John Gurczak – player on the Arizona Scorpions here.  Heading into week 4, the Scorpions are sporting a perfect record in the league (3-0) and are looking to improve upon it. This week they are facing the Dallas Destiny, one of the most successful teams in the league over the years, but a team that has struggled as of late. With each team using a balanced lineup, this is going to prove to be yet another exciting match up. Now let’s take a look at each match up in greater detail…

Board 1

IM Salvijus Bercys (2467) vs. IM Levon Altounian (2496)

Bercys is a devoted d4 player and looking at Lev’s recent games there is a good chance he could play a QGA or some 1…d6 sideline. My database has no record of these two players playing and I expect Lev to hold his own and secure the draw.

Board 2

FM Warren Harper (2408) vs. IM Julio Sadorra (2471)

This is an important match up for the Scorpions since Warren is an underdog. Warren does have white though and can play practically anything on move 1, so it’s tough to predict any particular opening. Given his strong results as of late, particularly in the U.S. Junior where he was able to string together 3 straight wins to start the tournament and defeat Ray Robson in the last round; I think Warren will come through with the victory.

Board 3

FM Keaton Kiewra (2361) vs. IM-Elect Robby Adamson (2363)

These two players played against each other last year with colors reversed and Kiewra got the best of Robby that game. After speaking with Robby I don’t think he will allow for this to happen again. I expect the game to start out as either a Sicilian or French and to be a hard fought game. In the end, I predict Robby will hold down the draw.

Board 4

David Adelberg (2275) vs. Bayaraa Zorigt (2240)

David is making his season debut this week versus a familiar opponent. These two players faced each other last year with the colors reversed except the result of that game went our way. David has continued to show improvement over the past year and given he has white this time around, I predict he will come out on top.

In the end I see the Scorpions defeating the Destiny 3-1 and improving their record to 4-0! Thanks to fellow Scorpion, Nick Thompson, or editing.

The Arizona Scorpions have officially broken over 100 fans on Facebook in a little under 5 days on the website. We have 108 fans officially now and it will hopefully continue to climb. To visit the Facebook Scorpion Fan Site or to become a fan there you can click here. Invite your friends!   Go Scorpions!

The Scorpions have joined Facebook and Twitter. You can become a fan of the Scorpions by visiting their Facebook page.

You can also make comments on Twitter about the Scorpions anytime…including during matches! You will see new Twitter feeds on the right as they accumulate.

Good luck to the Scorpions on Wednesday! The match will be starting at 6:00 PM AZ time and 9:00 PM ET. The match will be in Tucson, AZ at the University of Arizona, Cesar Chavez building room 406.  Hope to see you all there or on ICC!

GM Susan Polgar announced today that Danny Rensch has been invited (and confirmed) to play in the next SPICE Cup. The SPICE Cup is an international FIDE tournament, to be held September 19-29, at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX.

Danny will be hunting for his final IM norm.

FM Danny Rensch of Arizona has confirmed his participation in the SPICE Cup B
group. I was so impressed when I read a story about him. That is why I decided
to invite Danny to give him an opportunity to earn his third and final IM norm.

Group B will be a 10-player round-robin event (Category 11-12). So far the confirmed players are:

1. IM Gabor Papp 2558 – HUN
2. IM Davorin Kuljasevic 2547 – CRO
3. GM Eugene Perelshteyn 2537 – USA
4. GM Andre Diamant 2519 – Brazil
5. IM Ben Finegold 2513 – USA
6. IM Ray Robson 2496 – USA
7. IM Gergely Antal 2479 – HUN
8. FM Danny Rensch 2392 – USA

Good luck Danny! We hope you get your norm (and title)!!!

Welcome to the new Arizona Scorpions website.

The Arizona Scorpions are part of the US Chess League.

The newly created 9 Queens Foundation, created by Tucsonan Jean Hoffman and WGM Jennifer Shahade, recently ran a large tournament in Tucson with the famous rap star and avid chess player and fan, RZA. You can find out more about the 9 Queens foundation at http://www.9queens.org/. Many of Tucson’s junior players helped run the main blitz tournament as well as some other events, such as a simul, blindfold chess, teaching sessions and much more. A three part video about the event can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/J9QUEENS.