United States Chess League 2015
The United States Chess League 2015 was the eleventh edition of the United States Chess League , the US team championship in chess.
The champions were the team from Manhattan Applesauce , which prevailed in the final against the defending champion St. Louis Arch Bishops . With the Lubbock Tornadoes , Minnesota Blizzard , the San Diego Surfers and the Las Vegas Desert Rats , four new teams were at the start, while the teams of the Los Angeles Vibe and the Baltimore Kingfishers withdrew, so that the competition was played with 20 teams.
For the reported team squads, see the 2015 United States Chess League team squad .
Game dates
The competitions of the preliminary round ( Regular Season ) took place on 25/26. August, 1st / 2nd, 8th / 9th, 15th / 16th, 22nd / 23rd and 29./30. September, 6/7, 13/14, 20/21 and 27./28. October 2015, five competitions were played per date. The Wildcard Round took place on November 4th, the quarterfinals were played on November 10th, the semi-finals on November 18th, and the final on December 1st. All competitions were played on the Internet Chess Club server .
mode
The 20 participating teams were divided into two groups of ten ( Eastern Division and Western Division ). Each team played twice against a member of the same group and once against the other eight members of the same group. The number of team points (one point for a win, half a point for a draw, no point for a defeat), then the number of board points (one point for a win, half a point for a draw, no Point for defeat). The first six of each group qualified for the final round ( playoff ), which is played in the knockout system . The first two of each group qualified directly for the quarter-finals, while the other eight playoff participants played the four remaining quarter-finals in the wildcard round.
Preliminary round
Grouping
The 20 teams were divided into the preliminary rounds as follows:
| Eastern Division | Western Division |
|---|---|
| New York Knights | San Francisco Mechanics |
| Philadelphia Inventors | Dallas Destiny |
| New Jersey knockouts | St. Louis Arch Bishops |
| Manhattan apple sauce | Rio Grande Ospreys |
| Boston Blitz | Seattle Sluggers |
| New England Nor'easters | Arizona Scorpions |
| Connecticut dreadnoughts | Lubbock Tornadoes |
| Miami Sharks | Minnesota Blizzard |
| Carolina Cobras | San Diego Surfers |
| Atlanta Kings | Las Vegas Desert Rats |
Eastern Division
With the New England Nor'easters, the New York Knights, the New Jersey Knockouts and Manhattan Applesauce, four teams qualified early for the play-off, but it was only in the last round that it was decided which two teams were directly seeded for the quarter-finals and who had to contest the wildcard round. Practically, the Connecticut Dreadnoughts could no longer take the play-off spot, as they had one team point and four board points ahead of seventh place before the final round. The decision about last place in the play-off was made in the final round, in which the Carolina Cobras defeated their direct rivals Atlanta Kings while benefiting from defeats by rivals Boston Blitz and Philadelphia Inventors.
End table
| Pl. | society | Sp | G | U | V | MP | Board P. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | New England Nor'easters | 10 | 6th | 3 | 1 | 7.5: 2.5 | 24.0: 16.0 |
| 2. | New York Knights | 10 | 7th | 1 | 2 | 7.5: 2.5 | 24.0: 16.0 |
| 3. | New Jersey knockouts | 10 | 6th | 2 | 2 | 7.0: 3.0 | 25.0: 15.0 |
| 4th | Manhattan Apple Sauce (D) | 10 | 4th | 5 | 1 | 6.5: 3.5 | 22.5: 17.5 |
| 5. | Connecticut dreadnoughts | 10 | 4th | 3 | 3 | 5.5: 4.5 | 21.0: 19.0 |
| 6th | Carolina Cobras | 10 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 4.0: 6.0 | 17.0: 23.0 |
| 7th | Boston Blitz | 10 | 1 | 5 | 4th | 3.5: 6.5 | 18.0: 22.0 |
| 8th. | Atlanta Kings | 10 | 3 | 1 | 6th | 3.5: 6.5 | 15.5: 24.5 |
| 9. | Philadelphia Inventors | 10 | 3 | 0 | 7th | 3.0: 7.0 | 20.0: 20.0 |
| 10. | Miami Sharks | 10 | 2 | 0 | 8th | 2.0: 8.0 | 13.0: 27.0 |
decisions
| qualified for the quarterfinals: New England Nor'easters , New York Knights | |
| qualified for the Wildcard Round: New Jersey Knockouts , Manhattan Applesauce , Connecticut Dreadnoughts , Carolina Cobras | |
| (D) | Last year's division winner |
|---|
Western Division
Dallas Destiny and the St. Louis Arch Bishops qualified early for the play-off, but only secured direct quarter-final qualification in the last round. The decisions about the other play-off participants were also made in the final round.
End table
| Pl. | society | Sp | G | U | V | MP | Board P. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Dallas Destiny (D) | 10 | 4th | 5 | 1 | 6.5: 3.5 | 24.0: 16.0 |
| 2. | St. Louis Arch Bishops (M, D) | 10 | 4th | 5 | 1 | 6.5: 3.5 | 23.0: 17.0 |
| 3. | Las Vegas Desert Rats (N) | 10 | 2 | 8th | 0 | 6.0: 4.0 | 21.5: 18.5 |
| 4th | San Francisco Mechanics | 10 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 6.0: 4.0 | 19.5: 20.5 |
| 5. | Seattle Sluggers | 10 | 4th | 3 | 3 | 5.5: 4.5 | 22.0: 18.0 |
| 6th | Arizona Scorpions | 10 | 3 | 3 | 4th | 4.5: 5.5 | 19.5: 20.5 |
| 7th | Minnesota Blizzard (N) | 10 | 3 | 3 | 4th | 4.5: 5.5 | 17.0: 23.0 |
| 8th. | Lubbock Tornadoes (N) | 10 | 2 | 4th | 4th | 4.0: 6.0 | 19.5: 20.5 |
| 9. | Rio Grande Ospreys | 10 | 2 | 4th | 4th | 4.0: 6.0 | 18.0: 22.0 |
| 10. | San Diego Surfers (N) | 10 | 1 | 3 | 6th | 2.5: 7.5 | 16.0: 24.0 |
decisions
| qualified for the quarterfinals: Dallas Destiny , St. Louis Arch Bishops | |
| qualified for the Wildcard Round: Las Vegas Desert Rats , San Francisco Mechanics , Seattle Sluggers , Arizona Scorpions | |
| (M) | Champion of the previous year |
|---|---|
| (D) | Division winner of the previous year |
| (N) | first time participating team |
Finals
Overview
| Wildcard Round | Quarter finals | Semifinals | final | |||||||||||
| New England Nor'easters | ||||||||||||||
| bye | ||||||||||||||
| New England Nor'easters | 1½ | |||||||||||||
| Manhattan apple sauce | 2½ | |||||||||||||
| Manhattan apple sauce | 2 | |||||||||||||
| Connecticut dreadnoughts | 2 | |||||||||||||
| Manhattan apple sauce | 3 | |||||||||||||
| New York Knights | 1 | |||||||||||||
| New York Knights | ||||||||||||||
| bye | ||||||||||||||
| New York Knights | 2 | |||||||||||||
| New Jersey knockouts | 2 | |||||||||||||
| New Jersey knockouts | 2 | |||||||||||||
| Carolina Cobras | 2 | |||||||||||||
| Manhattan apple sauce | 2½ | |||||||||||||
| St. Louis Arch Bishops | 1½ | |||||||||||||
| Dallas Destiny | ||||||||||||||
| bye | ||||||||||||||
| Dallas Destiny | 2½ | |||||||||||||
| San Francisco Mechanics | 1½ | |||||||||||||
| San Francisco Mechanics | 3 | |||||||||||||
| Seattle Sluggers | 1 | |||||||||||||
| Dallas Destiny | 1½ | |||||||||||||
| St. Louis Arch Bishops | 2½ | |||||||||||||
| St. Louis Arch Bishops | ||||||||||||||
| bye | ||||||||||||||
| St. Louis Arch Bishops | 3 | |||||||||||||
| Las Vegas Desert Rats | 1 | |||||||||||||
| Las Vegas Desert Rats | 4th | |||||||||||||
| Arizona Scorpions | 0 | |||||||||||||
decisions
| American team champion: Manhattan Apple Sauce |
Wildcard Round
While clear decisions were made in the competitions of the Western Division, both competitions in the Eastern Division ended 2-2, so that the New Jersey Knockouts and Manhattan Applesauce only made it to the quarter-finals because of the better preliminary round positions.
Quarter finals
All competitions saw tight decisions. In the Western Division, the first two won the preliminary round, while in the Eastern Division Manhattan Applesauce defeated the preliminary round winner New England Nor'easters and the New York Knights reached the semi-finals after a 2-2 draw against the New Jersey Knockouts only because of the better preliminary round placement.
Semifinals
In both competitions, the team with the worse preliminary round placement prevailed.
final
In the final, Manhattan narrowly prevailed and won the title for the first time.
Awards
Most Valuable Player
The title of Most Valuable Player (MVP) was awarded on the basis of the preliminary round results. A player received four points for a winning game on the first board, four points were deducted for a defeat. On the second board, 3.5 plus or minus points were awarded analogously, on the third board three and fourth board 2.5. In addition, one point was credited for each winning and drawing game achieved with the black pieces. Elliot Liu (Las Vegas) won the title with 25 points, followed by Alexander Stripunsky (New Jersey) and Andrei Stukopin (Rio Grande) with 23 and 21.5 points respectively.
Rookie of the Year
The title of Rookie of the Year was given to the most successful debutant in the USCL. The title went to Elliot Liu (Las Vegas), who achieved 10 points from 10 games.
Most Improved Player
The title of Most Improved Player should be given to the player who could improve his tournament performance the most compared to his previous participation in the USCL. In the absence of suitable candidates, the title was not awarded this time.
All star teams
Three All Star Teams were nominated. The first team consisted of Swiad Isoria (Manhattan), Varuzhan Akobian (St. Louis), Elliot Liu (Las Vegas) and Nicholas Rosenthal (St. Louis), the second Jeffery Xiong (Dallas), Joel Benjamin (New Jersey), Levy Rozman (Manhattan) and Bryce Tiglon (Seattle) and the third Andrei Stukopin (Rio Grande), Andrej Gorowets (Lubbock), Atulya Vaidya (Dallas) and Jason Shi (Connecticut).
Game of the Year
After each round, a game of the week (was Game of the Week ) chosen from the 13 games of the week as well as seven other games ( wildcards ) the game of the year (was Game of the Year ) selected. The title went to the wildcard nominated game between Alexander Katz (New England) and Giorgi Katscheishvili (Manhattan), who only came third in the game of the week in the ninth round (game of the week was Swiad's winning game Isoria (Manhattan) against Mika Brattain (New England), who finished 18th in the annual ranking). In second place followed the winning game by Jeffery Xiong (Dallas) against Alejandro Ramírez (St. Louis) from the third round. Third place was also a game nominated by wildcard, namely Illja Nyschnyk's (St. Louis) win against Kayden Troff (Las Vegas), who had to be content with third place in the quarter-finals' game of the week (Game of the week was the draw between Pascal Charbonneau (New York) and Joel Benjamin (New Jersey), which came in sixth in the annual ranking).
The championship team
| 1. | Manhattan apple sauce |
 |
Alex Lenderman , Giorgi Katscheischwili , Swiad Isoria , Irina Krush , Aleksandr Ostrovskiy , Alec Getz, Levy Rozman, Venkat Iyer, Ben Gershenov, Hans Niemann, Akira Nakada, Keith Espinosa. |
Web links
- Schedule on the USCL homepage
- Preliminary round tables on the USCL homepage (English)
- Final round results on the USCL homepage
- Overview MVP on the homepage of the USCL (English)
- Player statistics on the homepage of the USCL (English)
- Games of the Week on the USCL homepage