Week 1 Preview (Miami Champions vs. Atlanta Kings)
by Miami Champions Managers: National Expert Steve Abrahams & Life Master Bryan Tillis
We have been planning constantly since the league was announced almost 6 months ago. We have contacted hundreds of players, sent thousands (no exaggeration) of emails and now we are faced with opening day! We can only imagine that baseball managers must have similar feelings of helplessness and shear excitement. At this point the results are out of our hand and in the trusted hands of 4 chess professionals.
We will be facing a talented team whom we know quite well from Atlanta. We (Bryan & Steve)met at Castle Chess Camp in Emory Atlanta over 10 years ago and we have had the privilege of working alongside and befriending 3 of Atlanta’s starting lineup for this week and the majority of their team including ATL Manager Grant Oen.
The match-up today will feature a battle of a reunion style. GM Zapata (ATL), GM Abreu (MIA), GM Dominguez (MIA), IM Perdomo (ATL) and IM Lugo (MIA) all know each other extremely well having played each other even in their youth in Cuba and Latin American events.
The two FM's in the battle will surely make the most difference in the result. FM Kazim Gulamali is a tactical machine who has crushed GM's in the past and won many open events. FM Nikhil Kumar has been playing amazingly well lately! The u12 World Champion will look to continue that success and show the world that he belongs among some of the worlds best young players.
We don't know for sure what will happen game to game today, but we do know it will be an extremely hard fought battle between many friends turned rivals.
Tune in at 6:40 pm to chess.com/tv to watch the event live!
