Friday, September 28, 2007

Prospect v. Fremd: The Season Begins

On September 28, Prospect opened its season against 2007 MSL Conference Tournament Champion Fremd. Fremd graduated seven of the players it took to the state tournament last year while Prospect returned seven players so Prospect's 6-2 victory was not unsurprising. Nevertheless, few of the victories came easily and I will need to keep the aspirin (or bourbon) handy. My comments on the games can be viewed by clicking on the links.

On 1st Board, Andrew Berowski played the Black side of the Slav passively and wound up with a cramped position. However, Adam Cheng was unable to find a way to capitalize on his space advantage and Andrew handled the ending very well thereby gaining revenge for a loss to Adam at last year's MSL Tournament. On 2nd Board, Fremd's Sarah Harasimowicz wound up with the passive position after playing a line that National Master Dan Heisman describes as one of The Most Common Opening Inaccuracies. Prospect's Peter Dimopoulos was able to capitalize based in part on his experience playing the same line against Andrew in practice.

On 3rd Board, Fremd's Rohika Wagner played a closed system against Tejas Shah's Sicilian and seemed to lull him to sleep with all the pieces still on the board after an hour and twenty minutes and sixteen moves. After another seven moves, Tejas was mated. On 4th Board, Mike Zwolenik beat Fremd's Mihir Awati.

On 5th Board, Kevin Kostka played the King's Gambit against Fremd's Meyo Ramu. Kevin's aggression was rewarded when Meyo went wrong in a position where both player's king's were under pressure. On 6th Board, Parth Patel got away with a reckless attack when Fremd's Greg Bryant's failed to make use of a file that Parth obligingly opened against his own king.

On 7th Board, Dhruvin Talati spotted several nice tactics to beat Fremd's James Cheng. Drhuvin played at a slightly less frantic pace than last year but still managed to complete fifty moves in fifteen minutes. On 8th Board Maksimillion Zwolenik's first time jitters were exploited by Fremd's Chir Norys. Unfortunately, I could not follow the game score well enough to make any comments.