Game of the Year: 11th Place --------------------------------------------
by League Commissioner IM Greg Shahade
--------------------------------------------
This is the
third installment of a series of weekly articles that will determine
what
game was voted as the Best Game of 2006. The only games eligible for
Game of the Year are
the thirteen "Games of the Week".
There are four judges ranking the games from 1st to 13th. If a game is
ranked as 1st place by a
judge, it receives 13 points and if it's ranked 13th place, it receives
1
point and so on. If there is a tie, whichever game had the highest
individual
ranking will win on tiebreak. Thus if one game is ranked 1st by 2
judges, and another game is ranked 1st only by one judge, the one that
is ranked 1st by more judges is awarded the higher position.
The four judges are:
IM Greg Shahade (USCL Commissioner)
NM Arun Sharma
NM Dennis Monokroussos (Regular commentator for ChessBase.com)
GM Alex Shabalov+WFM Elizabeth Vicary (These two worked as a team to
determine their rankings)
Mikhailuk
- Kuljasevic (Black to Move after 65. a4)
Black now made a mistake with 65....Kd7. 65...Ke7
was superior, obtaining opposition after 66. Kd5 Kd7.
Below are comments from the judges on what position they ranked this
game and their reason for doing so, in parenthesis is the ranking given
by that judge and the number of points awarded for that ranking:
GM Alex Shabalov + WFM Elizabeth Vicary (5th Place: 9 points): Mikhailuk vs
Kuljasevic was a studylike endgame, but points off for being way too
long.
IM Greg Shahade(11th
Place: 3 points): This was another game that probably
didn't deserve Game of the Week. It received the honor because the
endgame was quite fascinating and because the victory sent Seattle to
the SemiFinals in dramatic style, but the entire game was exceptionally
dull before the action started around move 60. I believe that Koons
vs Kiewra deserved Game of the Week honors. It was likely not
chosen because Dallas ended up being eliminated, so Kiewra's win was
all for naught, while Mikhailuk's win kept Seattle alive when it
seemed they were certain to be eliminated after starting the match 0-2.
NM
Dennis Monokroussos (13th Place: 1
points): The endgame was interesting, but the best moves showed
up in the online analysis rather than over the board.
