GAME NIGHT: Cheetos hung from my lower lip… I was losing the battle for control over the bean-bag chair to my youngest son, but I no longer cared… Something amazing had just happened, and I took it as a sign of things to come…Our newest, and youngest team member had just secured a crushing advantage in his game, and unless my eyes deceived me, it seemed that both Robby and Jandi were about to do the same. Lev had already drawn his game (which was a good as victory in my book). The match was ours! Assuming yours truly doesn’t lose every game he plays in the USCL this year, the Scorpions are a force to be reckoned with in the West!
To the impartial observers and unbiased spectators, the match seemed to be under Arizona’s control right from the outset: Jandi was better from the get-go with white (in a Catalan, which meant little losing chances); Levon equalized on move 7 (literally) with black; Pasalic seemed hell bent on achieving a clearly worse position, and Robby clearly smelt blood; while David was playing in his own backyard with a Najdorf – English Attack, and after his opponent’s 17.Rd2? Blunder, black was playing a piece up against only temporary compensation.
With that said, anyone “close” to the team and some of our heartbreaking losses from last season would know that until Mitkov resigned, nothing was certain from my point of view. Most people saw something at least similar to my game evaluations noted above, but what I saw (at least for a while) was a little different: “Controversy” with our top board that almost saw him lose his cool completely, only to outplay Mitkov for the second time and achieve a crushing attack; “The Kite-Master”, or “Wave-Runner”, or whatever they call him these days miss several wins (and yes Robz, I would have played Rc7!!!); and young David almost lose control around move 30 (so many pawns, yikes), only to settle down and finish off the game in style (good job David!). Oh, and Lev drew…Just joking Lev, I love your energy!
Seriously though, I was very proud of our team! Every single one of them played outstanding chess. Really they did, check out the games, no, I am serious, do it, check them out, they really played great! I hope that this first victory, especially when you consider the fashion in which we won, truly is a sign of things to come. Now, hopefully I can win at least one game this year and give our team some hope (they only put me on the team because of lack of options, literally, I stunk up the joint last year). Go Scorpion Nation, Baby!!!
Until next time…
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