Well, the regular season just ended but not before a lot of drama in final rd 10 action where Boston took on Queens. It was a strange match from the get go because both Queens and Boston had already clinched a playoff spot, yet the result would determine whether we play again or not. We brought a two GM lineup along with Marc and myself, I was a bit surprised to see I’m playing because I told Matt that I am taking this week off. Why such overkill I asked Esserman on Sunday night… he murmured something about them disrespecting us and that we need to teach them some respect… OK I guess we did.

The match didn’t start so well for us as it was clear Esserman was suffering in his game vs Lenderman aka the only true Professional. I don’t know why but Lenderman has a penchant to suck up to other players but in this instance he was shouting things like GO Knights and I will beat hated Boston for you… He also said Esserman has no technique and that he is no more than 2250-2300 strength. I am sure Marc prepared quite seriously for Lenderman, addictive style he calls it. Yet it was Lenderman with a huge edge out of the opening. I kept hearing grunts behind me, it was quite “heavy.” At some point Marc put on his heavy winter coat that looks warm enough to withstand Alaskan winter and even put a hood over his head, this evoked heavy laughter from Chrissy the Bear Williams sitting in the first row who almost collapsed.

We drew first blood when Larry plowed through Schneider’s position like a bulldozer, the game was soon over.  Larry tried to downplay the win in speaking to local fans, OK Schneider is not Karpov but I was quite impressed.  In the meantime my game (will be annotated later) was going quite well, I had a good position and built up quite a significant time edge due to probable confusion of Mr Katz. It became especially acute after I played 11…f6!, which killed another 25 minutes off his clock, the clocks now read 61 Black, 21 white. Katz decided on a pawn sac which I anticipated but that didn’t bring him much relief. My technique in converting my advantage was quite terrible, I missed many chances to completely shut him down. I went for complication grabbing pawns on b2 and a3, 24…e4! instead of Qxb2?!. Eventually Katz uncorked a stunning 27. Nh4!! which after my inaccurate 29…Kh6 (but even Kg8 isn’t so simple to win) should have led to a draw with a simple Rf4. In time pressure, to my amazement Katz missed this opportunity and played the very greedy and bad 30. Qxd4???? after which I played the decisive 31…Qe7!. That was a game winner because White is unable to regain back the piece due to a back rank mate! After taking once on f8, Rxf8 Katz realized this and resigned… too bad as I would have loved to mate him

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