is the end of our run. But there was definitely no better way to finish it off with this team, out of all three championships we got, this was definitely the sweetest. Before I get on with the recap of this season, I just want to shoutout @arnavbatta for being the only member other than me to have played all five seasons as a full-time player. @piemaster_antoine also played all 5 seasons, but he was a sub for a couple of seasons, mainly seasons 3, 5 and 7. I find it shocking that despite how many times we've had to overturn our roster due to the rating cap, that we always have been able to keep 2 members constant for all 5 seasons.
As I mentioned at the end of the last recap, I didn't think I was going to be captaining this season, with one of the major issues being the rating cap. While I knew there was enough interest to probably have one more run at a title, I didn't have anyone that would be able to play board 5. However, that changed in April when @awalker9255 said he would be interested in playing this season, and by sheer chance his rating was enough to keep us below 1600 at 1599.6. I also managed to get @pranay_nae to play for the main team for the first time in his NSPCL career, as he had mainly been a member/captain of Chess Valhalla, our secondary team that had been running from Season 4-6.
Our team for this season
We started the season as the #2 seed by rating, but as we have learned throughout the history of the NSPCL, pre-season rating averages really don't mean much. Especially this season when we took the peak over the last 12 months to calculate ratings. That meant it was possible to be way below the rating you were counting for during the season. However, I was pretty confident in the roster before the season, since comparing it to the other rosters we had when we won seasons, I thought this was our strongest by far, which was good as this season was filled with extremely strong teams.
By sheer coincidence, our week 1 opponent was none other than the Chess Dominators, the team that had eliminated us from the playoffs season 6. However, the only real rematch that was happening was on board 1, me vs @The_Chess_Coach. This was due to both the fact that I had replaced our board 2 and 5, as well as the fact that the Chess Dominators roster this season had been completely overhauled, with any returning members outside of board 1 having moved up boards. With draws on b1/5, a win on board 3, and forfeit wins on b2/4 (I think the first time chessguy has no-showed in NSPCL?!) we once again started off with our usual 4-1 victory.
Week 2 was bad, and I have no words for what happened. We were up against, KNIGHTS, and we started off quickly with wins on board 1 and 5. My game was especially quick since an early blunder by my opponent ended the game before move 20.
However, disaster struck. Both @pranay_nae and @arnavbatta missed wins against their opponents, and suddenly the match was 2-2 with only one game remaining. The momentum had already completely shifted towards the KNIGHTS, who also had a rating advantage on board 3.
This was a tough pill to swallow. I was getting flashbacks to season 6, and expected us to fall off the rails just like we did then. I didn't believe in the form that our middle boards were showing and as a result, I was expecting a complete collapse by us. An overreaction? Yes. Especially as things started to click for us after the loss. We were up against Chess Family next, the eventual 3rd place finishers. We were definitely helped by a forfeit win by me, and an agreed draw on board 2, but it also took some wins by @koolperry and @arnavbatta. Arnav's win was especially nice (and quick).
Week 4 we were up against 404! Group name does not exist. At the time I didn't think they were that good of a team, especially as up to that point they were having problems getting all five players to play on any given week. Something that continued when they played us this week. After wins by me and @awalker9255, the rest of the match was actually decided by forfeits, with wins on boards 3 and 4, and a draw on board 5, for a final score of 4.5-0.5. Here are the two wins from this week:
My confidence in our team was slowly coming back, but we were now up against a tough team in Chess Mators. They had shown themselves to be one of the better teams in the league, which (at the time) our weeks 3 and 4 opponents hadn't shown. However, we were clicking on all cylinders now, and if it weren't for a back rank mate blunder on board 4, we probably would have won this week 5-0 (sorry to any Chess Mators members that are reading this). There were a couple of nice wins played by our team this week, so I'm just going to let you all relish in the good chess that was finally being played by us.
After that nice win, I was back thinking that our team had a serious shot at the title. Especially if everyone continued on the form that they currently were in. Week 6 ended up being decided by forfeits, against RAR, a team that had been at the top of the standings before that week, but having 2 forfeit losses didn't help their case. And just like that, we had risen to 2nd on the leaderboard, right behind Rock n' ROL, who had finished the season with a perfect 6/6. However, our comeback from our week 2 loss made us a bit complacent, as we kind of believed that we were a shoo-in into the finals, and began to coast a bit. Which nearly cost us in round 1 of the playoffs against the 15th seed, Gatekeepers.
I took a quick draw as black, expecting the rest of the team to score well enough that a win wasn't really necessary on my board. @arnavbatta then beat @sougataghosh after the latter made an early piece blunder.
We were up 1.5-0.5, and had mentally locked ourselves into the quarterfinals... except there were still 3 games to be played. @awalker9255 lost to @waredude, and a careless blunder by @koolperry threw away an advantage and turned the game around decisively in Wind's favor. Suddenly, as quickly as we had built our lead, it had vanished, and we were actually down 2.5-1.5. However, @pranay_nae came in clutch, with what might be the best game any of us played this season, to beat his opponent and send us into the quarterfinals via draw odds.
We were now up against the Chess Mators again in the quarterfinals. And once again we beat them 4-1 (this time, however, the one loss was a well-earned win by @liamchez over @koolperry). Some highlights from this match include, @arnavbatta getting his revenge and @pranay_nae winning from a locked up position. (Once again, I will graciously leave out my game against rychess, but if you want to see the game with my comments on it, check out @stevis5 's recap of the playoff in the NSPCL group)
And just like that, we had put our shaky draw against the Gatekeepers behind us, and we were back in the semifinals. By this point in time, there had been many upsets, with the main ones being Rock n' ROL losing to 404! and the RAR Attackers losing to Pilipinas Chess Titans. We were pretty confident in our chances to win the whole thing now, until @arnavbatta had to go on vacation for a week, leaving us with a problem on board 4. Thankfully, we got saved by an old friend, @piemaster_antoine who once again showed up when we needed him most, and we were now ready to take on the Pilipinas Chess Titans for a spot in the finals- a rematch of the Season 5 semifinals as well!
We started off well, with wins by me and @pranay_nae, and a loss by @koolperry, to put us up 2-1. Here is another nice win by @pranay_nae, who really put out his best chess in the playoffs, when we needed it most.
It was now to test out @piemaster_antoine on board 4. If he lost, it would be 2-2 and all down to @awalker9255 on board 5. However, despite a shaky start, which included the blunder of a piece, @piemaster_antoine was able to mount a comeback, and send us through to the finals... our third appearance in 5 seasons! (if you want to see my win vs @ate_monang with my comments, I'll have to direct you yet again to a really nice report by @stevis5 that recapped the entire playoffs)
We had done it. Despite a shaky start to the season, as well as shaky start to the playoffs, we had fought through the adversity and ended up once again in the finals. But we weren't done, our goal was to win the championship, not just play for one. @arnavbatta was back in the lineup as well, meaning we were at full strength to face off against 404! a team that had mounted an incredible rally after their loss to us, winning every match (including a win over Rock n' ROL in the playoffs) to find themselves in the final. A truly incredible turnaround, especially after their bad start which involved many players not playing their games. A true dark horse success story. We knew we shouldn't take them lightly, because they were a completely different force to be reckoned with now than they had been when we beat them 4.5-0.5 in week 4.
We put up probably one of our best performances of the season, going undefeated across all five boards with 3 draws and two wins. Here are the two wins that brought us a championship, by @arnavbatta and @koolperry.
And we did it. The reason I find this the sweetest championship off them all is not only because of us riding into the sunset with a championship, but also the way we played. Unlike our previous two wins, we didn't really have a weak link on our team. Everyone was playing well throughout the season, but especially in the playoffs, @pranay_nae and @arnavbatta/@piemaster_antoine really stepped it up, going a combined 7.5/8 between them. Which really counteracted @koolperry and @awalker9255 having a slight dip in form once the playoffs started. Which was interesting because in the regular season, it was flipped, with @arnavbatta showing some signs of rust with blunders after getting into winning positions, and @pranay_nae getting forfeit draws in what seemed like every week. Overall, I think this was probably the best team performance that we had over the last five seasons, and while it's sad that our run finally has to end, I look forward to playing in the NSPCL with whatever teams I continue on with. Oh, and to end this, I guess we should show off our "one last dance", which in reality is just @koolperry celebrating 1300 bullet a year ago (feel free to check out the rest of the video as well, but it should start right before his dance) (also credit to @sougataghosh for inspiring the idea to include this video, based off some comments he made in the NSPCL notes)
