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.

ZWISHENZUGS

I, Superjem, together with Superpeon, made a 4545 league team. This tournaments' time control is 45 minutes and a 45 second increment per move. We joined this league because its a good practice for our chess skills and the team that wins gets a one month extension. Our team is called ZWISHENZUGS and it is composed of six members. The members are the team captain Superjem, assistant team captain Superpeon, third board Darkwizard1, ICC tournament manager Ehab, and the two alternates, my friends crazyhorses and seattleblues. We just passed through the qualifiers with a one point margin in the tiebreaks. I'll just make a recap of what happened on our six qualifying rounds. We did pretty well during the first four rounds. I and Superpeon won our first four games which always gave us a big edge against our opponents. Our only problem is Ehab. He lost his first three games due to miscalculated sacrifices which leads to his defeat. Luckily, Darkwizard1 always scored the last needed point to clench every round. We have already decided to give Ehab a rest and let our alternate crazyhorses play. Unfortunately, a misunderstanding between me and Superpeon made us forget to give our new line up. We won the first three games of the fourth round and we have already won the round. Ehab also won the fourth game which gave us a 4 - 0 win against our opponents. By this round, we were already one and a half point ahead of the second team. With only two rounds to go, we only needed one more match point and we would qualify. In the fifth round, we are to play against the solo second, Primates of the Caribbean. Me and my assistant team captain also decided to let Ehab play because he already won a game. We thought that he has fired up and would paly better in the next rounds. In the fifth round, we were instantly down 0 - 1 because Darkwizard1 can't play. He told me that he have an important tournament to play during the week. Fortunately, Ehab fired his best shots against his opponent and got us a point. We were tied 1 - 1. I drew my game against Campagnolo because I joined an early morning tournament in ICC. I woke up at 2:45am, the tournament ended at 8:30am and I stupidly offered to play my 4545 league game at 10:00am. I preffered to get some sleep so I drew when I saw the chance of a repetition. By then, we were tied 1.5 - 1.5. I am not sure what happened with Superpeon, but he unfortunately blundered and lost his game. Now were only leading by a half point and we have to win our last round to qualify. During the last round, Darkwizard1 made some mistake which his opponent Jefferyx instantly capitalized and so we lost a point, 0 - 1. Ehab increased his winning streak to three and made our team equalize, 1 - 1. I scheduled my game at 9:00pm and I have school the next day. I played as fast as I could and my time did not even get below 45 minutes. My opponent intelligently took his time and used it until his very last few minutes. In short, I lost. Now, were in big trouble, 1 - 2. I told Superpeon he had to win for us tie and to qualify. Primates of the Caribbean already won their match point because the first, second and fourth boards won thier games 3 - 0. The tiebreaks is game points and it was very close, ZWISHENZUGS 15 - Primates of the Caribbean 14.5, and with one game left in both teams. Superpeon played some great strategy in the opening. He also played an epic tactic in the middlegame. He won his game and reserved our team a spot in the section's knockout playoffs.