CP NSPCL W2 Report And W3 Pairings

Week 2 of the Not-So Pro Blitz Chess League saw the Chessical PROdigies take on a team whose players were all from Belarus, The mighty Сдюшор-11 Team.  At first glance, it seemed like CP had a fairly easy win coming up, as it seemed likely they would dominate on boards 5 and 6. Well, that's exactly what happened! The match started on board 6, where @neatgreatfire scored another easy 4-0 victory, this time against @dimos2012. Their first game was basically a sign of things to come in this match, as it wasn't even close, with @neatgreatfire winning in just 13 moves!

Next up was @Tebow2Baker, who took care of business against @ArseniyMazanov, in another 4-0 victory for CP! However, it didn't come easy, as his opponent showed that he was capable of pulling an upset. He nearly did, but Tebow pulled it off to get the sweet, sweet 4-0. What's more, he did on while live streaming!! https://www.twitch.tv/tebow2baker/video/715992124   Here is the game, annotated by Tebow.

Now, with a dominant 8-0 lead, our board 4 @acastelino had less pressure on him when he took on the opposing team's captain, @AlexGook, who is actually 1800 blitz! So naturally, acas didn't do so well, right? WRONG. So, very wrong. @acastelino managed to score 1.5 points against him despite being more then 300 points lower rated! In the game that he won, acas finished @AlexGook off with a beautiful tactic. Let's see it!

Nice, nice. So now CP has a commanding 9.5-2.5 lead, just like we did in week 1. @luisen17 was next up, on board 2, set to face off against @Timka2008. This guy isn't easy though, in fact he was board 1 for this team in the Not-So PRO Chess League! Unfortunately, luisen was seemingly a bit off for the first 3 games, losing each one, but not without a fight. They played the fourth game the next day and luisen turned it around and won fairly easily! Pretty nice win.

Next up was me, @LightningChess21. On board 1, my opponent was @Cherepov_Alexej, a very strong player who, admittedly, should have scored at least 3-1 vs me. But somehow, I managed to steal an extra game or so to get to a 2-2 tie! Here is the only game I won (I lost 1 and 2 were drawn).

At this point, CP had already earned a match victory, with the score being 12.5-7.5. But then, for the frosting on the cake, @winyou01 scored a fantastic 3-1 win over @Keksus on board 3! It was a nice bounce-back match for winyou, very nicely done vs Keksus. Here is his best time scramble, annotated by winyou himself.

Wow, way to go team! That was an even more dominant win then in week 1! 15.5-8.5, pretty good score. At this point, we have established ourselves as title contenders, lead by undefeated board 6 @neatgreatfire and also undefeated board 5 @Tebow2Baker. My strategy when building this team was for it to be completely balanced, while having a weekly advantages on b6 and b5. So far, so good. It's pretty cool, as a first time captain, to see the Chessical PROdigies start off 2-0, but it will only get harder from here. So in our next match, we've got to stay humble. If we let it go to our heads, we will implode. Remember, 2-0 doesn't equal league champions  so let's focus on our next opponent. Speaking of which......

Pairings are up (as most of you have seen by now. Hehe, sorry, I'm a bit slow.) and we are set to face the Dream Team Destroyers, who are also sitting at 2-0. This will be tough, but we can do it.

So yeah, it looks like we should build another nice lead on boards 5 and 6, but, as was the case last week, the top 4 boards are unclear. Thing is, we have solid chances on each of the top 4 boards, so I believe this match should go our way. As long as we get the job done, we're good to go! 

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/s4w3-negotiation-thread-chessical-prodigies-vs-dream-team-destroyers

Let's GOOOOO Chessical PROdigies!