The US Chess League is yet another novel idea launched by IM Gregory Shahade, the creator of the highly-successful New York Masters tournaments. The league started its debut season in August with eight teams in two divisions. There is discussion about expansion to include more teams.

The league includes some of the strongest players in the respective cities. As a take on professional sports leagues, the divisions and team names are: (east) Baltimore  Kingfishers, Boston Blitz, New York Knights, Philadelphia Masterminds,  (west) Carolina Cobras, Dallas Destiny, Miami Sharks, San Francisco Mechanics.

The league home page is very similar to other American sports leagues with standings and team pages, schedule and results, games, player pages, statistics and pre-game commentary. The format adds excitement and certainly shows the impact the Internet has had in making such a reality possible.

Philadelphia's Elvin Wilson leads the league MVP race with a 6-0 mark and a 2641 performance rating most recently beating Baltimore's  FM Bruci Lopez in good fashion.  Philadelphia teammate FM Norman "Pete" Rogers has struggled, but uncorked a beautiful rook sacrifice which was crowned the league's "Game of the Week" (also featured in The Chess Drum's 'Game of the Week'). Three weeks remain in the regular season before divisional playoffs start on November 9th.  The games are webcast live each Wednesday at 7:00pm Eastern Standard Time at the Internet Chess Club ("finger uschessleague").

Posted by The Chess Drum: 17 October 2005