2010 US Championship Games

2010 US Championship - Joel Benjamin vs Sam Shankland - A classic clash of a veteran player against the young Sam Shankland. This is a good illustration of the Maroczy Bind, in this one though, the players quickly exchange the light-squared bishops which makes for an interesting struggle.

2010 US Championship - Kraai vs Benjamin This is a wild and complex game. Jesse let's his king stay in the center for a little bit too long and the wily veteran, Joel Benjamin, show's why he holds the title of Grandmaster!

2010 US Championship - Robson vs Yermolinsky - White seems to deviate early in a Sicilian and Yermolinsky does not let this go unpunished. There were lots of sharp tactics that we not played on the board and by declining the tactics White just ends up in a lost position.

2010 US Championship - Irina Krush vs Kaidanov - Irina takes the game into a Carlsbad pawn structure, while this is usually a boring opening but not in this case. From a superior endgame position Irina unleashes a wonderful combination to close the deal.

2010 US Champinoship - Stripunsky vs Nakamura - Nakamura has a style all his own, probably because no one else views chess the way he does. Still, this unique style often leaves his opponents bewildered and slipping into a poor position - such is the case here. In this case Naka gave up a pawn for chances to attack his opponent's castled position and White did not find a way to survive.

2010 US Championship - Hess vs Shankland - Here we have a Sicilian Najdorf with Be2 - Karpov's pet line. This game illustrates the diversity available to White in this line and the dangers that Black can face. One or two careless moves is all it takes.

2010 US Championship - Christiansen vs Gurevich - This was a big battle in the Richter-Rauzer line of the Sicilian. The game soon takes the flavor of the Main Line Najdorf after several moves and it seems that White was again getting the better of things. Indeed, the pressure that White puts on the Black castled position becomes too much to bear. This is another game that Larry could throw into his next book on Storming the Barricades.

2010 US Championship - Kudrin vs Onishuck - A modern Modern Defense. The game gets very tactical early on and gives us a complex game to look at. This game illustrates that an advance on the win should be best met by action in the center in a variation that was not played. Soon thereafter it seemed as though White was going to roll his opponent off the board, but chess is a fickle game and the tables were turned to black's favor. This game was wild all the way to the very end.

US Ch 2010 R2 Khachiyan vs Kamsky [15:52]  - We get a King's Indian from one of my favorite modern day players, Gata Kamsky. Gata gives up a pawn on the queenside to fracture White's kingside pawns. Nakamura would later use a similar idea at the 2010 Olympiad. White, getting into time pressure, makes a couple of questionable moves, but they take Kamsky's ability to exploit his opponent's ideas.

2011 US Chess League

This is the only board on which Arizona could claim
a rating advantage, and Amanda did not disappoint! This was a confusing game to me, the opening play by Amanda was bizarre in some ways, but that
helped to confuse her opponent as well. Both players kept pretty close to one another on the clock, but by the time these two reached move 15 or 16 all the
other games were pretty much coming out of the opening phases, the nice thing about this is that Amanda could hold back and see what was demanded of her, did she need to win? Well, it turned out that Arizona did need a win on this board as Aldama playing on Board 2, though he looked better, seemed to lose the thread. Our Lady of 9 Queens did not disappoint and managed to pull off a victory clinching 1st place in the Western Division with still one week of regular season play to go - Nice job, Amanda!

Sam Shankland had Black against Larry Christiansen. Sam played a tough game and then decided to sacrifice his queen for a rook and a minor that didn't quite work out. Sam lost that game, however, Alex Cherniack and Robert Hungaski won their games. When Christopher Chase lost to Mark Esserman, the match ended up in a tie and since New England held the Draw-Odds advantage, they would proceed on to the Championship Match.

Miami had a rough start to the season and managed to sneak their way into playoff contention with a regular season score of 5.5-4.5. It seems that Arizona is the odds on favorite in this match to the death, but, Miami had beaten Arizona earlier in the season.

Well, as the games will show, this was quite a fight, and this time is was the lower boards that, throughout the year served the Scorpions well, proved to be their Achilles heel. Rosenthal on Board 4 had a tremendous game against Nick Thompson and after this loss Robby Adamson found himself under pressure so thick you could peel it back with the wrong side of a knife. The pressure proved too much for Robby and he committed a mistake while trying to force a win in an otherwise drawn ending, proving that a magician can hide only so many bunnies in the hat.

Things did not start out well when Charles Galofre had car problems and had to forfeit his game on Board 3. On Board 1 Sam Shankland was paired against Julio Becerra, probably the toughest player in USCL history to beat. Sam followed a line that gave him the edge and they headed into a bishops-of-opposite-color ending where Sam was a pawn up. Many kibitzers on the ICC thought that Becerra had an easy draw, but I was not so sure, I thought that Sam had good winning chances and at the worst would draw if he slipped up. This was one of the most fascinating endgames I have seen in a long time and Sam proved the nay-sayers wrong and proved this was a win with superb endgame technique.

Miami did have some glory in this match on Boards 2 and 4. On Board 4 Nicholas Rosenthal completely dismantled his higher rated opponent, Alex Cherniack and wrapped up the game with a crowd pleasing combination.

It was up to Board 2 where Robert Hungaski, for New England had the Black pieces against Marcel Martinez. Marcel held a slight edge through most of the game, but Robert played tough and made some daring calls at the right time. Marcel missed his chance to play the move 32. f5!? which would have really piled the pressure on Robert's position. Then, later in the game Marcel thought he was heading for a series of exchanges that would leave him two pawns up, only to find himself in a helpless position. Had he seen what was coming at him he did have the ability to trade off a piece for the two pawns and steer the game into unclear channels. As it was, Marcel was ground down by Robert's exacting play giving New England a landslide victory of 3-1 - who knows how things would have ended up if Galofre had made it to the playing site on time.

Other Video Links:

• Local Interest
• Openings
• Studies & Fragments
  
• Historical Interest
• U.S. Chess League Archives
  
• US Chess League 2011
  
• Viewer Requests & Game Submissions