Las Vegas Desert Rats Week 4 Highlights - part 1 (falling behind 3 to 5)
Round 1
Start of round 1 was a disaster for us: FM Dan Durham blundered a Queen early in the game:
Jacek played his first game for the team on board 3 and lost as well.
On board 1, GM Timur Gareyev scored an easy point for us with Black:
On board 2, Kayden drew his game vs GM Bryan Smith where he had to take a draw by repetition to avoid playing a worse position:
After the first round, we trailed 1.5 to 2.5.
Round 2
In round 2, we had FM Alberto Hernandez play for us on board 4. He kept fighting vs GM Erenburg but ended up losing on time on move 44 in a position where he was down a pawn and would have likely lost anyway:
Kayden won a very nice and instructive game over IM Costigan:
Jacek managed to slow down GM Andriy Vovk who had one of the best scores in the whole league going into this game and drew him. Jacek equalized out of the opening and neither side had much chance to win in this relatively non-exciting game which I give in full below:
Timur lost a sharp game to GM Smith.
After this round, we fell behind by 2 points, 3 to 5 and our prospects in the match looked bleak at the time.
Stay tuned for part 2 where I cover how our team managed to make a comeback and tied this match. To be continued.
