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Player Spotlight:
WGM Jennifer Shahade
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Jenn Shahade has been surprising people for most of her
career. In the 2002 US Championships, she wasn't seen as one of the
biggest threats to compete for the title, however she tore through the
field and won the tournament despite facing 6 GM's out of 9 games.
This was remarkable because she had practically never beaten a GM before
the event, yet she managed to knock off GM Sagalchik, and drew with GM
Seirawan, Fedorowicz and Kudrin.
In the 2003 US Championship, she ended up in a three way
tie for the Women's title between IM Irina Krush and eventual title
winner WIM Anna Hahn. Even though Jenn lost the tiebreak, she
again played the strongest field of all the women in the event.
In 2004 there was a lot of controversy over who would gain
the 4th and final spot for the US Women's Olympic team. Once
again, Jennifer rose to the occasion by starting with 4.5 out of her
first 5 and clinching the title with one round to go.
Whereas Jenn has generally excelled in the US Women's
Championship, she has hit a roadblock in the World Women's Championship
every year, being eliminated in the first round in all three of her
attempts.
Jenn is always an exciting player to watch. She
brings a high level of focus and concentration to the board and her
attacking ability and precise calculation often surprises some serious
opposition. Sometimes her lack of intuition in more reserved
positions can lead her to time trouble and cause her to play less
accurately than when her opponent's king is in her crosshairs. For
this reason Jenn often has the most trouble against technical players,
who do what they can to avoid giving Jennifer the initiative.
However Jenn often finds ways of attacking opponents when least
expected. |
Age - 24
Rating - 2311
Style -
Attacker
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Jennifer played last season for the New York Knights. Check out
her annotations of this great win against FM Matthew Hoekstra of the
Carolina Cobras in week five from last season: |
(90) Hoekstra,M (2409) - Shahade,J (2318)
USCL Week 5 Game of the Week (5), 28.09.2005
Notes by Jennifer Shahade
1.d4
I gave up on preparing for this game, because I couldn't figure out
what Hoekstra would likely try against the Grunfeld - and sometimes he
plays the Trompowsky anyway. It's harder to prepare with Black -
you need to just know your stuff.
1...Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 I was happy to see this move. I love
playing Benoni structures against the fianchetto. I also had
some good games with the Grunfeld against g3- but I would prefer to
have refreshed my memory before playing those sharp theoretical lines.
3...Bg7 4.Bg2 c5 5.dxc5
       
  
      
This is not
a theoretical line as far as I know.
5...Na6 [5...Qa5+ I wasn't in the mood to get my queen out
early in this particular game, although it's just as playable as Na6.
6.Nc3 Qxc5]
6.a3 Nxc5 7.b4 I was frankly surprised by this highly ambitious
move - I expected Matt to wait a bit and develop some more pieces
before expanding on the Q-side. As a lifetime e4 player, I can't
relate to the lust for space that Queen pawn players seem to share.
7...Nce4 8.Ra2 0-0 9.Qd3?!
I was
surprised by this move, because it seems to invite black to blast open
the position and take advantage of white's undeveloped pieces and
exposed queen. [While Hoekstra was thinking about his ninth move, I
was trying to figure out what to do against c5 - torn between playing
d6 and sacrificing two pieces for a rook and playing the slightly
pathetic looking h6. I was kind of annoyed because I felt the
position after c5 should hold more resources! 9.c5! cutting off
the Knight's only escape square and threatening the simple f3. 9...d6
(9...h6 10.f3 Ng5 ) 10.f3 Be6 11.Rc2 Nxc5 12.bxc5 Bb3 13.cxd6 exd6
14.e3 Bxc2 15.Qxc2 Rc8 16.Qd2 Nd5! Black has to seize the moment or
White will castle and have a better game. 17.Ne2 Nxe3 18.Qxe3 Re8
19.Qd2 Qb6]
9...d5! Now or never.
10.f3 Nd6 11.cxd5 e6 12.e4
At some
point, I had to stop calculating and trust that my edge in development
would show in critical variations. This move is an example of a
choice I hardly analyzed; it just looked so disgusting to me to open
the files and diagonals for my already active pieces. [12.dxe6 was
what I spent most of my time analyzing- I was worried that White could
force a queen trade here, thus tempering my time-advantage. 12...Bxe6
13.Rd2 Qc7 (13...Nc4 Trading queens is sad in this position, with
White's open king and Black's lead in development. I probably
wouldn't do it, even though Black is doing fine in these variations.
14.Qxd8 Rfxd8 15.Rxd8+ Rxd8 16.Nh3 Nd5 17.0-0 Bd4+ 18.Kh1 Nde3 19.Re1
Bf5 And Black has full compensation for the pawn, but probably not
much more.) 14.Rc2! (14.Qxd6 Qxc1+ 15.Rd1 Qe3 16.Qd3 Qb6 17.Qd4 Qa6
18.e4 Bb3 ) 14...Bc4? This was my idea during the game, but the
surprising (14...Qe7 15.e4 Rfd8 ) 15.Bf4! found by Fritz gives white a
big advantage.]
12...exd5 13.e5 Bf5 14.Qb3 Re8 15.Re2!
The clever
point to e4. Most likely, Hoekstra missed my next move, without
which it's not clear if Black has enough comp.
15...Nb5! A rare landing square for the Knight and an unusual
in between move. White is already in big trouble here. [15...Rc8
I considered throwing in Rc8 here, but didn't like the ugly but
practical move, 16.Kd1 I'm still winning here, but I didn't want to
give White a free chance to unpin his king. (16.Bg5 is another worry,
although this also turns out to be good for Black after nb5.)]
16.exf6 Nd4
17.Qd1
[17.Rxe8+ Qxe8+ 18.Qe3 fails to nc2, which is a major point of the
variation.]
17...Bxf6
During the game I was sure that Bf6 was better than ne2 immediately,
which I didn't like cause white becomes one move closer to castling.
At this point, it was my nightmare for white to give up a small amount
of material and pull off a big O-O. But according to Fritz, Ne2
is just as strong because after Nxe2 ne2 Qf6, the b1-knight is in
take, and there is no graceful way to develop it- Nd2 loses to bd3,
and the c3 square is a landmine - Nc3- Qxc3 and the e2 knight is
pinned. [17...Nxe2 18.Nxe2 Qxf6 19.Bf4 Qb2! 20.Nd2 Bc2]
18.Nc3 Nxe2 19.Ncxe2
Here I was
sure I was winning, but I still nervous. I've always been a little
jealous of players who are so confident of victory that they can enjoy
themselves at the home stretch, screwing the pieces slightly into the
squares, stretching their arms in exaggerated exhaustion at the
effort, thus drawing attention to their beautiful positions. Me,
I was worried here- which was better rc8 or d4, and what if I chose
the wrong move? (Of course, both win)
19...Rc8 20.Kf1 d4 21.Bd2 d3 22.Nf4 Bc3 23.Bxc3 Rxc3 24.Bh3 d2
25.Nge2 Bc2
This wins of
course, but I might have given my teammates a bit of a scare by
allowing my opponent to briefly restore material equality to the
board. Luckily, Hoekstra resigned quickly after the ensuring
transition, so there was no panicky recollections of the fact that
"Three pieces are usually better than a Queen." (But not one queen and
soon to be Queen on d2.) [25...Bxh3+ 26.Nxh3 Qd3 27.Nf2 Rc1 28.Nxd3
Rxd1+ ; 25...Rxf3+ 26.Kg2 Rxf4 27.Nxf4 Be4+ 28.Kg1 Bxh1]
26.Nxc3 Bxd1 27.Nxd1 Re1+
My opponent
resigned as if 28.Kg2 g5!, followed by 29...Qd3, and White cannot stop
Black's invasion. I was still tense here, totally unsure if the
Knights would pull off a win. Jay Bonin had already lost to
Kaminsky an hour ago. Meanwhile, Lew Eisen was down a pawn, but
with compensation and Braylovsky, on Board Two, was involved in a
crazy melee against Lev Milman. Lewis managed to show the power
of two bishops and win within only twenty minutes, and Braylovsky had
traded a rook for four (!) pawns. Gregory had a winning position
at the end of his game, but he only had a couple of minutes, so he
accepted a draw to clinch the match in our favor. Ironically,
this may have cost him "Game of the Week"!, although his inspired play
keeps him in contention as a possible league MVP. 0-1
USCL 2006
Schedule is set!
  The
Seattle Sluggers and Tennessee Tempo will kick off the season on Monday
August 28th, while the rest of the league will start play on Wednesday.
Once again there is a 10 week regular season, followed by playoffs, with an
extra Wild Card Round this season. Stay tuned all season for four
great matches every Wednesday evening and new special feature matches every
Monday. Below is the schedule for the first week of play: Click
here
to see the rest of the schedule.
WEEK 1 - Monday August 28th 2006
1. Tennessee Tempo vs Seattle Sluggers 9:00 ET
Wednesday August 30th 2006
2. New York Knights vs Philadelphia Masterminds 7:00 ET
3. Carolina Cobras vs Baltimore Kingfishers 7:15 ET
4. Boston Blitz vs Miami Sharks 7:30 ET
5. San Francisco Mechanics vs Dallas Destiny 8:30 ET
Stay tuned to Chessville
or the
USCL
website, for more details!
Tune in and watch the games live on the Internet Chess
Club !!
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