Blaze Push Dallas Destiny into Oblivion in Round One of Playoffs

Skokie Deputy Police Chief Michael Pechter initiated the Blaze's foray into the USCL playoffs last evening with a solid 1. d4 pawn push on behalf Grand Master Yury Shulman on Board 1.4 hours, and 67 moves later, Yury was able to close out the game with a victory, which secured a 2-2 score against the Dallas Destiny. Since the Blaze had draw odds, based on its best- in- the-league regular season performance, the team will advance to the Western Division Championship match against the LA Vibe next week.

National Master Sam Schmakel, a sophomore at Whitney Young High School, again scored a key victory by coming from behind to defeat 10 year prodigy FMJeffrey Xiong (2336 USCF) in a nail-biter of a match on on Board 4. Sam is now an amazing 5-0 in this, his rookie season for the Blaze!

On Boards 2 and 3, GM's Friedel and Amanov came up short in tough matches against GM Julio Sadorra and IM Conrad Holt, respectively.

Round 2 of the playoffs against the LA Vibe is set for next Monday evening, November 14th, at 8:00 pm , November 14th at Skokie's North Shore Chess Center. The Blaze will look to come out smoking. Stay tuned, and go Blaze!

For a complete coverage of this week's Blaze match, as well as Trevor Magness' weekly puzzle for scholastic players based on this week's Blaze games, visit theChicago Blaze Blog.