USCL Semi-Finals, IM Josh Friedel Loses K+R vs K+N!

The USCL Semi-Final between Boston Blitz and New York Knights is tonight, and I’m definitely looking forward to the games. There has been lots of live chess action lately with the Tal Memorial and European Championship both being broadcasted on ICC. But all these Super GM tournaments pale in comparison to USCL action!

I expect the New York Knights to beat the Boston Blitz tonight, despite the fact that Boston has draw odds. Nakamura and Zenyuk are both “On Fire”, and Boston has never found a good answer to my fellow Canadian compadre, GM Pascal Charbonneau. The only weak point in the Knights armor that I can see is Jay Bonin on board 3, so as far as I’m concerned this is the most important game of the match. Even though I think the Knights will be victorious tonight, I’ll still be rooting for Boston on boards 3-4, since Chrissy Bear and Shmelov are well…. AWESOME!

In another story, I guess the norm hunt is not going so great for IMs Josh Friedel and David Pruess. They were both 3-0 going into round 4 yesterday in the “Offene Internationale Bayerische Schach Meisterschaft” in Germany (Yes, I have no clue what that says in English). Pruess lost his game very quickly, but Josh managed to lose his game in THE WORST possible way. After grinding down the Greek GM, Stelios Halkias, in a very long game Josh eventually reached the following position:

And lost! I guess Josh had a couple of minutes on his clock when this position was reached and went into a deep think since he realized the position is now winning (the black knight is seperated from king)…. Apparently it was too deep since he ended up losing on time! I guess by FIDE rules, this is declared a loss since there is a possible mating position (White: Kh1, Rg1 Black: Kh3 Nf2 is mate). I think this rule needs to be changed, this is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion! If this had happened to me, I think the TD/Aribiter would be in the hospital right now and I’d be in jail! Despite this awful loss, Josh is still in the hunt for his final GM Norm, but psychologically this has to be very difficult.