October 7th, 2010 
Ilya Krasik Truth be told, I found the task of preparing for the recent NJ match to be extremely difficult from a phycological point of view. True, I’m used to playing top juniors on board 4, this is my reward or punishment depending on your perspective. Week in and week out I’m trying to “put the young brats in their place” — occasionally succeeding and occasionally being put into mine . But here I was paired against the lowest rated person I’ve yet faced in USCL and also one who doesn’t seem like a brat at all but is rather well -mannered and well-coached.
In terms of preparation , I saw that she played 1.e4 exclusively but then against any type of Sicilian she would just sideline into the Grand Prix, the Moscow or the Closed. “How disgustingly boring”– I thought to myself as I started looking at various possibilities. In any case, since Anna didn’t have many games to look at, I had to look at what her coach Joel Benjamin does and in the process learn a thing or two about a thing or two . This search got me even more depressed, Joel is some kind of Anti-Sicilian bot. Of course he understands these positions and chess in general very well, but the positions reached are nothing to write home about in terms of excitement.
Anyhow, the world was saved when Anna opened with 1.d4. If I may digress a bit, earlier in the season ,in week 4, when we faced our familiar foes, the NE Northeastas, the opposite occurred. I was playing NM Alex Cherniack, someone whom I played numerous times and just roomed with at the recent Continental Open. He has always played c4 or d4 vs me, here he surprised me with e4, somehow (naturally with my help) survived and when I asked him later whats the deal with e4, he said he has switched two years now…. ok where the hell have I been.
Before we get into my game, I want to briefly recap the other 3 boards as I saw them.
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