Some Thoughts on Tie-Breaks

Going into the last week of the season, Barrington, Prospect, and Palatine were all tied at 8-1. Barrington had beaten Palatine. Palatine had beaten Prospect. Prospect had beaten Barrington. In the last week, Palatine and Barrington won their matches while Prospect lost to Conant leaving Barrington and Palatine tied at 9-1.

Not surprisingly, Barrington felt that they should have been declared MSL Champion by virtue of their head to head victory over Palatine. The Illinois High School Association tie-break rules gave the nod to Palatine, however, as they had the better margin of victory over the schools with the better records such as Prospect, Conant, and Buffalo Grove. http://www.phs.d211.org/activities/ChessTeam/

My own view is that the tie-break system is pretty reasonable. Had it been Palatine that lost in the last week instead of Prospect, the title would have gone to Barrington rather than Prospect. Even though Prospect beat Barrington, Barrington was the more dominant team against the rest of the league. It would probably seem wrong to Barrington (as it would to me), that the title should turn entirely on Rishi’s minor oversight in an otherwise very well played game rather his team’s consistently strong performance throughout the entire season.

My hope would be that this might be an opportunity to teach the players a valuable lesson about sportsmanship in the case of a close call. Some times in life, there are decisions that could go either way. There are two well qualified candidates for a job, but only one can be hired. Two talented performers audition for a single role. A closely played basketball game turns on a ref’s call as time is running out. In these cases, the final result is always going to be somewhat arbitrary.

There is always a temptation to feel screwed when you wind up on the short side of a close call, but I think it is the coach’s job to set an example for the players. I think the coach does his players a disservice if he does not teach them that no system for resolving close calls is perfect and that a result is not unfair simply because it is not the one you think is best.

JUST FOR THE RECORD: I have no reason whatsoever to doubt the sportsmanship of the Barrington team or coach. My remarks were motivated by a tournament several years ago in which a coach encouraged his team to believe it had gotten screwed because the tie-breaks favored another team that had lost to the coach’s team.

First Post

I am a volunteer coach for the Prospect High School chess team in Mount Prospect, IL. We finished 8-2 in our matches this year in the Mid-Suburban Chess League which is composed of teams from the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago. It is, as far as I know, the first time Prospect has been over .500 for a very long time. I am also a reasonably active player myself, and I recently made expert for the first time.


The team's most impressive match was the upset of undefeated Barrington. The most interesting game from that match was on first board where Prospect's Mike Pozsgay had white against Barrington's Zach Kasiurak. Mike's USCF rating is around 1100, but it dates from his junior year and he has been playing much stronger this season. He had been talking all season about meeting Rishi Sethi who has been Barrington's first board for the last couple years with a rating in the 1800's. We did not know that Freshman Zach would be playing first board against us with a rating over 2000. Luckily, Mike had been unable to learn much about Rishi's opening repertoire so he had not done any specific preparation.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bc4?! I try to play a variety of lines in practice against Mike but I never tried the Kan Variation. Mike figures he can meet it in the same way that he would meet the Najdorf. 5... Qc7 6. Bb3 Nf6 7. Nc3? Bb4 8. Bd2 Bxc3 9. Bxc3 Nxe4 10. O-O !? I give Mike a lot of credit for this. He realized that he had misplayed the opening and he came up with a way to try to find some compensation for the pawns he dropped. 10... Nxc3 11. bxc3 Qxc3 12. Re1 Nc6 ?! Zach was playing pretty quickly and he whipped this out automatically, but it ends up giving White a lot of play. 12... O-O ! would have prevented the knight from gaining the outpost at d6. 13. Nf5 O-O 14. Re3 Qf6 15. Nd6 g6?! As White has no immediate threats, Black probably should have concentrated on untangling his Q-side with something like 15... b5. I suspect that Zach figured that sooner or later his superior rating and the two extra pawns would be enough. 16. Rc1 Nd4 17.c3 Nf5 18. Rf3 Qe5 19. Nc4 Qc7 20. g4!? A good practical move that keeps Black in a defensive frame of mind although it creates a lot of weaknesses. 20... Nh6 ?! Black keeps responding to White's threats without creating any of his own. 20... b5 !?would have given White something to think about. . 21. Rh3 Kg7 22. Nd6 f6 23. g5 Ng4? This was Black's chance to finally evict the pesky knight from d6. with 23... Nf7 !? 24. gxf6+ Kg8 and the White knightmust give up his outpost after which Black unravels his Q-side and exploits White's weak pawn. 24. gxf6+?! Releasing the pressure.24. Qd4 ! would have left the knight on g4 with nowhere to go. 24...Nxf6 25. Qd4 Qa5?! Still not 25... b6 ! with the idea of untangling the Q-side and challenging the White queen with ...Qc5. 26. Re1 Kg8 27. Re5 Qd8 28. Rg5 Qe7 29. Nf5?! As on move 24, White opted for a forcing move over one that would have ratcheted up the pressure. 29.Bc2 ! looks like it is winning for White.

Due to Black's snarled Q-side, White is effectively two pieces ahead. By adding the bishop to the attack, White can afford to sacrifice one of his extra pieces on g6 to expose the Black K. 29...Qg7 30. Rhg3 Kh8 31. Bxg6 h6 32.Qh4. 29... Qa3! This was the move that Mike had overlooked. At this point, both players were pretty short on time and Zach demonstrates the tactical superiority of an expert. 30. Nh6+ Kg7 31. f4 Qc1+ 32. Qd1 Qxf4 33. Rhg3? Ne4 34. Rf3? Qxg5+ 35. Kf1? Nd2+ 36. Ke1Nxf3+ 37. Ke2 Qg2+ 38. Ke3 Qg1+ 39. Ke2 Qxd1+ 40. Kxd1 0-1.

The match turned on Peter Dimopoulos's upset of Rishi on second board. After defending a cramped middle game well with the Black pieces, Peter somewhat recklessly decided to play for a win in an ending where he had a knight against Rishi's bishop with pawns on both sides of the board. After methodically punishing Peter for his optimism, Rishi made one of the most natural mistakes in the book when he assumed that his opponent would recapture his pawn after 46.fxg5+?.

As we all know, chess is not checkers and Peter played 46...Ke5! After 47.Kb4 Kd4 48.Kb3 Kd3, White cannot stop the e-pawn and Black queens first.