Tuesday, November 13, 2007

US Division Championships

I'm very sad after watching the collapse last Wednesday by San Francisco. I really enjoyed watching them all season sad it had to end this way. I will say that they almost had possibly a worse collapse last year against New York in the playoffs. At some point it looked like they were destroying new york and then they had to win in the tiebreak after some missed opportunities to put it away there too.

Who's going to win this week?
Who cares? Oh, I guess I still do, a lot of exciting chess left.
Boston over NY 2-2
Dallas over Miami 3-1

Nuff said.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

US Chess League: Playoffs wildcard

Playoffs!!!!!! Well, I didn't even realize there would be predictions into the playoffs and thanks to my opponents picking opposite sides of the bets I believe I'm now officially theoretically eliminated from winning (Not really that big of a deal, I'll be back next year better than ever).

However this week we have some serious excitement in the form of first round madness.

Philadelphia Inventors vs New York Knights
Nakamura has greatly underperformed in the league, but just came off of 2 amazing results in Europe, which Hikaru will we see this week in the league? Whichever one we do see will likely have a huge impact on this match. Edge to Nakamura.
Krush-Smith didn't turn out too pretty a few weeks ago, but I don't see that game repeating itself so I give Krush a slight edge with white.
Costigan-Bonin two players who have been performing well this year, I think I slightly prefer Bonin who has found some impressive ways to score so far this year.
Zenyuk - Wilson, Wilson got the wrong end of this one last time, but I think he still looks to have a slight edge here this week.
2-2 tie (Phi advances)

Miami Sharks vs San Francisco Mechanics
The most important match of the week (of course) pitting the defending champs against the team that eliminated them from the playoffs 2 years ago.
Becerra - Wolff: Wolff I think is greatly underestimated in this game, he's rusty, but really hasn't show bad form, the game against Christiansen was a tough fight I give Becerra a slight edge in this match.
Bhat - Lugo should be good for Bhat, I don't even think he has a draw with white so far in the league and Lugo can get in some trouble sometimes with some superficial ideas which Bhat can be particularly good at punishing.
Martinez- Zilberstein
Supposedly Martinez has the better score, but I think Zilberstein's shown quite a bit of maturity in his games these past 2 seasons I pick Zilberstein.
Young-Barredo Young had one big collapse this year, I think if he learned from that game he'll be a much stronger player. I like Young with the white pieces.
SF ove Mia 3-1