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Posted by Steve Farmer, aka StoopidBishop 10/14/13

Arizona seems to be lost somewhere in the Pacific Division as they lose another match, this time to the Connecticut Dreadnaughts.

For the video lovers here is the recap of the entire match:

Board 1 was an exciting match-up for me, Arizona's Mac Molner took on the 'Old Guy' Michael Rhode. I recall back to my days of playing in California and Michael was there, so were names like James Tarjan, Nick DeFirmian, Jack Peters and Larry Christiansen. The 'Old Guys' were well represented on this night - Nice job Mike!

On Board 2 we have Justin Sarkar showing how unprepared he was to face the sneaky Lev Altounian. This was an exciting Queens Gambit Accepted where White was probably lost by move 11! That may be because Lev's 10th move won the Move Of The Week Award.

On Board 3 a positional struggle yeilded neither player much to chase after and a relatively quick draw was agreed to between Mark Ginsburg as White against Leif Pressman.

On Board 4, as often happens, came the most interesting battle of the night. Ben Marmont defended with a Sicilian Defense against Zachary Tanenbaum. What made this struggle interesting is that White got three connected passed pawns on the queenside, then he traded his queen for two rooks and it looked like Ben was going to be able to force a draw when a very unique geometry appeared on the board that is both entertaining as well as educational. Ben missed some chances along the way in time pressure and Zach was able to work his way through the technical issues to win a fine game.

In the end Arizona went down 2.5-1.5 and seems to be all but out of contention.

Coming up for the Scorpions will the the San Francisco Mechanics, that match takes place Wednesday, October 16th starting at 9:00 PM EST. Be sure to tune in!

You will notice that Arizona is fielding their "B" team, this is because Mac, Amanda and Robby are all away for a Zombie Brain Eating Contest, maybe they are actually heading to a chess tournament, but in the spirit of the season I'd like to think otherwise.

I do not expect good results from this line-up and expect a 2.5-1.5 result again with the Scorpions coming out on the short end of the stick.

If this is indeed the end result then Arizona will need divine intervention to make the playoffs. Still, this IS the USCL and anything can happen... keep your fingers crossed!