[imagefield_assist|fid=8407|preset=fullsize|lightbox=true|title=|desc=GM Ben Finegold and his son Spencer Finegold form half of the fearsome foursome for the Arch Bishops.|link=none|align=left|width=375|height=238]By Spencer Finegold
The Saint Louis Arch Bishops faced-off against San Francisco's Mechanics on Wednesday, and there were no real surprises on any board. Though our opponents had a worthy line-up with GM-FM-FM-FM, they were no match for our big three plus one. I guess one could consider the Mechanics our rival as they too have a wonderful chess club in San Francisco, but The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis is of course nicer, and our victory over them karmically proved it.
GM Hikaru Nakamura showed up about 15 minutes late for his game against GM Josh Friedel, which would explain how Nakamura had only 30 minutes more than his GM opponent by the end of his victory?! Nakamura whipped out his first ten move quickly to equalize on time.
The Saint Louisian, commanding white, tried his hardest to get Friedel out of theory, and succeeded, I assume, within the first five moves. Such a strategy comes at a price, however, as I rather preferred the Mechanic's position out of the opening. The game quickly switched gears to a queenless middlegame, and with Black's rather weakening 19th move, Nakamura obtained a sizeable advantage. White's pieces were much too active, Black's camp had too many weaknesses, and our Arch Bishop cashed in in the ensuing rook endgame.
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Our board two, showing up on time as always from Chicago, did not have as pleasant a game as we had hoped. GM Yury Shulman played his trademark French Defense, and got his trademark bad position. It was an offbeat Tarrasch variation and young FM Daniel Naroditsky seemed to have the better of it. On move 20 it looked as if he was really penetrating into Black's camp, but couldn't find anything better than perpetual. Instead of Bxh6, essentially offering a draw, Re3 or Bxf5 should give White a nice advantage, but of course it is difficult to decipher over the board.
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On board three we saw GM Ben Finegold put in a fantastic effort for game-of-the-week. Finegold was white against U.S. Junior Closed participant Steven Zierk and, fearing some special Junior preparation, played in the style of Nimzowitsch with Nf3 b3 and e3. On around moves nine and 10 things turned sour for the young FM, he played much too aggresively abondoning his queenside pawns and kingside development for a mere check. Black played another inapproprietly aggresive 13th move and it was all over when Finegold threw down the spectacular 14. Nb5!! This knight was untouchable and Black was forced to castle into a fierce attack full of repetitions and another knight sacrifice on e5. Finegold sealed the deal with his 39th move cutting off all possible defenses and posing too may threats; Zierk resigned shortly thereafter.
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Fortunately for me all three games had finished before mine, so when I remembered my first grade math (there was really nothing of interest on my board by the time Yury’s game finished) I figured that win + win + draw = 2.5 and that 2.5 is more than half of 4! You can never resign with a clear conscience, but that is about as close as it gets. I played Black in an advanced Caro-Kann against my 350-point higher-rated FM opponent, Andy Lee. In the games I looked at of his on ChessBase I noticed he played 1.d4 about 95% of the time, so I was out of my preparation on move one. I played the rather timid 7...Nge7 instead of the theoretically better 7...f6 and got a similar position to the one on board two. The game went on and on with me slowly drifting into passivity, I should have play ...f5 instead of ...f6 or at least played it the next move. When I finally started to break out, my position was better than I thought, but promptly blundered with 25...g5 allowing a cute fork on the next turn. I foolishly kept queens on the board (exchanging would have provided drawing chances) and got crushed when my opponent put two pigs on the seventh; they weren't eating up pawns, but rather my bishop, and I was forced to resign.
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