LA Vibe gets bitten by the Miami Sharks

LA Vibe lost to Miami 1-3. Alexandre Kretchetov drew against GM Renier Gonzalez, the third GM he drew against this season, and Ankit Gupta finished with the same score. In both games, Vibes had winning chances in the middlegame. GM Melik and Konstantin Kavutskiy lost their game. GM Melik had a complicated and unbalanced game against GM Julio Becerra with a rook and knight vs queen near in the endgame.

LA Vibe tied matches with Manhattan and Seattle.

On week 6 against Manhattan, Los Angeles was up 2-1 and looked like Matikozyan was going to run out with a draw against GM Alex Stripunsky, but a few inaccuracies allowed Manhattan to tie the match. On week 7, GM Varuzhan Akobian, Southern California-based GM playing for Seattle, was on site playing his game against FM Alexandre Kretchetov. The situation was identical with week 6 but in reverse. LA was down 1-2 and NM Ankit Gupta was looking for a win, trying to shake up a drawn game and managed a victory. Gupta is 2-0 in the last two weeks.

The San Francisco Mechanics team did their work on the Vibe, but not without trouble

The Vibe lost their fifth match to the Mechanics 1.5-2.5. Kretchetov was half an hour late for his game (coming through the 405 freeway) and manage to salvage a draw against GM Patrick Wolff. This is Kretchetov's second draw against a GM. Two other draws came from Eugene Yanayt to Cadet Champion Yian Liou and Banawa to IM David Pruess.

LA Vibe will be without captain GM Melik and Tatev for the next three weeks

Tatev Abrahamyan is on the U.S. Women's Olympiad team and GM Melik is the head coach for that team. LA Vibe's Wednesday line-up will consist of Alexandre Kretchetov, Joel Banawa, FM Michael Casella, and FM Eugene Yanayt. The latter two will be debuting for the Vibe. Catch the games in person at ChessPalace or online on ICC.

IM Adranik Matikozyan and Konstantin Kavutskiy debuts for a Vibe victory 3-1

The top three boards won their games including GM Melik's win over GM Dimitry Gurevich for a fourth match victory of 3-1. IM Matikozyan finished with a beautiful rook sacrifice and Tatev slowly squeezed her opponent.

LA Vibe loses to Dallas Destiny and Arizona Scorpions on week 2 and 3, respectively

The LA Vibe stuck with the same roster against Destiny and failed 1-3 yielding two draws from Khachiyan and Banawa. Tatev Abrahamyan and Christian Tanaka made their debut against the Scorpions and got stung, along with Khachiyan. The only score came from Banawa with half against IM Aldama.

LA Vibe Beats St. Louis Archbishops

The LA Vibe won their match against St. Louis Archbishops 2.5-1.5 The wins came from Joel Banawa and Ankit Gupta. FM Alexandre Kretchetov drew against GM Ben Finegold. Team Captain GM Melik Khachiyan lost, but played a sharp game against GM Yury Shulman. Here are some photos of the inaugural match. Catch team news of the LA Vibe on their website.

US Chess League kicks off

with GM Khachiyan, FM Kretchetov, FM Banawa, and NM Gupta playing online games @ the Chess Palace