{"id":5738,"date":"2019-02-26T23:10:25","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T07:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=5738"},"modified":"2019-02-26T23:13:14","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T07:13:14","slug":"closer-to-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=5738","title":{"rendered":"Closer to Fine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the San Francisco Mechanics started out the season with\nthree losses in three matches, there was some understandable consternation in\nthe City by the Bay. Tears were shed. Bad rap lyrics were written. Hope was\nabandoned. (One of those three statements is actually true.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But over the last five weeks, the Mechanics have, by force of will and by force of Daniel Naroditsky, written new lyrics to the season, and these lyrics are much more pleasant to hear. They include catchy lines like, \u201cNaroditsky plays another Game of the Century!\u201d and \u201cZierk takes out their board one!\u201d and \u201cBhat is up two pawns!\u201d and \u201cAndrew Hong is still playing!\u201d (Andy Lee, our commentator, opined half a dozen times that Hong was busted against Conrad Holt. But Hong didn\u2019t get the memo, refused to concede defeat, and eventually scored half a point.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week, we went into our match with the Dallas Destiny in seventh place in the Pacific Division, while Dallas was in first place. On paper, that seems like a mismatch. But a sensational second round propelled us to a 6-2 lead. After a wild final two rounds that saw zero draws in eight games, we managed to hang onto the lead and win 10-6. (In fact, out of the 16 games only two were drawn!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has changed between the lineup that staggered through\nthe first three weeks and the lineup that has been tearing through the league\nfor the last five weeks? Absolutely the most important thing was that Daniel\nNaroditsky, who was a little bit rusty in the beginning, has found his form and\nhas been playing unbelievably creative chess. His performance rating for the\nlast four weeks was 2799, and for this week it would have been even higher if\nhe had not mangled his last-round game against Dallas\u2019s number one board,\nJeffery Xiong. (Fortunately the match was already won, so Danya\u2019s loss to Xiong\ndid not sting too much.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another player who has caught fire is Steven Zierk, who was\nalso perhaps a bit rusty in the beginning but has been outstanding the last two\nweeks. As team manager David Pruess said, on a team with Danya it\u2019s hard for\nanyone else to be the star, but this week Zierk was indeed our MVP, as he\nscored 4-0 on board three. That\u2019s right, he single-handedly wiped out Dallas\u2019s\n#1, #2, #3, and #4 players, often battling back from seemingly perilous\npositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Danya scoring 3-1 and Steven scoring 4-0, we didn\u2019t need much more to win the match, and we got more than enough from Vinay Bhat and Andrew Hong, who scored 1\u00bd apiece. It was Hong, in fact, who scored our ninth and winning point with a checkmate of Dallas\u2019s fourth board, Emily Nguyen, in the last round. Until that we had some anxious moments. We went into the last round with a huge 8-4 lead, but for a little while it appeared we would lose three games (Danya, Steven, and Vinay all stood worse). So we breathed a great sigh of relief when Andrew won his game and clinched the victory. When Steven then fought back and miraculously won his fourth game, it was icing on the cake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Steven was overall our best performer, once again\nDanya had the best game of the night, with his amazing Tal-like combination in\nround two against Cameron Wheeler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Position after 0. \u2026 Kf8. White to move.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FEN: rn2rk2\/1p3qpp\/1Pp2p1N\/p7\/1P2n3\/P5Q1\/1B4PP\/3R1RK1 w – – 0 1 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here Danya is White, and Wheeler has just played 0. \u2026 Kf8 to get out of check. Most likely Wheeler was expecting something along the lines of 1. Nxf7 Nxg3 2. Nd6 Nxf8 3. Nxe8 Kxe8 4. Kxf1, when Black is winning in spite of the fact that he has no pieces developed.  But then Danya hit him with the stunning shot, 1. Bxf6!!
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s an old saying that your opponent can only take one\npiece at a time, and this position is a great example. White\u2019s queen, knight\nand bishop are all en prise, but Black can only take one of them. The big question\nis whether Black might have been able to save the game with 1. \u2026 Nxg3 2. Bxg7++\nKxg7 3. Rxf7+ Kxh6. White has a lot of threats and he can vacuum up the b-pawn\nand\/or the h-pawn, but in retrospect this is the best try for Black. However,\nWheeler most likely thought that he had a clear win with 1. \u2026 gf, and that is\nwhat he played. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Danya doubled down on his attack with 2. Rxf6!!,\nsacrificing a piece on the same square for the second turn in a row. Black has\nto take, 2. \u2026 Qxf6 and now after 3. Qg8+ Ke7 4. Qxh7+ Kf8 it looks as if White\nmight have to settle for a perpetual check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no! Danya played for a win with 5. Rf1! Now Wheeler hit\nhim with the shocking 5. \u2026 Nf2 \u2013 which may be the reason that Wheeler went into\nthis line, because Naroditsky cannot play 6. Rxf2?? Re1+ with mate next move\nfor Black. However, Danya got the last laugh with 6. Qg8+ Ke7 7. Re1+!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s mind-boggling that Danya was able to calculate this\nprecise little dance sequence with his queen and rook, along with all the other\nvariations he had to calculate after 1. Bxf6!! \u2013 and he worked it all out in just\ntwo minutes. And there\u2019s no question that he had it all worked out, because he blitzed\nout his moves, proving that he had anticipated Wheeler\u2019s 5. \u2026 Nf2. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From here it\u2019s obvious that White is winning, but just for\ncompleteness here is how it went: 7. \u2026 Kd6 8. Qxe8. Now the threat is 9. Nf7+\nfollowed by 10. Qe4 mate, so Black desperately gave away his rook with 10. \u2026\nNa6 11. Qxa8. The knight on h6 is still taboo because of 11. \u2026 Qxh6? 12. Qd8\nmate, so Wheeler rescued his knight with 12. \u2026 Nd3. And then Naroditsky\nfinished with a flourish: 13. Nf5+! Qxf5 (13. \u2026 Kd5 would fail to 14. Qg8+ —\nas elegant a mating idea as you\u2019ll ever see) 14. Qd8+ Qd7 15. Qxd7+ Kxd7 16.\nRd1, pinning and winning the knight on d3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you look at all the miracles in these variations, you really have the sense that Naroditsky could just close his eyes and throw his pieces on the board, and they would somehow land in the perfect positions. (I know this is a paraphrase of something that was said about somebody else; can anyone remember who?) Somehow this never works for the rest of us, only for the great ones!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After this round we have finally climbed out of the bottom\ntwo in our division. That was goal number one; if we can stay in sixth place or\nbetter then we avoid relegation. Even more exciting, we are definitely within\nreach of fourth place and a playoff position. With two weeks left in the\nregular season, here are the standings in the Pacific Division:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Chengdu \u2013 165<\/li>
  2. Dallas \u2013 165<\/li>
  3. Minnesota \u2013 156.5<\/li>
  4. Australia \u2013 135<\/li>
  5. San Jose \u2013 133.5<\/li>
  6. San Francisco \u2013 128<\/li>
  7. Seattle \u2013 122.5<\/li>
  8. San Diego \u2013 84<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    I don\u2019t know whether Chengdu or Dallas is ahead on\ntiebreaks, but I\u2019ve put Chengdu first because that is how they are listed in\nthe standings on the PRO Chess League website. Next week\u2019s pairings are Chengdu\nagainst Seattle, Dallas against San Jose, Minnesota against San Francisco, and\nAustralia against San Diego. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Looking at those pairings, you\u2019d have to say that Australia\nis favored to strengthen its hold on fourth place \u2013 but the great thing about\nthe PRO Chess League is that you never know what will happen! If we can just\nkeep close to Australia next week, then the Battle Royale in the last week of\nthe season will give us a chance to move past them.
    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When the San Francisco Mechanics started out the season with three losses in three matches, there was some understandable consternation in the City by the Bay. Tears were shed. Bad rap lyrics were written. Hope was abandoned. (One of those three statements is actually true.) But over the last five weeks, the Mechanics have, by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,1363,16,3669],"tags":[4251,749,3701,755,4289,3240,254,1406,1140,1165,605],"class_list":["post-5738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess-clubs","category-current-news","category-positions","category-pro-chess-league","tag-andrew-hong","tag-comeback","tag-dallas-destiny","tag-daniel-naroditsky","tag-didnt-get-the-memo","tag-jeffery-xiong","tag-mating-net","tag-miracles","tag-san-francisco-mechanics","tag-steven-zierk","tag-vinay-bhat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5738"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5743,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5738\/revisions\/5743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}