They’re Back! The Arizona Scorpions, that is!

On Tuesday, August 27^th the Arizona Scorpions will kick off the 2013 season, their 6^th year in the league, against the Seattle Sluggers.

We are pleased to welcome back some seasoned players in the likes of: 

Mackenzie Molner who took a liking to the 9^th person on the roster and married Amanda Mateer, the M&M’s are a welcome sight for Scorpion fans. Congratulations to the newlyweds and welcome back!

Mac is without a doubt an exciting player to watch and we are hard pressed to find a better fit for our top board.

IM Levon Altounian is back once again filling in the #2 slot on the roster. Lev has been like a security blanket over the years, having scored some valuable points when needed and being a stumbling block for other teams to take down. Lev's play is very solid and we look for him to have another year of good results.

On board 3 we have Mark Ginsburg returning to play for the 2013 season. Mark is a very cunning player and very creative, I hope we get to see more of him this year than in 2012, but of course, the needs of the team and the particulars of the upcoming opponents will hold sway. With Marc we are almost always sure of seeing an exciting game.

Another returning veteran to the line-up on board 4 is Robby Adamson. Robby is a tenacious fighter. Robby is a gnat’s eyelash from getting his IM title and I feel it is only a matter of more playing time before he gets it. Unfortunately, he is a working man as well, we all have to make a living. Fortunately, none of the regular season matches are held on Saturdays or Thursdays so Robby can place his priorities the same way I do – Go Wildcats!

IM Shahin Mohandesi is coming back on board 5 for his second year. He should be more comfortable with the playing conditions for the USCL. Shahin is also a tenacious fighter and skilled endgame player, he is sure to pull off a point or two from positions that may seem dry and fruitless to others.

FM Pedram Adoufi comes back for another season as well. Also a tremendous fighter Pedram is a tough opponent to face. If he can stay out of time pressure I look for him to have a good year in 2013.

There are only two newcomers to the roster. 

On board 7 we have Bryan Hu. I don’t know much about Bryan’s recent triumphs but I hear he has been doing well of late. My only experience with Bryan was a win I scored against him in the 2008 US Amateur where he made a slight inaccuracy in my pet Najdorf Sicilian. That was six years ago, when the Scorpions first started playing in the USCL. A lot of time has passed and I am sure that Bryan has sharpened up his openings quite a bit in that time frame. Good luck, Bryan!

The other newcomer is Ben Marmont who will be giving his opponents a fit as he slides into roster spot #8. Ben just recently won the US Amateur West. I’ve known Ben for a few years now and am very impressed with him both as a person and as a capable chess player. His opening knowledge should be on par if not superior to the opponents he is likely to face in his rookie year in the USCL. I can’t wait for the action to get started – mow ‘em down Benny!

                             

Last, but definitely not least, it our Princess Bride, Amanda Mateer. Well, at least that’s how the name appears on the official USCL Roster. Amanda, have you hyphenated or converted your last name yet? 

But I digress. 

Amanda has a lot of experience in USCL play and this makes her a formidable opponent even if she were paired against players higher in the roster for any team.

 

A special note to all the Scorpion fans – the games will be carried live on chess.com

Be sure to tune in and cheer on our Scorpions as they march forward to what I expect to be their best year yet, and that can only mean one thing!

The Scorpions will face their first victim this Tuesday, August 28^th at 9:00 PM Eastern.

A word or two about Arizona Chess:

You will notice that we have players from both the Phoenix and Tucson areas. I am absolutely confident that each area could field a team worthy of play in the US Chess League on their own.

It is my firm belief that, in the event that Mac Molner is not able to play owing to a prior commitment else-where, we are not going to lose that much on the overall strength of the team. Yes, Mac is without doubt the anchor of the team, but all the players on this roster are pretty solid, exciting and tenacious.

The reason Arizona is able to field a strong team seemingly out of nothing (well, according to the chess “Mecca’s” of New York, Boston and LA) is due in no small part to the tremendous chess heritage.

This heritage goes back to the late ‘70’s when my father, Lou Farmer, helped brainstorm what quickly became the Southern Arizona Chess Association. In the following years this morphed into a solid organization and has been able to bring in some nice tournaments to the Arizona scene. Instrumental to the growth of chess in Arizona was the emphasis on Scholastic chess as well as furthering the game for adults.

With the possible exception of Shahin, who just recently joined the ranks of the desert dwellers, each of the players on the Scorpion’s team have had a tremendous impact on the scholastic scene. Without the likes of people like Robby Adamson, Lev Altounian, Mac Molner, Amanda Mateer, Pedram Atoufi and Mark Ginsberg to inspire the youngsters to keep with the game; we would not be honored to have two former scholastic players join the ranks of the Master for future apprentices, of course I am speaking of Ben Marmont and Bryan Hu.

Finally, one last word before the season kicks off. A tip of the hat if you will, to Greg Shahade the Commissioner of the US Chess League. It has been a long time in building what I believe will be an enduring classic internet format for American Chess.

  

Be sure to tune in. In pre-season polls the Seattle Sluggers look to be the team to beat, but maybe that’s because more people in Washington have computers or they have one person voting many many many times! Can the Scorpions put a dent in their beliefs on Tuesday?

Tuesday, August 27^th, 9:00 PM EST. Watch live on www.chess.com or via your interface if you are a member of ICC.

I will post highlight videos as soon as possible after the games are done. Please bear in mind that I have a full time job, so it may sometimes not be until the following weekend that the video recaps are posted. I will post them on-line with links on this blog spot as well as posting them on my Facebook page and on www.chessvideos.tv (maybe on chess.com as well if we can work something out in that regards).

If you would like to be updated when the videos are posted, shoot me an email at stoopidbishop@gmail.com or friend me on Facebook, just look for Steve Farmer and send me a request.

GO SCORPIONS!!!

2012 USCL Quarter Finals - AZ vs St. Louis

Scorpions score slip by St. Louis in a tense come-from-behind battle!

Last week Arizona made yet another appearance into the US Chess League Playoffs as they were paired against the St. Louis Arch Bishops.

St. Louis held the tie-break advantage, if the match was tied 2-2, Arizona would be sent packing and preparing for the next season.

It seemed that the Arizona game play for the night was for Mac Molner to draw his game (even though Mac was was not feeling well) and to win on Board 4, to basically repeat the results from two weeks ago when these same two teams, and same four players last met. It worked out then, why wouldn't it work out now? Well, Mac did draw his game, but Dipro did not get his expected result. After two games AZ only had 1/2 point. This meant that to advance to the Semi Finals Arizona would have to defeat this years top stars in the USCL, Kannappan and Bregadze, this seemed like an insurmountable feat, yet the veteran players for Arizona have seen it all before and put up some really solid play to score two points on the middle two boards, this victory gives Arizona the chance to face Seattle - haha, I always want to type in "Dallas" there, don't you?

Enjoy the video, there are some exciting games to look at.




 

Week 10 - A Warm Up For Post Season Play

Arizona Wraps 2012 Regular Season With Another Win

Last week the Scorpions took on the Carolina Cobras and zapped the last remaining bit of strength and beat them 2.5-1.5. While this was not a 'must win' match for Arizona is was a nice warm up for the upcoming post season play.

This week I mostly focused on two games from the Cobra-Scorpion event, the game between Craig Jones vs Mark Ginsburg and the game between Jonathan Schroer vs Mac Molner.

First of all, the Ginsburg vs Jones game. It's always fun to watch a friend play another friend.  Of the two I believe Mark has the superior fighting spirit, Craig has a seemingly ever lasting joy for the wonders of the game of chess. Mark seems to be a technician in his approach while Craig has moments of great artistic flair. This game looked to be an exciting one even though this match meant little in the standings. It started out with Mark getting the upper hand and gaining what I felt was, if not a winning position, it was certainly close to winning. Credit Craig for hanging in there, he managed to hold Mark to a draw in the end.

The other game that interested me was Mackenzie Molner's game. Since I just classified the previous two players I gave some thought as to the classification that Mac might fall under; Romantic comes to mind, but that's not quite right. Tactician? Defensive mastery? No, though he did make one defensive move in this game. How does one classify the play of Mackenzie Molner.

Calling Mac a Romantic is really only true on the surface because of the openings he plays. But he plays these Romantic openings in the era of chess computers and in-depth opening analysis and preparation. Often his play is risky. He seems to be flying by the seat of his pants sometimes. It's really difficult to pin Mac to a chess style, you almost need to reach outside the realm of chess to understand his mindset to the game, he's a real Maverick of sorts.

In the following video I try my best to pinpoint Mac's aggressive playing style, to try and find out why he plays the way he plays. When I pieced it all together with another career it all started to make sense to me. 

Watching Mac's game is not easy on team mates and his fans. In this game he sac's the exchange and a pawn as early as move 10 when he has not even castled. Theory, maybe, yes. But theory, while important, can be bent and swayed by the likes of Mackenzie Molner. Now, the good news for Mac's team mates and fans is that, though they may be scared, Mac's opponents are scared too!

Enjoy the video. If you'd like to skip straight to the start of the game, jump to time mark 11:54.




   

Week 9 Coverage - AZ Pulls One Over On St. Louis To Advance Into Playoffs!

Once again the Arizona Scorpions find their way into the US Chess League Playoffs.

Arizona has had a pretty good year, though there were some bumps in the road along the way.

Last week the Scorpions took on the St. Louis Arch Bishops in a match that had chances for Arizona to really put the screws to their opposition, but there were missed chances for both sides, so it seems fitting that the decisive result came down to the players on Board 4, Chakraborty vs Hendrickson.

Board 1 was a tight positional affair that was fairly level throughout much of the game, but towards the end Mac Molner took a risky shot to gain some play. Panic on his opponent's part allowed Mac to hold the draw. But as the video will clearly show, St. Louis missed a golden opportunity in this game. 

The favor was returned in the Altounian vs Kannappan game. Lev built up a nice position and seemed to be clearly winning, yet he missed the critical move Rc7 (after d6), I feel that Kannappan would have resigned a few moves later had he played this move. As the game progressed Lev won a piece but his opponent traded down to a R&N vs R endgame and was able to hold the draw!

Mohandesi managed to draw his game will a typical Mohandesi positional grind.

So far there were three draws but on Board 4 things looked better for Arizona, and indeed, Dipro kept his calm. In a comfortable endgame where he was a pawn up he only needed to find a way to trade queens when his opponent gave him a gift and hung his knight. This made the win super easy and with this win Arizona was able to sail into the playoffs.

Next the Scorpions take on the Carolina Cobras. This match is important to Arizona as a victory here may improve Arizona's current 4th position in the post season play.

Here is a video of game fragments from the Scorpions vs Arch Bishops - enjoy!

     

Week 5 - Mechanics vs Scorpions

News Flash! Mechanics get stung by swarm of Scorpions!

The past two weeks have been rather bizarre ones for the Arizona Scorpions.
In Week 4 the Scorpions were pitted against the Manhattan Applesauce in a match-up that I was sure Arizona should tie or win. Indeed it looked like it was going to be a tied match when Manhattan had the upper hand after three complete games. 

Arizona needed to win on board 4 where a newcomer to the chess league was playing, Dipro Chakraborty. Dipro worked his way out of a difficult opening eventually gaining the upper hand. With 1 minute 27 seconds on his clock he needed to find one of many 'safe' moves to keep the win alive (Nc5 being the most obvious move). Yet, for some unknown reason, Dipro forfeited on time! This loss handed the Applesauce the match win. The Applesauce, really? It's embarrassing to lose to a team with that kind of tame name. It's like Green Bay losing to the Tallahassee Butterflies!

 After this sour turn of events the Arizona players showed up for Week 5 looking for redemption of some sort. And a redemption is what they got... IN SPADES! 

Board 1 was an interesting battle between Mac Molner against Jessie Kraai. Mac, not understanding endgame concepts all too well went in for an endgame two pawns down. Not the first time we have seen this. Mac, if you're reading this, you want to be UP in material for the endgame, not down in material. Seriously though, Mac had compensation, and this is exactly what you want to do in a Team situation and with the leagues quick time controls. In the end it seemed to confuse Jessie as much as it did Mac and the game petered out to a draw. BUT, at one move  before the players agreed to a draw, Mac missed a chance to win the game after a blunder by Jessie. Both players missed it, and rather than play on and commit more mistakes, they called it a draw.

On board 2 We had Lev Altounian back in the mix for Arizona. He took on Dmitry Zilberstein. I was not able to watch these games live as my father passed away earlier that day, but it seems the players must have both gotten into time pressure, well, at least Dmitry must have. Lev threw out the Dutch defense and after a slight inaccuracy in the opening by Dmitry Lev was able to gain the upper hand. Lev found a unique geometrical formula to gain the win of a pawn in a most unique manner. Eventually Lev was able to create connected passed pawns on the queenside but the play was still complex. After a few very small inaccuracies by Lev the door was open for Dmitry to hold the game, but here's where the time pressure seems to have crept in. Dmitry did not play the R&B ending well at all and this allowed Lev to advance both pawns to the 2nd rank, both ready to promote, this was too much for Dmitry who decided to resign at that point.

Board 3 had Mark Ginsburg in good form in his game against the younger Yian Liou. In a rather innocent looking position Yian made a seemingly obvious move (...Nf5 when ...f5 needed to be played) and after this his game slid downhill rapidly. He still made things tough for Mark, and to be honest, Mark missed a couple of shots to make things easier on himself. As things looked like Yian was going to find a way to hold the game Mark came up with an ingenious idea of giving up a piece, in the endgame (yes, they ALL seem to play this way) but he was able to trap his opponent's bishop on a relatively open board. This also allowed Mark to infiltrate his rook with great effect and this eventually would prove enough to force through the win. While this was not one of the best played games I've seen, the concept that Mark came up with was one of the most entertaining ideas I've ever seen on a chessboard.

One board 4 we have Amanda Mateer goint against Kesav Viswanadha. Amanda played the Sicilian in answer to 1.e4, but her opponent quickly wimped out by playing the c3 line against her. Play was tricky in some parts, Kesav offered the c3 pawn as bait and with a Materialistic Girl like Amanda the fear was she would take it. No! Of course she wouldn't, she kept a nice solid position and improved her pieces. It was a bit funny that she never castled but ended up bringing her KR to d5 via h5 in the early part of the middlegame. Later in the game Amanda had a very nice position but made an outright blunder with ...Kd7, fortunately her opponent missed the winning line and for some reason went full tilt, giving up a rook for some unknown reason. The remainder of the game was really target practice for Amanda, though, I must confess that she missed a few quick mating patterns. Still, when you're cleaning someone's clock, you don't need to look hard for mates. It was a nice game in my opinion and for Kesav to spot Amanda's mistake he needed to see a somewhat backwards move that younger players are prone to miss.

You can watch all the highlights here in this video:

 

Week Three - A Spanking From Seattle

A Seattle Spanking

US Chess League Week 3

Arizona Scorpions VS 

Seattle Sluggers

Arizona has had a nice start to the 2012 season, that is until they were paired against the Seattle Sluggers that is!

Coming off last week's match against the Inventors the Scorpions had some reason to feel suspicious about their play, still they pressed forward with the same line-up as last week, but this time things turned out differently. Pedram Atoufi, playing Board 4 for Arizona pushed hard to win his game, but it was just not there to be had. 

On Board 3 Robby Adamson faced Joshua Sinanan and the two got into a tough fray in a Dutch Defense that Robby threw at him. In a moment of inspiration Joshua found the very interesting move of 25.Rxe4! Now, this move was pretty much a must move for him as all other moves looked like passive defense, and I know that's not what Joshua (or any "real" chessplayer) would want to play. By giving up the exchange Josh was able to liven up the game, after a few slightly inaccurate moves Robby soon found himself in trouble. Eventually Robby had to resigned in a position where he was a piece down.

On Board 2 Mark Ginsburg dodged a big bullet in his game against Giorgi Orlov. Mark played an interesting move in the King's Indian Defense Saemish variation, namely 9.Bd3. Orlov gave up the exchange to get some fast moving pawns and, to be frank, I think that Black was probably winning by move 50, however, inaccurate moves creep in to games at faster time controls and this game was no different. Through tenacious defense, and a timely return of material, Mark was able to achieve a theoretically drawn endgame a pawn down, but he still had to prove it, and prove it he did - good job Mark!

On the top board we had the match-up of Akobian vs Mac Molner. This was a tense affair as Mac whipped out the Blumenfeld. Mac played an interesting Novelty with 9. ...Qg6. There seem to be conflicting views on this move (6. ...Qb6 being the norm), but I feel Mac's move is legitimate and sensible. That being said, Mac seemed to pick a few 'second best moves' and after enough of those he found himself in a difficult position. For most of the game Akobian seemed to be able to play for two results (a win or a draw) whereas Mac had to find very exacting moves to have chances to hold the game.

Results: Arizona 1 - Seattle 3. Hats off to the Sluggers, they put out a tough field last Monday!

The following video has three game fragments and full coverage of the Akobian vs Molner game.

Scorpions vs Inventors 2012 USCL Week 2

Scorpion Pit

This week's match-up pits the Arizona Scorpions against the Philadelphia Inventors.  This is the first ever meeting between these two teams and it turned out to be an exciting contest.

The video is rather long, but it includes all four games in one video. The games are presented pretty much as play unfolded so the viewer can get a feel for the dynamics involved in Team-Play.

The result of the match was not determined until the closing minutes of the match.