Week 3

Philadelphia vs. Boston:

This is the big match of the day, so I’m not going to cop out. On board one, we have Kudrin, a 1. e4 player, vs. Perelshteyn, a French player. Back in the Seventies and Eighties, the only answer to the Tarrasch (3. Nd2) at the higher levels was 3...c5, recapturing on d5 with the pawn, and IF Black were lucky, making a draw sixty or seventy moves later. Then sometime in the late Eighties, Back began to retake on d5 with the Queen, and then if White were lucky, he’d make it to move 30 before being mated. Somewhat ironically, Kudrin is an adherent of the Tarrasch against the French (or at least he was at the time of the 1979 US Junior championship). I say “ironically” because at a tournament at the Skyline Motor Inn in the winter of ’79-‘80, Kudrin expressed a desire for a banana brandished by a weaker player in the skittles room. Upon being asked for the banana, the weaker player asked for a chess lesson in return. Kudrin then told the weaker player he should develop his knights to c3 and f3, rather than d2 and e2 (but what about a3 and h3, you ask? I guess that is more than one banana’s worth of wisdom). Boston, 2.5-1.5.


Baltimore vs. New Jersey:

This is a tough match to call if you don’t know a certain trick of the forecaster. Look at New Jersey’s lower two boards. Notice that their ratings are just a little bit above the well-known rating floor of 2200. On the bright side, it indicates that Shen and Lunna performed well in their last tournaments before the rating list, which is perhaps what attracted the team organizer to them. On the dark side, though, they may, in a floorless world, have gone instead from 2050 to 2085. Without more time than one can afford to spend in today’s fast-paced world, there is just no way to know that this is not the case. So I pick Baltimore, 2.5-1.5.


Miami vs. Carolina:

One the one hand, Miami needs this match. On the other hand, the reason they need it is they’ve been losing all the time. Much will depend on whether Mederos is a fast-rising youth or a slowly-declining veteran (as to the answer to that question, see above about today’s fast-paced world) The two N’s in Mederos’s first name indicate that he is US-born. On the bright side, it means that no one calls him “Denise”. On the dark side, he probably did not attend the same chess school as Becerra, Lugo and Martinez. I’m picking Carolina by the usual point.


Queens vs. Dallas:

Queens has two small children in the lineup, which is fine. But seating them next to each other is asking for trouble. It is early in the life of the Queens franchise, so chalk this mistake up to inexperience. With my kind of experience, mistakes cannot be excused so readily. So I must demonstrate my savvy and pick Dallas to win, 2.5-1.5.


Seattle vs. Tennessee:

I picked the Tempo to win last week, which drew ridicule from certain quarters. Though one obviously does not get to where I am by putting science so carelessly aside, it was alleged that I had let outside pressure influence my call. And it really did look like Tennessee was going to win until they broke my heart with a corner stalemate. Well, nobody breaks my heart two weeks in a row. Seattle, 3-1.