Thursday evening the Schenectady A team and the Schenectady Geezers played their CDCL match. By luck and perseverance the Geezers won. The board results were:
Board 1; Michael Mockler, White for the Geezers fell to Patrick Chi in a Caro-Kann, 39 moves.
Board 2; In a time pressured game John Phillips held a draw against Philip Sells down a piece, about 40 moves.
Board 3; John Barnes dropped a piece early and lost to Bill Little, 10 moves.
Board 4; This was the last game to finish. In it Richard Chu played Dilip Aaron. Chu hung on through a considerable time with much the worse position. As the move count reached into the seventies his prospects improved. Some errors in the late endgame cost Dilip what seemed to be a safe half-point, 86 moves.
The final score was Geezers - 2 ½, Schenectady A - 1 ½. This result does not do much to clarify the standings. So far this season it has been mostly strong teams playing the not so strong teams. RPI and Uncle Sam have completed their schedules, and Saratoga B has played all but one of their matches. At the other end of the seeding, Albany, Schenectady and Saratoga A teams are just about halfway through their schedules. So there are serious clashes to occur among the top rated teams in the next few weeks, and from these we will see the leader emerge.
With assistance from Bill Townsend, the TD for the League, the current standings are:
Team Played Match Points Game Points
1 Saratoga A 4 3.5 11
2 Uncle Sam 8 3.0 13
3 Albany A 3 3.0 10.5
4 SCC Geezers 3 3.0 9
5 Albany B 4 3.0 9
6 SCC A 4 2.5 11
7 RPI 8 0.5 6.5
8 Saratoga B 7 0.5 5.5
I take full responsibility for any errors in the standings. Updating them with several recent match results could have led to inadvertent mistakes.
Schenectady A will need a lot of help from the other top teams to repeat as champions this year. Albany A and Saratoga A have to be favored for the title. Albany B is strong enough to get a high place and be a spoiler, and the same can be said for the Geezers.
The next match reports will likely see contests between many of the top local players. SCC A may have Deepak Aaron available for some matches. Albany B will try to field both John Morse and Peter Henner as their top two boards. Saratoga A hopes to have Steve Taylor as their first board. If things work out for Albany A they may be able to have both Dean Howard and Jon Leisner as their top boards. With some luck, we will be treated to some rare battles by leading locals, and that is all to the good!
More soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment