[imagefield_assist|fid=6781|preset=bdynako-preview|lightbox=true|title=GM Yury Shulman suffered an unexpected loss against IM Florin Felecan at the U.S. Chess League match on Wednesday.|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=285|height=375]By Spencer Finegold
For our second U.S. Chess League match the Arch Bishops squared off against heavy underdogs the Chicago Blaze. We outrated our surprisingly worthy opponents by almost 200 points on average, our third board had more than 100 points on their first board, and this Arch Bishops line-up was the highest rated in USCL history! All things considered, we were lucky to draw the match.
GM Hikaru Nakamura had a nice positional struggle against GM Dmitry Gurevich and ended up outplaying his opponent. With Black, our sharp tactical GM steadily squeezed the cagey veteran and won in a rook endgame. That isn’t to say the game was short of petite combinations as after 30 moves of maneuvering, Gurevich unleashed a temporary exchange sacrifice. After winning his exchange back, Gurevich then “lost” his a2 pawn, only to win one two moves later. This was all part of the plan for the Arch Bishops’ board one, as his knight took up a dominating central outpost. The knight had such a dominating influence that Gurevich took it upon himself to induce heavy liquidation, but this allowed Hikaru to sneak into White’s camp along the a-file. He cashed in on move 47 by dominating Gurevich’s weak second and third ranks and started gobbling up the pawns that resided there. The flashy Saint Louisan then showed superb technique in the ensuing rook endgame to net us a point. As one could imagine, our team was very excited to have Nakamura for this round, as he was unable to play in week one.
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Skipping the bizarre, universe-questioning game on board two for a moment, board three showed a battle of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. IM Angelo Young had never lost a game in the USCL, however he was White against GM-(and father)-in-Residence Ben Finegold. With Black, the elder Finegold was an astonishing 100% in multiple games against the quirky IM, so one streak had to be broken. The game started as a “delayed” Botvinnik English, as black played …e6 then …e5, with white taking it upon himself to move all his pieces as quickly as possible into black’s weakened white squares. However, the tactics didn’t work out for Young, and by move 20 he was already down material with little compensation. After some simplification the game got to queen, bishop and two pawns for Finegold, against Young’s queen and three pawns. Thirty-six moves and a few hilarious draw offers later, White was forced to trade queens in light of certain checkmate, but decided after Black took his queen, not to take back. Young opted instead to be down a queen and bishop (maybe black would take the draw this time?). The veteran GM staved off every last draw offer and went on to win, nurturing his queen plus to give the Arch Bishops another point.
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Before the match I was very excited to play my game. This was probably the lowest-rated player I would get to play, and after disappointing my team in week one, I was hungry for praise and admiration. As I looked up my opponent, Cindy Tsai, in Chessbase, I noticed with black she exclusively plays the Najdorf and Gruenfeld defenses. I too, at one point, was a Najdorf practitioner, so I decided I would let her play one of my favorite openings. I always hated to face the Sozin variation as black, and noticed her record against it was weaker than, say, against the English attack where she won almost every game. So the game started as such, but I forgot my preparation and advanced my f-pawn too early. With a small disadvantage from the opening, I decided to sac the exchange for some compensation, and actually, after a complicated middlegame riddled with inaccuracies, I could have equalized on move 24, but I thought I was winning with my Qh5. If nothing else it was interesting, but I ended up losing after my opponent displayed some tenacious defense.
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If you ask chess players around the country who the nicest, most respectful, all around coolest GM in the US is, they would reply “Spencer Finegold.” After informing them that I am not a GM, they would respond “Oh, well, then Yury Shulman.” In week one Yury took apart GM Melikset Khachiyan with a brilliant performance as White and won the game of the week prize. After such a performance, and considering this week he was White against a lower-rated adversary in Felecan, victory was all but assured. Perhaps playing remotely from Chicago toyed with his head a little, as on move 15 he was already worse. After a strange 19th move, Shulman was down two pawns with maybe a strong White passed pawn on c6 to show for it, but maybe it was just Felecan’s future third “gumball.” On move 26 this pawn was indeed chewed up, at least for an exchange, and in case you’re keeping score at home, the material showed a bishop and three pawns for a rook. Although not completely dead for Shulman, Felecan proceeded to outplay him right up until move 39 where Felecan blundered and GM Finegold faithfully predicted Shulman could not lose. However another strange 44th move handed more and more of the advantage to Black and sadly, the clumsy rook was no match for the connected passed pawns. White was forced to resign.
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