{"id":2716,"date":"2015-09-04T23:26:59","date_gmt":"2015-09-05T07:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/?p=2716"},"modified":"2017-05-15T17:36:21","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T01:36:21","slug":"sluggers-week-2-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/sluggers-week-2-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Sluggers Week 2 Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/logo-high-res.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2717\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/logo-high-res.jpg\" alt=\"logo (high res)\" width=\"158\" height=\"196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/logo-high-res.jpg 432w, https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/logo-high-res-243x300.jpg 243w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 158px) 100vw, 158px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>by Mark Smith and Curt Collyer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In the second week of the <strong>US Chess League<\/strong> season, the <strong>Seattle Sluggers<\/strong> scored a convincing 3-1 victory over the Minnesota Blizzard.<\/p>\n<p>In an energetic game on board 1, IM Georgi Orlov lost on the black side of a Nimzo-Indian (starting with the Two Knights Tango) to IM John Bartholomew. Orlov&#8217;s piece play on the kingside was vigorous, but his queenside development lagged. \u00a021&#8230;Qg6 seemed, to Fritz, to be the tipping point as the evaluation jumped from +0.68 to +2.1.<\/p>\n<p>While that loss unfolded, IM Michael Lee gained an advantage in his English against IM Sean Nagle. To those of us in the commentary room, Lee&#8217;s position seemed to be accomplishing \u00a0very little until it suddenly accomplished very much, especially after Black&#8217;s self-destructive 18&#8230;Ke7. The hand of a magician created a rout out of a molehill.<\/p>\n<p>David Golub&#8217;s Benko Gambit looked smooth against Kevin Wasiluk. Golub&#8217;s grip strengthened bit by bit as he dominated the a and b files and eventually captured White&#8217;s passed a pawn. He made it look easy and will no doubt influence others to play the Benko.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Schill varied from GM practice on move 10 against a Sicilian Najdorf played by Andrew Titus, soon winning a pawn and nursing the small advantage to victory. A big slip by Titus on move 52 enabled Schill to convert to a pawn race in which he queened well ahead.\u00a0 Schill&#8217;s skillful grit paid off in the longest game of the match.<\/p>\n<p><b>Final score of the match: \u00a0 Seattle 3.0 &#8211; Minnesota 1.0<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Some photos from the match can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/media\/set\/?set=a.10156174771090647.1073741841.232132415646&amp;type=3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Mark Smith and Curt Collyer In the second week of the US Chess League season, the Seattle Sluggers scored a convincing 3-1 victory over the Minnesota Blizzard. In an energetic game on board 1, IM Georgi Orlov lost on the black side of a Nimzo-Indian (starting with the Two Knights Tango) to IM John [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[35,34],"class_list":["post-2716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-seattle-sluggers","tag-us-chess-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}