Knights Need Help from Queens

Alas, the New York Knights went down to defeat last night in the US Chess League at the hands of the Philadelphia Inventors. The first two boards, Irina Krush and Yuri Lapshun, lost; Robert Hess drew, and Irina Zenyuk won. The last round of the regular season is next week, and the Knights have an outside chance of reaching the playoffs. They will need to defeat the New Jersey Knockouts and score at least a full win more than the Baltimore Kingfishers achieve against the Queens Pioneers. So how about a little cross-borough cooperation, with the Pioneers doing their part to help their Manhattan brethren?

The Knights can’t yet get it together when their star Hikaru Nakamura is otherwise occupied. He is off in Barcelona crushing grandmasters by making his moves at his usual breakneck speed.

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New York Pins Hope on Wild Knight

The New York Knights have to win tonight if they are going to have a shot at the playoffs in the US Chess League, but their top man, Hikaru Nakamura, is in Barcelona kicking butt in the nine-round Casino de Barcelona tournament there (the Web site is in Catalan!). The White Plains wonder is in uncontested first place in Spain after five rounds, with three wins and two draws.

Filling in for Hikaru in New York is not No. 2 Knight Pascal Charbonneau but wild-man alternate Yuri Lapshun (shown above), whose outre openings are often crowd-pleasers. He is one of the few international masters to venture the Orangutan, the shoving of the queen-knight pawn two squares on move one. He’ll have Black tonight against the Philadelphia Inventors, and the action starts at 7:00 PM on the Internet Chess Club.

The Knights will have to break the spell of needing Nakamura in order to win.