"New York Knights extinguish Chicago Blaze in chess championship"

Bummer.

Listen to the podcast of WBEZ's coverage here!


 Chicago Blaze (10.0 – 2.0) vs New York Knights (7.5 – 4.5) 
                                 

Chicago Blaze			New York Knights
GM Mesgen Amanov: 2576	0.0	1.0	GM Giorgi Kacheishvili: 2653
GM Dmitry Gurevich: 2547	0.5	0.5	IM Irina Krush: 2560
IM Angelo Young: 2415	0.0	1.0	SM Matt Herman: 2426
NM Gopal Menon: 2222	1.0	0.0	John Fernandez: 2129
Avg Rating: 2440			Avg Rating: 2442
Chicago Total -------	1.5	2.5	------- New York Total

Knights Win USCL Title

In “stunning reversal of fortune,” losers are heroes in tiebreaks

Congratulations to the New York Knights, who have defeated the Miami Sharks to win the 2009 U.S. Chess League Championship. Last night's regulation match ended in a draw. As the USCL site reports:

“For the fourth year in a row the USCL Finals came down to a blitz tiebreaker. Two players lost during regulation, GM Giorgi Kacheishvili and IM Alejandro Moreno Roman. In a stunning reversal of fortune, both of these players were heros in the blitz tiebreaker. Moreno Roman knocked off everyone on New York's team except for Kacheishvili. Kacheishvili then turned around and did the exact same thing to Miami, finishing things off by defeating GM Julio Becerra with the black pieces.”

Perhaps because the Chicago Blaze were not in the playoffs, I have been remiss, I must admit, at covering the fairly exciting post-season action in the USCL, and as it happens I don't have time to redress that neglect at the moment with a lengthy post (all the usual excuses). Go to the USCL site to see all the playoff games.

In due course I'll try to bring Blaze fans up to speed on the thrilling 2009 USCL postseason.

(Cross-posted from Chicago Blaze blog)