Archive for August, 2008

Lineup for Second Match Announced !

  • Written by lmartinez
  • Posted August 31, 2008 at 7:52 pm

The Lineups for the Second Match have been announced ! This was a match that we immediately spotted when the schedule was released as it was against the Defending Champions, the Dallas Destiny. This team, similar to us, has a very balanced roster almost every round and, as was shown last year, can compete with any team. This will be a competitive match! Okay on to the match ups!

The names listed to the left have White for the game while the names in bold are Scorpion players.

Dallas Destiny vs Arizona Scorpions

Board 1
IM Drasko Boskovic (2507) — IM Levon Altounian (2535)

Board 2
FM Danny Rensch (2411) — IM John Bartholomew (2488)

Board 3
FM Igor Schneider (2397) — FM Robby Adamson (2377)

Board 4
NM Warren Harper (2351) — NM Bayaraa Zorigt (2217)

All the ratings are current and are not the ratings being used for the league. As you can see this will be a very tight match. As I have said from the beginning it will all come down to who plays well and who doesn’t. I have my own feelings about the match but I will leave the predictions to others. Come cheer our team on at the Eastside Chess Club at the Jewish Community Center in Tucson!

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More Comments on the Opening Match

  • Written by lmartinez
  • Posted August 29, 2008 at 11:51 pm

You can find more commentary on the opening match from a video by the US Chess League Commissioner Greg Shahade at http://www.chessvideos.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3682.

You can also see commentary by our second board IM Mark Ginsburg of the match at his blog: http://nezhmet.wordpress.com/

For the match this week the lineups for both teams will be announced Sunday night at this blog. Stay tuned and get ready for the match this Wednesday!

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Game of the Week Results for Week 1- Levon Altounian finishes 3rd!

  • Written by radamson
  • Posted at 9:24 am

The Arizona Scorpion’s own IM Levon Altounian finished third overall (out of 28 games judged) in the just released Game of the Week competition for his fine effort as white against the Chicago Blaze’s IM Jan Van De Mortel. Check out the judge’s rankings at http://usclnews.blogspot.com/2008/08/week-1-game-of-week.html.

Please check out Levon’s comments on this game at http://sazchess.org/reference/palview4/games/USCL/USCL.html. Congratulations Levon!

Also, Jan was kind enough to provide his own insights to the game in the comment section of Leo’s in depth analysis of the Scorpions Week 1 encouter. Thanks Jan! http://arizonascorpions.blogspot.com/2008/08/analysis-and-summary-arizona-scorpions.html. Both Lev and Jan seem to agree in their assessment of the game.

I finished 8th overall in the voting for my win against NM John Burgess. The analysis for my game can be found at the same link.

Each week in the US Chess League (USCL), all of that week’s games are evaluated by three judges (IM Greg Shahade, NM Arum Sharma, and NM Jonathan Hilton), and at the end of the season there is a vote by a different set of judges (to avoid bias by the seemingly emotional response to games by the 3 judges – just partially kidding of course) to determine who wins Game of the Year (for those acronymistic-obsessive compulsiveOCD-driven-nutty chess fans, the abbreviation is GOTY, not to be confused with GOTW – Game of the Week). Should we introduce a new one – GOTWJs?

Not that anyone needs any additional motivation to play well, but there are a few cash prizes awarded for the best games at the end of the season (a whopping $1,000 for first!). Because I was not playing on a team in the USCL last year, I was honored to be one of the game of the year judges and it is a tough job. Even if a game doesnt win GOTW honors, it can still qualify as a wild card entry and be eligible for GOTY.

Root the Scorpions on at the Eastside Chess Club held at the Jewish Community Center this Wednesday, September 3, at 6 pm AZ time, for our Week 2 encounter against the Dallas Destiny – the 2007 Champion. The lineups for both teams will be announced Sunday evening.

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More Pictures! See Also Post Below !

  • Written by lmartinez
  • Posted August 26, 2008 at 10:26 pm



This post and the one below are the many pictures taken at the playing site of the Arizona Scorpions first match. In this post the pictures are taken by James Martin displaying the obvious intensity of the players during the match. James really captured Lev’s concentration during the game.

In the post below are pictures taken by Amanda Mateer that really showed how our team connected and showed the fun parts, including winning and the celebration afterward, of the match.

Both of them did a great job and took some amazing pictures. They both also contrasted in types of photos which was perfect as well. Big thank you again goes out to James Martin and Amanda Mateer !

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Week 1 Photos

  • Written by amateer
  • Posted at 8:20 pm

Hey all!

Here are some pictures from the Week 1 matchup against the Chicago Blaze. (Pictures taken by Amanda Mateer and James Martin)