March 12 ratings

Tom gets his bonus 2 points

Last	First	12-Mar
Miranda	Thomas	1239
Henry	Mace	873
Priborkin	Anton	786
Sullivan	Frank	792
Nordby	Magnus	755
Philips	Josh	694
McDermott	Thomas	546
Smith	Lendale	432
Hahnfeldt	Carter	369
Barnard	Joe	346
Lee	Keighvin	245
Johnson	Evan	242
Gotham	Angela	220
Meyer	Oliver	216
Nordby	Annikka	220
Kainz	Andres	155
Metz-Taylor	Grant	127
Church	Ben	117
Lee	Aidan	108
Williams	Brigham	100
Meyer	Misha	100

New Ratings

Way to go! Third place! after a second place finish last week. We're definitely one of the top teams in the state! Let's plan on going to MSCA's official USCF State Championships at St. Kates on March 29-30.

Ratings, I adjusted the tables I use to increase the strength of our opponents after seening that Tom lost 50 points after going 4-1.
Tom held his own, Magnus gained a few points, Anton lost a few.

RATINGS AFTER TOURNAMENT 3-8-14

Miranda	Thomas	1232
Henry	Mace	873
Sullivan	Frank	787
Priborkin	Anton	786
Nordby	Magnus	750
Philips	Josh	689
McDermott	Thomas	546
Smith	Lendale	432
Hahnfeldt	Carter	369
Barnard	Joe	346
Lee	Keighvin	245
Johnson	Evan	242
Gotham	Angela	220
Meyer	Oliver	216
Nordby	Annikka	215
Kainz	Andres	155
Metz-Taylor	Grant	127
Church	Ben	117
Lee	Aidan	108
Williams	Brigham	100
Meyer	Misha	100

Latest Ratings 3-6-2014

FHMS By Rating

Last Name	First Name	Rating
Miranda	Thomas	1241
Henry	Mace	873
Priborkin	Anton	829
Sullivan	Frank	787
Nordby	Magnus	742
Philips	Josh	689
McDermott	Thomas	546
Smith	Lendale	432
Hahnfeldt	Carter	369
Barnard	Joe	346
Lee	Keighvin	245
Johnson	Evan	242
Gotham	Angela	220
Meyer	Oliver	216
Nordby	Annikka	215
Kainz	Andres	155
Metz-Taylor	Grant	127
Church	Ben	117
Lee	Aidan	108
Williams	Brigham	100
Meyer	Misha	100

Games from Saturday

In case you were wondering about your opponents' ratings:
Name..Beac Metc Befr Aft
Thomas.unr 1501.1267.1235
Anton..643 1778..816..825
Frank..451 1328..787..789
Josh...437 1026..719..689
Magnus.unr 1319..718..721

The good news is that you guys played absolutely terribly!
Why is that good news? Because if you had played well, we might have had a chance against Metcalf - although looking at the ratings above, they are clearly the better team.
Maybe next week we can do better.

Here's a couple of mistakes that cost games. (I'll add some more positions soon. and recalculate ratings.)

PROBLEM 1. Here Josh falls for the oldest trick in the book. I'm sure I've shown you this. Maybe this time it will sink in. 1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Nxe4 4.Qe2 This is called Petrov's Defense or the Russian Defense.
What's the danger to Josh playing Black? What can he do to prevent disaster?

PROBLEM 2. Max, Magnus's opponent, has just played Qa4 in this position. What was wrong with that? What do you think Magnus did?

ANSWERS

1. If Josh moves his knight, White plays Nc6+ with a discovered check that wins the queen. Josh needs to play d6 attacking his opponent's knight. Qe7 will follow shortly and all will be well.

2. Max is just inviting Bd7 setting up a discovered attack which resulted in the early loss of the Queen and the game. Other things wrong with the move - develop knights and Bishops before the Queen. The queen prefers a central location not stuck on the side of the board. After Black plays Nd4 (a move set up by Max when he moved c3 to c4 on move 3) the queen must retreat to d1 thus totally wasting 2 moves. (Incidentally, two moves later Max castled by moving his king to b1 and rook to c1. Magnus did not object.)

Way to go!! State chess runners-up.

Friendly Hills takes 2nd in State in Jr. League Chess competition.

With wins from Anton Priborkin (his 7th in a row!) and Magnus Nordby and losses from Tom Miranda and Josh Philips, we waited for the deciding match. Frank had a lead, but his opponent had a good attack that Frank stopped by giving up his queen. But Frank still had a good position and was able to capture his opponent's queen eventually securing the game and the match.

In the second match we faced one of the best teams in the United States for the state championship. We found out just how good they are. Although some of the games were close, we lost all 5 games to finish in second place.

Game analyses to come soon.