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Las Vegas Desert Rats Week 4 Highlights - part 2 (the comeback)

Las Vegas Desert Rats Week 4 Highlights - part 2 (the comeback)

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Round 3

Our opponents made a switch on board 4, and GM Jacek Stopa had to face Erick Garcia. Jacek had a very rocky game, where he was both better and worse at various point of time. His opponent was down on a clock and blundered terribly on move 37, allowing us to score a point:

 
Elliott Liu took over for us on board 4. He faced GM Bryan Smith with Black. Elliott talked about this very interesting game and his thoughts on it on our twitch broadcast, and you can find that video here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/119051614 starting at 3 hour 48 minute mark (The link will be up for about 2 weeks after this post goes live)
 
He sacrificed an exchange for the initiative and had strong practical winning chances. Bryan Smith defended very well and Elliott had to settle for a draw in the endgame where he managed to build a fortress on dark squares with Bishop and pawns.
 
Timur lost to GM Erenburg in round 3. In a slightly worse position, Timur made an incorrect trade of his dark-squared Bishop for Sergey's Knight. Sometimes, one incorrect trade is enough for the game to go south, and it was precisely the case in this game:
 
 
Kayden managed to beat GM Andriy Vovk. For a long time, the position on a board looked very complicated with chances for both sides. If you want to learn Kayden's thoughts on this game, check out our interview with him at this link that starts at 3 hrs 8 minute mark.
 
 
After 3 rounds, we cut the deficit but were still down by 1 point, 5.5 to 6.5.
 

Round 4

In the last round, Kayden suffered a setback and lost to GM Erenburg. It appears he did not react correctly to Sergey's e6 pawn push. While Kayden tried to defend hard, his position for the rest of the game fluctuated between really bad and hopeless.

 

 

Jacek came through for us and played a strong game. You can find Jacek's interview and thoughts on the game at this link starting at 2 hrs 48 minutes. His opponent GM Bryan Smith spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to deal with Jacek's opening preparation. Towards the end of the game, Bryan managed to equalize the position but he found himself out of time. Jacek secured a point by winning on time, and it all came down to the last 2 games, with us still trailing by 1 point.

 

Timur played his best game of the league vs GM Vovk.

We were very close to winning the whole match, but Elliott missed a win in his last game. With less than 10 seconds left on his clock, he managed to find all the necessary tactics to simplify his position into a drawn endgame and save the match for us!

After 4 rounds, our team has 1.5 points out of 4. We are looking forward to play a team from London, the London Lions on Saturday, February 11 at 12pm.