It took some effort, but we managed to get back to an even score after our win over Billiards’s Chess Club in Round 3. We had faced a very strong SoCal rival, LA Fortress in Round 1, which we lost, but then drew our Round 2 match against the Boyleston Chess Club of Boston. Our biggest problem had been in the Blitz portion for the matches–which count the same as the Rapid. The 3 minute with 2 second increment t/c had been brutal. After winning the Rapid section against Boyleston, we only managed one draw out of 10 games in the Blitz section. And against basically the same players we had just beat!
So Co-Team Admin Laura Nyström put out an APB for Blitz help (remember you can play in only one section if you prefer). We also had a later 4:00 pm start time, which might have helped as we had our biggest turnout with seven players. Unfortunately not everyone got a game as the other team did not have as many players, so sorry to those that were affected. But we did have some new faces in the Blitz section, including NM and Club Treasurer Axel Müller, Chris “Dr. Nimzo” Stychinsky, and Arturo Armagnac.
After winning the Rapid Section 5-3, it looked like we were in for our usual heartache in the Blitz. We were down a full point after the first set of games. But then Axel, Chris, and Arturo combined to score 3 out of 4 points in the second set of games and the comeback was complete! Axel won both his blitz games on Board 1 and Arturo did a great job on Board 4 with a win and a draw. Your reporter declined to play the blitz section and is glad he did!
But, like all team matches, every win or draw is critical, so kudos to all. A couple of games from the Rapid Section of Round 3 that caught my attention were Capatal 2’s nice handling of the Torre Attack:
Also take a look at Richard “Rippapawnoff’” Reid’s 83-move win with the French Defense. Who knew you could play this many moves in a 15 minute game!
You can check out the Round 3 games and all the matches from Season 2 below. If you like the later start time please let us know in the comments and we will do our best to work it out with our future opponents. Hope we see many of you back for Round 4 this Saturday!
