Knights Win USCL Championship

In “stunning reversal of fortune,” losers are heroes in tiebreaks

Congratulations to the New York Knights, who have defeated the Miami Sharks to win the 2009 U.S. Chess League Championship. Last night's regulation match ended in a draw. As the USCL site reports:

“For the fourth year in a row the USCL Finals came down to a blitz tiebreaker. Two players lost during regulation, GM Giorgi Kacheishvili and IM Alejandro Moreno Roman. In a stunning reversal of fortune, both of these players were heros in the blitz tiebreaker. Moreno Roman knocked off everyone on New York's team except for Kacheishvili. Kacheishvili then turned around and did the exact same thing to Miami, finishing things off by defeating GM Julio Becerra with the black pieces.”

We have been remiss, I must admit, here at the Chicago Blaze blog, at covering the fairly exciting post-season action in the USCL, and as it happens I don't have time to redress that neglect at the moment with a lengthy post (all the usual excuses), but go to the USCL site to see all the playoff games.

In due course we'll try to bring Blaze fans up to speed on the thrilling 2009 USCL postseason.

The Blaze at Mid-Season

Staking Out the Middle Ground

IMs Emory Tate and Angelo Young have been crucial to the team's success.

It’s hard to believe, but after five matches in as many weeks, half of the USCL regular season is already over. So, as Ed Koch famously asked, how are we doing?

Pretty well, I’d say. Halfway through the season the Blaze are solidly in the middle of the league, quite an accomplishment for a first-year expansion team. Our won-lost record is at .500. In the latest “power ratings” by prominent blogger Bionic Lime, those being a composite measure based on team performance and the strength of the opponents it has faced, we are seventh in the league right now, smack in the middle. (League blogger-in-residence Arun Sharma ranks us eighth.) We started out in tenth place earlier in the year and rose briefly to 6th a few weeks ago.

We have lost two close matches, won one close one, romped to victory in another, and played one of the top teams in the league to a draw.

We’re in a four-way tie for third place in the Western Division, but because of our strong tiebreaks—game points and the average strength of our opponents—we’re technically in fourth place overall, second among the four teams with a 2.5/5 record. It’s my understanding that the top four teams in each division make the playoffs, and if I’m interpreting all of this correctly it means that if the season ended today, we’d qualify for postseason play. Just barely, of course, but we would make the cut.

Of course, the season doesn’t end today, so we’ll have to keep winning if we want to make the playoffs, and our remaining matches won’t be easy. We’ll face the best team in the league this year, the undefeated Queens Pioneers; the reigning champion Dallas Destiny; the very strong Miami Sharks; Arizona, a team that has beaten us already; and Tennessee, a team we beat so solidly on our first meeting that they will surely be focused on revenge. We’ll take it a week at a time.

As for expectations from the rest of the league, I think by and large we’ve surpassed them. The early tumult with our roster—in which two GMs we thought would be with us weren’t able to be—led some of the USCL wags to give up on the Blaze and assume we would flame out. We haven’t. On the contrary, we’ve done better in most of our matches than the forecasters predicted, and we now seem to have gained some respect. By the end of the year, I think we’ll have even more.

photo: (c) Betsy Dynako

Where We Stand

With four weeks and 40 percent of the USCL season behind us, the Chicago Blaze are in second to last place in the Western Division, yet only a half point separates us from the three teams above us.

We lost to two of those teams--Arizona and Seattle--both in close matches, and beat the team that trails us in the standings, Tennessee.

It may not look very impressive, but I think we're stronger than our place in the standings suggests. Both of our losses, as I say, were very close, and consider the fact that we have won more games than two of the three teams that lead us by a half point.

Finally, take a look at the division leader, San Francisco. The only imperfection in their record, the only thing that has kept them from being undefeated, was a draw in the Week 2 to the Chicago Blaze. They have vanquished all other opponents.

Next week we play the Baltimore Kingfishers, for our first foray into inter-divisional competition. It's a big match: it comes at an important point in the season and gives the Blaze a chance to get back on the winning track.

What do you think? Do the Blaze have a reasonable shot at making the USCL playoffs? Take our poll in the right-hand column.