CP NSPBCL W1 Report: Upset Win!

Hey team, the Chessical PROdigies, a new league franchise, made their debut this week in the Not-So Pro Blitz Chess League, and boy did we make some noise! Going up against one of the best teams in the league, in terms of average rating and pre-season hype, we pulled off a sweet upset of the ROARing Leprechauns (average rating 1699!). The final score was 12.5-11.5 in our favor, which is as close as it can possibly get while still being a win! Everyone win mattered, but despite the close score, the match wasn't really ever in doubt. Let's see what happened....

On board 6, @neatgreatfire got us going with a solid 4-0 match win over @nubbycheeseking. Despite being registered as a 1226, @neatgreatfire is now above 1400, making him the highest b6 in the league! It's always important to start these matches off quickly, so getting a win first vs Nubby, in a critical game, was very important.

The next match to be played was on b4, between @acastelino, who was my teammate in the Not-So PRO Chess League, and @AUSSIE-AUSSIE-AUSSIE. They tied 2-2, with acastelino winning the first 2 and Aussie winning the last 2. It was a back-and-forth match that really could have gone either way, so 2-2 seems kind of fair. Again I will show the first game played, as it set the tone for the crazy back-and-forth theme of the match.

Next up was the match on b5, which is where we officially put the other team on notice. @Tebow2Baker, going up against the supposedly underrated @BacoNCheese_Nugget, won a brilliant 3.5-0.5 match! The funny thing is, almost every game was a swindle!! He says so himself in his forum , where he posted each of his games. It's hard to pick a favorite game of his as they were all crazy fun, but he himself said his favorite was the last game, so here it is!

After Tebow's win, we were up 9.5-2.5, a huge lead for us, with 3 matches to go! It was a huge lead that we truly needed, however, as we were lower rated on each of the top 3 boards where the remaining matches would take place. The first of those matches was on b2, where @luisen17 gave @bishop_2_e4 an absolute battle! Despite losing 1-3, each game was close and both players had chances to take the match. Despite the loss it was an encouraging performance against another solid b2. luisen won the second game of the match, in what was quite an entertaining game.

Now the score was 10.5-5.5, meaning we needed just 1.5 more points for a draw and 2 for a win. Next up was me, @LightningChess21, battling @gau248 on b1. gau was considered a big rating favorite, being over 200 points higher when the match took place, at 2416 (I was 2170ish). However, I had just been at 2340 a couple of weeks before, and it showed as I proved that I shouldn't have been counted out so early. The match was tied 2-2, as I won the first and last game while gau took the middle games. 2 games were close, 2 were not. That first game that was played ended up mattering a lot, as it put the pressure on me to convert 1 of the next 3 games to at least a draw. I picked up a nice win after he made a shocking blunder in the middlegame.

With that, the match score was 12.5-7.5, meaning we would win the match before our b3 even played! What a great moment! Our b3 @winyou01, despite the huge difference in time zones, managed to find a time to play with his opponent @typewriter44. Unfortunately, the match didn't go so well for winyou, as he lost 0-4. It was closer then the score implied of course. winyou was outright winning at times, but he was probably a little rusty from not playing blitz very often. In the end it was all good, as winyou was 300 points lower and still played very well.

Alright team, how about that debut!? A narrow 12.5-11.5 upset victory over one of the best teams in the league? That's the perfect debut for the Chessical PROdigies! Great job team! But of course, 1 win over a top tier team doesn't make us automatic league champions. We've got to stay on our game. We've got 5 more matches against stiff competition, and it won't be easy to earn our spot in the playoffs. We are off to a great start, so let's use that. Let's use our momentum heading into week 2 and crush whoever has the misfortune of playing us   

Look for a news post about our week 2 match in a few days. And also, if you have a certain game you would like me to put in our weekly reports, send it to me through private messages and I'll get it in here! I myself probably won't annotate them as it takes a lot of extra time, but if you want to annotate them yourself, feel free! Alright guys, that's all for now. Cya in the comments

-Lightning