Thursday, September 04, 2008

NJKOs Fall to Pioneers


Vovsha - Molner
White to play



Katz - Shen 
White to play


In a complete reversal of their success last week, the New Jersey Knockouts fell 1-3 to the Queens Pioneers in Round 2 of US Chess League action last night.  I have posted the games online with light annotations. GM Joel Benjamin had a fine win on Board One but the lower boards were thoroughly outplayed and eventually succumbed to blunders.  The diagrams above depict the winning moments in two of those games.  NJ Champion Mackenzie Molner, who has played some wonderful, crowd-pleasing games in recent years, got into a very passive position against Vovsha due to the weakness of his d6 square and lost rather quickly.  I don't think the Pirc suits his style.

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