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.
No comments:
Post a Comment