Well, the game is on as the New York Knights have White against our Boston Blitz in tonight’s semi-final. If there is such a thing as home field advantage, Boston has it in the draw odds factor. Due to Boston’s better season record, they will advance in the case of a draw. Believe me, this is a big advantage in match play.

To call this a grudge match is understating things. The BOS – NY rivalry crosses all boundaries in Boston… from Baseball to Tiddlywinks… we just can’t lose to the “Evil Empire”… can we?

The history is that NY beat us in a semi-final match in 2006 and Boston returned the favor in 2007. So, this is the big one… the “Naahh! Naahh! Na Naahh! Naahh!”… We’re the best of all-time… match of the decade. So, let’s get ready to Rumbbblllleee… as manager Jorge Sammour-Hasbun has put up his 10th new lineup (in 11 matches) this year… and a very surprising one it is.

GM Giorgi Kacheishvili (NY) vs. GM Larry Christiansen (BOS)

This was an automatic for Boston. Larry is the heart of the team and must return to form for Boston to go far into the playoffs. On the other hand, GM Kacheishvili has shown top form in the last match of the regular season as he overcame Jorge’s slightly unsound attack for a nice victory in week 10. I predict a no holds barred, barn burner.

GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) vs. GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY)

This will be a tough one for Eugene… witness their last league encounter in 2007 where GM Charbonneau won GOTW as Black. Eugene has been rock solid with White this year and is playing well. Will he return to his favorite English… or venture e4. I have no clue on this one, but expect some heavy preparation from both sides… maybe a theoretical novelty?

NM Matt Herman (NY) vs. NM Vadim Matirisov (BOS)

This was the shocker pairing of the match. What happened to Marc or Anya? Third board was expected to be advantage Boston in either case… Now, the pressure is on Vadim who turned in his best performance of the year last week in an easy romp over NY’s NM Erenburg on 4th board. Vadim is always well prepared and I expect a very close battle here. This may be the swing game of the match.

NM Ilya Krasik (BOS) vs. NM Yaacov Norowitz (NY)

This was another automatic for Jorge for as much as Larry is the heart… Ilya must be the soul. Ilya is in good form at this season’s end. Expect him to be theoretically accurate and to complicate whenever he gets the chance. NY must have anticipated this matchup… which manager will get the pat on the back after this one is anyone’s guess.

Has Jorge overdone the strategy in this match? We’ll know tonight. But, that’s the way it always is in Boston – NY matches… the manager always suffers the second guessing of us fans… win or lose. But, right now… we’re with you all the way Jorge… Go Boston!

Once again the Blitz lose two in a row and have put themselves into a position to break their own “never lost three in a row” streak when they face Baltimore next week.  Not only that, but they have given all the teams below them a huge confidence boost in the race for the 4th and final play-off spot.  Of course, they didn’t necessarily go out of their way to put themselves in that position and actually things should have been different if Boston had reeled in the full point on the top board.

The night started off badly with Ilya Krasik going down in flames to Matthew Herman, falling into a mate in two.  About the only amusing aspect of that game was that fellow NY player, Greg Braylovsky, actually predicted while watching the game on ICC that Krasik would play …Nd8 allowing the mating combination to be played.  I guess it was more wishful thinking on his part at the time but Krasik’s king position was already starting to look like he was on shaky ground, even without the sudden and abrupt end to the game.

After that things went really down hill on board 1 where GM Larry Christiansen was having his way with fellow GM Pascal Charbonneau.  Charbonneau has really handed it to the Blitz on numerous occassions and his curse over the top players for the Blitz (except Jorge Sammour-Hasbun) continued as he miraculously swindled the Blitz All Star after been in a totally losing position.  After the game Charbonneau actually apologized to Christiansen, with his win putting the Knights up 2-0 in the match.

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Boston Blitz vs New York Knights
Monday, October 6, 7:00 pm

The Boston Blitz have the chance to kill off the wounded Knights on Monday night by doing the double over their fierce USCL rivals.  The Knights currently sit at the bottom of the East with a 1-5 record and they are chasing the Blitz (and Carolina) for that final play-off spot.  One more loss and surely they will find the task of making the play-offs this year too much, needing to win all their remaining games while hoping for other teams, such as Boston and Carolina to lose all theirs.  I guess stranger things have happened, the final week of the 2006 regular season for instance, but this would require three such weeks in a row.

While the Blitz always love to put one over the Knights, a much more important reason to get a result is to put last week’s drubbing against Philadelphia clean out of their minds.  It was just one of those weeks were everything went wrong, similar to the previous week against San Francisco when everything went right.  This year the Blitz are having what could be termed as an “average” season with 3 wins and 3 losses on the match front and 12 game points out of a possible 24.  Such a team should not be just “average” though and you can feel the disappointment within the Blitz camp about their season so far, such is the competitive nature of the players on the roster this year.

This week’s match sees the Blitz go with one of their stronger line-ups, using both of their Grandmasters.  GM Larry Christiansen will take the hot seat on board 1 against GM Pascal Charbonneau.  Up until last year’s loss to Jorge Sammour-Hasbun, Charbonneau had been a true thorn in the side of the Blitz, having never lost in any games against the Blitz and having scored some crucial victories at key moments.  However, that loss against Sammour-Hasbun put an end to the “curse” and so Christiansen will be hoping he can keep the momentum going and finally really get the monkey off the team’s back.

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The Boston Blitz started of their 2008 campaign with a 3-1 trouncing of arch rivals, New York Knights.  Wins from Jorge Sammour-Hasbun on board 1 and Ilya Krasik on board 4 were the highlights of an exciting quartet of games.

Going into the match New York’s top player for this year, GM Alex Shabalov, had been doing some serious trash talking by stating that he could beat the entire Blitz team in a simul and that he was 20-0 against Sammour-Hasbun.  Thanks to this, the Blitz management team certainly didn’t have to give any type of pep talk before and you could feel that the players were pumped up for this one.

Board 1 followed a line from a recent Topalov-Kramnik game that involved a piece sacrifice as early as move 11 and, with Shabalov’s novelty on move 16, the fight began.  A very tactically rich and complicated position arose, the type that both Shabalov and Sammour-Hasbun excel in.  In fact Sammour-Hasbun deliberately tries to steer his games into these melees, even if at the cost of it not been theoretically the best continuation.

Shabalov ended up with a great attack but Sammour-Hasbun cooly defended the position and eventually obtained some much needed counter play.  When the dust settled, Sammour-Hasbun was a piece to the good and it was a matter of technique in finishing off his Grandmaster opponent.  Eat your words Shaba!

Down on board 4 Ilya Krasik was the first Blitz player of the night to finish and he did it in style.  His opponent, Evan Rosenberg, possibly overlooked a neat tactic (Bc8) which clearly leads to a winning position.  Despite Rosenberg’s best efforts to complicate the position, Krasik calmly consolidated his king position and Rosenberg ran out of time in a hopeless position.

One of last year’s All-Stars, Denys Shmelov, was the next to finish as he finished up having to take a draw against his IM opponent, Jay Bonin, on board 3.  Shmelov and Bonin played each other three times last year and their records remained at an even split after the match.  Bonin played the opening quietly and obtained a slight edge.  Shmelov decided to sacrifice a pawn to open up the play but Bonin defended and, when given the first opportunity, was quick to trade off queens into a drawn ending rather than try to win by holding the extra pawn, a decision that mystified most people watching given the match situation.  Having turned down an earlier draw offer, there was nothing Shmelov could do to prevent the inevitable as Bonin traded off as many pieces as possible leaving the position totally lifeless.

IM Dave Vigorito made his Blitz debut and had a hard fought, complicated draw, against Gregory Braylovsky.  Braylovsky sacrificed a pawn for some active piece play in the middle game leaving Vigorito’s pieces on awkward squares.  However, it is not clear how Braylovsky could have made use of his better piece placement.  After some careful manouvering, Vigorito managed to turn the tables and put Braylovsky on the back foot.  In the end a draw was agreed with each player having about 2 minutes remaining on their clocks.  The final position needs some analysis but Vigorito was happy to accept a draw as he had noted that Sammour-Hasbun was winning and this left the Blitz 2-1 up, needing just a draw in the final game to clinch the match.

This fantastic win puts the Blitz in a great position as defending Eastern Division Champions and will send shockwaves around the league after nobody gave the Blitz much of a chance given the absence of their GMs.  A truly magnificent and satisfying result.

Look out for Mark LaRocca’s Beat Reporter post that should be up in a couple of days and an entertaining interview with some of the Blitz players after the game.  A photo gallery from the event is already posted.