Yesterday, the UW team had a huge test and played their main rival, USC, in an Internet Collegiate Chess League exhibition match. The two rivals were very evenly matched and the outcome was not known until the very end.

Going into this seasons match, the UW team thought that they would do very well in the first two boards as they have a National Master and a former champion of Holland playing. However, the resilient USC team proved that this was wishful thinking and USC almost managed to win both games.

The 3rd board game was concluded 40 minutes into the match when Paul Reeves from UW found a mating combination against Jason from USC. Things were looking good so far for the UW club as the other games were generally in favor of the UW players, but the UW National Master was facing difficulties.

UW 1, USC 0

Now, all attention was focused on the 4th board match up which set the tone for the entire match. In this match, the UW player, Brian Mason, had his USC opponent, Nick Matelli, in a positional bind. With resilient and patient play, Nick managed to counter-attack and picked apart Brian's center, and started his own queenside pawn advance that resulted in two passed pawns, one on the 6th rank. This is when the fireworks started! Brian, now getting into attack mode, sacrificed three pieces to expose the Black King, and it looked like he had mate. However, Nick beat back the multiple mate threats, promoted his pawn, and the game was now over. Match tied at 1-1

At this point, Etan, a National Master from the USC team, built up a solid attack at the defensive minded Curt Collyer from the UW team. It looked like the National Master from UW was in trouble, and he was. USC's National Master finally managed to break through and delivered mate. The UW team was down 2-1 and found itself in a position that it had never been in before.

On the 5th board, Keegan Grady from the UW was making headway against Jason from USC, and after Jason ignored his back rank, Keegan mated his Jason with a back rank mate. Match tied 2-2.

Now, all eyes were turned to the battle on the 2nd board. The two opponents have interesting parallels. Both players are from Northern Europe, and both were respective youth champions. The USC player, Simon, was a former champion from Denmark, and the UW player, while his opponent, Marc Vermulst, was the former champion of Holland,. In the battle between the two northern Europeans; Marc found a way to penetrate Simon's king-side, but time was running out!

When both players had 2 minutes left on the clock, Marc used almost all of his remaining time to figure out his strategy. At this time, all of the UW players were huddled around a distant computer in the May Gates Hall watching the game live, and there was a buzz of energy. After taking most of his time, Marc's attack commenced! After a flurry of moves, Marc only had .5 seconds on the clock in several occasions and Simon was beating back the attack. It appeared that the 5-second increment would not help the UW player, and the UW team would finally lose. However, with just fractions of a second left, Marc managed to snap off a move. After an exhausting couple of minutes, Marc finally built his time up, and won in the end game.

The UW team won-- but it cannot rest on its heels, as the USC team will surely want payback next time.

Results