USCL Weeks 8, 9, & 10
by Levy Rozman
Greetings, beautiful and talented audience. As members of chess.com and enthusiasts of dominant chess performances, you are all invited to join me on this all expense paid trip to Sweepland. Well, just kidding. I'm gassing it up a bit. The Applesaucers' second half of the season came painfully close to being a clean, smooth 5-0, but we actually finished it 4.5/5. It doesn't matter, though. We are a shoe-in for the third seed of the playoffs, we will strike down those who challenge us at the hands of draw odds, and we won't hesitate to smush the competition into FDA waitlisted, genetically modified applesauce.
Having boldly declared us as the evident frontrunner of handsomeness and talent, I shall now move on to the games. We shall begin with our recap of week 8 against Philadelphia.
I mean, let's be real. We were supposed to win this match on paper. And we did. But not without migraines, punching concrete walls, incessant rage, and vulgarities. I am going to begin by looking at Vintage Applesaucer Shvartsman's game against FM Rubenchik. To preserve the sanctity of those reading, I will give this game a PG-13 rating.
Mindboggling. Simply mindboggling. I hope the kids were covering their eyes. ON TO HEADACHE GAME #2!
This wasn't the end of it, though. Robert had to work arduously to convert his game as black, but he's Robert, so he succeeded. Ryan obtained a dominant opening position but squandered it in the end. We were triumphant in the end though. WEEK 9 TIME!
TLDR: We played Arizona. We won our most lopsided match of the entire season. We rock.
Your humble narrator participated in the line-up for week 9 and will show his game first. It was a Trompowsky, and he won. As he rightfully should have.
Self explanatory. Next to me, International Master and avid demolition derby specialist Aleksandr Ostrovskiy beat Mark Ginsburg.
Yada yada yada, we won, taking the train home at 12 AM in New York City is the worst experience ever, yahooooo! Okay, week 10 time.
This was a pretty important week for two reasons: We had to do our best to secure a top spot in the division, and your humble, albeit widely feared Board 4-crushing narrator had to establish himself as a frontrunner for the All Star Team. We played New England and surprisingly they fielded their best line-up of the season. Not that it mattered...
The first game to finish was mine. This time, I was black, and did not face d4 for the first time all season. Find it below.
I think it would only be fair to show the second most interesting game of the evening, which was Vigorito-Shvartsman. Andrew had to rebound from his b3/Rh8 mishap and he did so in exhilirating, Kings Indian Defense fashion!
And so, my beatiful and talented readers, I thank you for staying patient and taking the time to get this far with your eyes and with your hearts. We have done our very best to impress you with a torrid 4.5/5 finish to the regular season, but our mission is not done yet. Soon we will take our talents of smushery to South Beach, where we will face off against the Miami Sharks. Tah tah for now!
