Philadelphia Inventors eliminated from the Playoffs

Well, it is not much of a shock that they wouldnt make the playoffs, but it is too bad that they are now actually mathematically eliminated. They lost 2.5-1.5 to Baltimore. They still have 2 more matches, though, and can maybe try and build up something going into next year.

Taking a look at the standings, one very interest stat just jumps out of the page at me. The Philadelphia Inventors have a 41% winning percentage games wise, but are dead last in match standings. Yep, there were a lot of close but losing matches over the course of this season. The Inventors game wise are tied with Manhattan, which is currently in 5th place with 3.5-4.5 and fighting for a playoff spot. That is just the way match chess goes, the team has to click at the right times.

Looking forward, though, this is pretty promising. Depending on roster moves, I dont think anyone can count out the Inventors from the get go next year. They are much closer to a playoff spot then their match record indicates, and that is nice silver lining.

I am not sure if they actually have team MVPs in the US Chess League, but my nominee would be Tom Bartell. He has an 4 out of 7 (2 wins, 4 draws, 1 loss), was undefeated up until this past week, and has fairly consistently been playing higher rated players. Indeed, his only loss of the year was against GM Sergey Erenburg, who is rated 200 points higher than him. His memorable win over GM Boris Gulko was a great way to start the season for the Inventors. It has been a bit of an unfortunate year for the Inventors, but Bartell has done a great job holding his own on the top boards, often against higher rated opponents. Unless I am missing something, the only game Bartell had against a lower rated opponent was his draw against Chicago's IM Angelo Young. That makes his 4 out of 7 pretty impressive, in my opinion. Nice work, Tom Bartell!

There are still two more matches, though, so maybe another Inventor will make a case for himself.

For Week 9, the Philadelphia Inventors will play the Manhattan Applesauce. I like the name by the way. Good luck to the Inventors!

Thomas Bartell's Analysis of his Gulko Game and other Links

Hey everybody, just wanted to add a few links about the Philadelphia Inventors. First off, congratulations to Tom Bartell for winning the the 1st Week Upset Prize. Here is his analysis of the game.

As a reminder, the Philadelphia Inventors play this Wednesday against the Boston Blitz.

It is going to be a very interesting match. Neither side has much of an edge rating wise, though the Blitz have about a 40 rating point advantage total. For the Inventors, Magesh Panchanathan and Kavinayan Sivakumar will be making their 2010 debuts. Bryan Smith will be playing this week on Board two, and Tom Bartell will be playing on Board three.

I will post a more in depth preview of this match tomorrow.

Also thanks to PK Sivakumar for a nice write up of my blog. It should be an exciting season for the Inventors and I am glad to be covering it! Hopefully I will learn a thing or two as well ;)

EDIT: Bartell won 3rd Place for the Game of the Week!

2010 Philadelphia Inventors 8/23 Match Recap

Well, this is pretty cool. The Philadelphia Inventors won their first match with a score of 3 to 1. The Inventors played Smith, Bartell, Dehmelt and Costigan. This line up was very strong on the bottom boards, and as it turned out, the Inventors secured 2 points from the lower boards. Karl Dehmelt beat Arthur Shen and Richard Costigan beat Sean Finn. Unfortunately, Bryan Smith lost to Joel Benjamin on the top board, but the Tom Bartell was able to beat Boris Gulko. Judging from the Philadelphia Inventor's line up, this type of victory may be common this year. The Inventors dont have the highest rated players in the league on their roster, but this allows them to have more depth on the bottom. I am not sure if it is strategy or just chance, but it could definitely work out well for the Inventors.

Lets not get ahead of ourselves though ;)

Here, I am just going to post up the games with a few comments after each of them. Depending on how the rest of my week goes, I may or may not do some in depth analysis of these games.



Well, at least this game was interesting. The c6 followed almost immediately by c5 is a very interesting idea in the Caro-Kann. 14. g5 was another interesting idea, as Black greatly restrains White's position, especially those doubled f pawns!



Here is a very cool game. White takes central control and better piece activity for Black's better presence on the Queen side. Black is able to neutralize White's activity, and then his Queen side pawn majority wins the game.



White gets a grip on the light squares, especially d5, and Black cannot contend with this. Well, it was a little more complicated than that, but that is part of it!



Black gets some nice piece activity out of the opening and is able to slowly convert his advantage into a win.

Well, that is a wrap for the recap. Maybe some more in depth analysis will be coming soon. If you want to check out the other games, you can find them here. The next match is Wednesday, September 1. The Inventors play the Boston Blitz, who incidentally got 4-0ed this week! It should be an interesting match.

2010 Philadelphia Inventors: Thomas Bartell

Well, the US Chess League starts tomorrow and I have 7 more of these player profiles to do!

Lets get right to it then.

Thomas Bartell is a Fide Master from Media, Pennsylvania, which is a hop and a skip away from Philadelphia. He teaches chess, and you can get online lessons from him. Going to have to make these short, so that is all for the biography!

Here are some of Bartell's games.



As a 1. Nf3 player, this game makes me pretty excited. This is exactly the type of half tactical half positional games that are so fun to play that come from 1. Nf3. Bartell gets some center passed pawns, and simplifies down to a Knights vs Bishops endgame that he is able to win. Cool stuff!



Here is an e4 game where Bartell is plays against Black's doubled pawns, and then isolated pawns.



Here, Bartell upsets former US Chess Champion Yuri Shulman.

I am not sure if Bartell has an International Master norms at this point, but he is only about 20 points away from the 2400 FIDE rating mark necessary for the International Master title. If he has got the norms, it will be exciting to see if he can get his rating over that 2400 mark.

Good luck to him!