Playoff Races Heating Up: NACCL Week 5 Recap!
There is only one week remaining in the North American Chess League's regular season, and stakes are high. Only the top eight companies in the final standings will qualify for the November 13 knockout tournament, so this upcoming week is the last chance for teams to separate themselves from the pack. This post will not only recap last week's set of games, but also provide a preview for the all-important final slate, held, as always, on Thursday evening right here on chess.com.
The North American Corporate Chess League is an online recreational rapid chess league for members of NA-based companies, with a "blended individual/team" format. This upcoming week, the last of the regular season, will be the final time that players are paired as individuals within a huge open section, according to factors such as rating and points scored. The knockout playoff, however, will be a team-vs-team tournament, with details viewable at this link. What's important to know right now is that teams qualify for the knockout tournament by finishing in the top eight of the team standings, based on the number of points scored by their top four individual scorers throughout the regular season.
With one week left, some teams are all-but-assured a playoff spot, whereas others are teetering on the edge of elimination. The playoff line at the moment is 39 points, which is the score of current eighth-place Lyft in the NACCL's team standings.
Four teams are at least two points ahead of that line and seem very likely to make the playoffs even with a mild down week: PWC, Meta, Anduril, and Jane Street. The latter two are in a battle for first overall with 43 points each, with Jane Street in particular really surging of late. FM Jacob Furfine won all three of his games this past week, including this third-round victory to help vault his team into a share of first place:
Also starring for Jane Street is Jonas Zeutzius, who, when combining the last two weeks of play, has scored five points in his last six games. He now ranks within the top ten of the individual standings, half a point behind Furfine, and took down NM Yury Barnakov of IPG in this game on Thursday:
With two titled players both performing at an elite level all throughout the NACCL season, Anduril Industries is also a true contender, currently tied for first with 43 points. FM Roland Feng and NM Francisco Guadalupe each rank within the top five individually, and the former scored an emphatic victory this past week against Richard Chen of Databricks.
The other two teams that seem overwhelmingly likely to make the playoffs are Meta and Databricks, at 41.5 and 41 points respectively. Meta has relied on depth, with all four top boards on either 10 or 10.5 points, and eight (!) players on 9.5 points or more. Of course, only the top four scores count for the overall standings, but this will actually give Meta a fascinating decision for the knockout tournament, since teams can choose any five players (four main boards and one tiebreaking board if needed) to form a playoff roster. Assuming Meta does make the playoffs, it'll be very interesting to see which players are chosen and which are left out!
In contrast, although PWC does have six players with at least 9 points, the production at the top has been a bit less evenly distributed. GM Andrey Baryshpolets is the prohibitive favorite to finish first overall in the individual standings, currently a full point ahead of the field with a shiny 13.5 score. His win over NM Warren Wang, incidentally representing Meta, is part of the reason the two teams are tied, each comfortably ahead of the playoff line with one week left to go:
Barring a complete shocker, the four teams mentioned above (Jane Street, Anduril, Meta, and PWC) should all make it to the knockout tournament, and this week their focus will be on improving their seeding. For all other teams, the goal is to stay alive! Two companies that were previously above the playoff line (Jump Trading and AFS) fell below it this week, with AFS in particular crashing all the way down to twelfth.
While still just above the playoff line with 39.5 points, Databricks had another hiccup and now needs to be careful not to fall out of the top eight. Just a couple weeks ago, the team was tied for first, and was still ranked third at the time of last week's report. It would be difficult to imagine a NACCL knockout bracket without Databricks, especially given the team's strong start to the season, but it has become a serious possibility.
Databricks' GM Parimarjan Negi, once among the event's top scorers, had two losses on Thursday, dropping all the way to 34th in the individual standings. That included a game against the aforementioned NM Wang in which he had a tremendous position, sacrificing an exchange to create a dangerous kingside pawn mass, but erred in time pressure.
Two teams that moved forward this week were Lyft and IBM. The former still didn't have IM Kyron Griffith this week, but still inched past Jump Trading into the eighth seed. Meanwhile, IBM rocketed all the way to fifth, with Sathvik Singireddy 2.5/3 performance on Thursday leading the way. That included this win as black against Kosta Kalenteridis of Meta:
Thursday, November 6 will be the last chance for teams to clinch their spots in the one-day knockout tournament the following week. As always, games will be played here on chess.com, and this blog will keep you posted about the results. We'll see you next week with our final regular season recap, and playoff preview, for season twelve of the North American Corporate Chess League!
-------------------------------------------------------------
For upcoming tournaments, bookmark our Events Schedule. The CCC hosts nearly 8 events a week at our facilities in North and South Charlotte, along with bi-monthly major events!
Not a member of the CCC? Join over 1000 members today!
NM Dennis Norman
Chess Coach - Club Journalist
