ZWISHENZUGS FALLS

Our team Zwishenzugs played ''Masagatsu Agatsu U2000'' in the 1st round of the eliminations. I played the first game against ''sandham.'' We played the ''English Opening'' and we acquired a interesting middlegame out of it. He made a blunder in the middlegame and I took advantage of it and captured one of his pawns. I played a Queen ending; 4 pawns against 3. I got excited of the thought of giving the first point to my team and I made a stupid blunder. I gave my extra pawn for free. We played some more moves and agreed to half the point. The next game played is ''Darkwizard1 - Ptzz.'' I told Darkwizard1 to do his best, give him some advice and his game begins. They played the very interesting ''Grand Prix'' opening. Both of them did their best and gave us a exciting game. Not much happened in the middlegame, a couple of exchanges happened and they were left with only the heavy pieces. Darkwizard1 played some very good moves in the endgame and won a pawn which he preserved until the very last move. They exchanged the remaining pieces till they were left with only 1 rook. Darkwizard1 was up by 1 pawn and he pressured his opponent using his separated passed pawns. His opponent defended very well and successfully saved his position. Scores are still tied; 1 - 1. Next game was played by Superpeon, our board 2, against Zumbi. Superpeon almost forfeited the round. Fortunately a responsible captain offered times for him. Superpeon played his game very early in the morning. He played the ''Pirc Defense'' and got an equal position out of it. The endgame was quite interesting. An endgame with Rooks and minor pieces is really hard to play. I thought Superpeon will give us the 2 - 1 advantage over our opponents because he had the upper hand; having a knight against a bishop in a closed position. He unfortunately missed a tactic and lost a piece for nothing. We are now at a big disadvantage; 1 - 2. The last game was played by Ehab, our board 4, against PualKaspar. They played the ''Ruy Lopez Opening'' and had an unclear middle game. A protected passed pawn in the queenside got Ehab the upper hand. Ehab played positional mistakes and the opponent wisely controlled the A file. White's knights confused Ehab and he missed a tactic which would have led to a win. PaulKaspar maneuvered his knights and won the game convincingly. We lost to the team ''Masagatsu Agatsu U2000.'' The score is 1 - 3 in favor of our opponents.