The Inventors lost against the New York Knights, 3-1, last week in a hard struggle, as both teams were out for blood. We had the same lineup as in our win against New Jersey on Week 1, with Bryan Smith and Bartell holding the top two boards, and Dehmelt and Costigan fighting on the bottom boards.
The first game to finish was Costigan-Williams. This was Justus’ first USCL game, and yet he started with a draw against a higher rated opponent. Justus played the hyper-accelerated dragon with 1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6. Costigan opted for a c3 setup. After a pawn sacrifice with …d5 followed by …Nf6, Costigan had gone 8. d6, and undoubled his d pawns. Justus was done a pawn, but had pressure along the e-file. He played 11. …b5, which has been played before. However, after 11. …Ne4, it seems that Black has compensation. However, on the 18th move, Costigan played 18. Bf4, which let Williams get Nh5. A better move would have been 18. Rfe1, which attacks the queen.
But even after this slight inaccuracy, 21. Bf3 gave away the advantage, and even made Black slightly better! 21. d5 was better, since it cements the bishop on c6. White has lots of space, but Black has good control over the dark squares.
However, Justus got his knights to good squares, and they dominated by themselves for a while. (If you’re on a team called the “Knights”, I guess you have to use them well in a game!) Costigan and Williams took a draw after the final position occurred three times.
The second game to finish was Krush-Dehmelt. The funny thing was that Black also played a gambit in this game! However, Krush kept the pawn until the very end, and after 15 moves, White was clearly better, and even winning. Dehmelt’s position was alright, but after the dodgy 10. …Ng4, White immediately became better. 10. …Nc6 11. exd4 Be7, and Black is okay, as the pressure on the d pawn, and Black’s lead in development will compensate for the pawn deficit. But after Krush had the extra pawn, she finished with 29. Rxc6!, which forced Dehmelt to resign. Kudos to Dehmelt for fearlessly trying out a gambit, and to Krush for showing her tactical abilities.
So we were down, 0.5-1.5. I think Inventor fans were pretty worried because one more loss meant the match was theirs…and Smith was not in the best of positions.
The game started in a King’s Indian, and white obtained his usual pawn phalanx, c4-d5-e4. However, Smith immediately lashed out with 10. …f5, starting his kingside attack. But Kacheishvili countered on the queenside, and by move 20, the a, b, and c files were devoid of pawns! Kacheishvili used this space for his knights, (here we are again!) and placed them on b6 and c6. After Smith had to give up the exchange, it was only a matter of defending the kingside for white, and Smith had to soon resign. It was 0.5-2.5, Knights.
Bartell once again showed us why he is probably going to be MVP. He drew against GM Fedorowicz in a tight battle, where he had most of the chances. After going into a queen endgame, the two players made a threefold repetition.
So we lost the match, 1.0-3.0. But we’ll come back next week over the Kingfishers. We’ve just gotta invent something over the board.
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| After 11. ...b5 Costigan-Williams |
The first game to finish was Costigan-Williams. This was Justus’ first USCL game, and yet he started with a draw against a higher rated opponent. Justus played the hyper-accelerated dragon with 1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6. Costigan opted for a c3 setup. After a pawn sacrifice with …d5 followed by …Nf6, Costigan had gone 8. d6, and undoubled his d pawns. Justus was done a pawn, but had pressure along the e-file. He played 11. …b5, which has been played before. However, after 11. …Ne4, it seems that Black has compensation. However, on the 18th move, Costigan played 18. Bf4, which let Williams get Nh5. A better move would have been 18. Rfe1, which attacks the queen.
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| After 21. Bf3 Costigan-Williams |
But even after this slight inaccuracy, 21. Bf3 gave away the advantage, and even made Black slightly better! 21. d5 was better, since it cements the bishop on c6. White has lots of space, but Black has good control over the dark squares.
However, Justus got his knights to good squares, and they dominated by themselves for a while. (If you’re on a team called the “Knights”, I guess you have to use them well in a game!) Costigan and Williams took a draw after the final position occurred three times.
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| After 10. ...Ng4 Krush-Dehmelt |
So we were down, 0.5-1.5. I think Inventor fans were pretty worried because one more loss meant the match was theirs…and Smith was not in the best of positions.
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| After 10. ...f5 Kacheishvili-Smith |
Bartell once again showed us why he is probably going to be MVP. He drew against GM Fedorowicz in a tight battle, where he had most of the chances. After going into a queen endgame, the two players made a threefold repetition.
So we lost the match, 1.0-3.0. But we’ll come back next week over the Kingfishers. We’ve just gotta invent something over the board.
