How To Tame Your Dragon or AL v. BP 101

MY TEAM, Red Army, did not make it to the Championship game of the Fortnight Speed Vote-chess League; but our conquers of the knock-out round did!

Animal Lovers (AL) contested the final match this past Saturday (27/03/10) Their opponents? Burning Pawns (BP); a team whose style we (well I) know little about; the reasons will become evident as you read on. The game went 50 moves.

The fact that AL drew the white piece advantage may have been indicative enough to the intrepid BP of some special favour of Odin or Zeus for BP to stay well distant from any mythical creatures Alas the game they played was an 'Accelerated Dragon'.

The game has been subjected to hours of analysis (as you can imagine) by Rybka, Fritz, Toga II on Phenom II, Chess.com engine AND Firebird 1.2; whew!
Who says AL played almost perfectly? they do! well almost. Here's a link forum/FSVL-final-game

After all the pre-game banter, over 10 pages of posts, regarding whether the use of private chat-rooms exclusively, spurning the usual game comment, signaled that something more malevolent than simple covertness was aflight; the mysterious BP dug-in their claws, so to speak, and continuing the dragon metaphors, ignored all the fire breathing 'nay-slayers'

BP's captain, Atudor, during the game even going so far as to threaten, on pain of 'death', any 'BP-er' audacious enough to flout their policy of "No posting outside of the chat-room"; or contributions, even voting without being present in the chat. This denial of access to their deliberations contributes to BP's mystique.

By 'death' I refer not to 'a stake through the heart' variety but the ultimate sanction in group-speak... 'dismemberment'; now that's a dragon-hearted ruler.
We must assume that this draconian style is an acceptable autocracy for this group because their team had more than a score (20) of players with a team average rating of a respectable ~1785... all riding the soon to be doomed dragon.

Out numbered AL, (10) ten or so players, matched up more evenly using the average rating measure (~1779). AL's open book attitude underlined a strength as one demonstrating that they have no need to hide. They recognised that the game was a dragon hunt early on and proceeded to unleash their 'knights' to tame the beast to submission.
And submit BP did on move 50, queen-less and facing a remorseless torment from AL's re-acquired warrior Princess the dragon turned tail and went belly up (Oh please ).

CONGRATULATIONS to Animal Lovers for a tourney well played.
Better luck next time Burning Pawns, at least you made the final; just stay away from dragon slayers for awhile :-)
In contrast Red Army can only take solace from the fact that they lost to the eventual Champions. 

THANKS to all the organisers and supporters of the Fortnight Speed Vote-chess League. The League is a true test of teamwork, skill and endurance; and provides knife edge excitement and a rewarding sense of group accomplishment. See you next edition scheduled to commence in May.