1/31/2007

Game of the Year: 8th Place
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by League Commissioner IM Greg Shahade
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  This is part 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)


8th Place: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs IM Georgi Orlov (SEA)  1-0


(Bhat vs Orlov: Black to Move after 26. Re1)
Here Orlov missed a chance to stifle white's initiative
with 26...Bd6. Instead after 26. Bc5? white had the simple
yet effective 27. Qe2, which defended everything while at
the same time threatening 28. h5. Orlov fell apart quickly
although his position was nearly lost at this point.



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:


NM Arun Sharma (7th Place: 7 points): This game was extremely important in being the difference in clinching the match against Seattle and in winning the division title for the San Francisco Mechanics. It was also quite well played and exciting, but what really kept it from being ranked higher was that the result mostly stemmed from one natural looking blunder for Black (26...Bc5? was played, while 26... Bd6 was much stronger - see above diagram)


GM Alex Shabalov and WFM Elizabeth Vicary (7th Place: 7 points):

A strong contender. Nice concept in the opening, leaving the rook on h1. Then a precisely conducted attack. Everything the winner of a beauty contest needs.


IM Greg Shahade (7th place: 7 pts): A nice game in a key matchup between two division rivals, but it lacked the necessary fireworks to be ranked too highly.


NM Dennis Monokroussos (8th Place: 6 pts): An interesting and unusual game that was marred by some serious errors. 25.... Rf7 26. Re1 Bd6 and 26....Bd6 both equalize for black (with ease), and 27....Rde8 is an error as well.

Total Score of Bhat vs Orlov: (8th Place, 27 points)

 Stay tuned for 6 more installments as the field dwindles down every Wednesday and one of the games below will be the 2006 USCL Game of the Year!

Week 2: GM Pawel Blehm (BAL) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY)  1/2-1/2         article
Week 4: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs GM Pawel Blehm (BAL)  1-0    article
Week 5: IM Lev Milman (CAR) vs GM Larry Christiansen (BOS)  0-1     article
Week 7: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Gregory Serper (SEA)  1-0   article
Week 8: GM Pawel Blehm (BAL) vs GM Magesh Panchanathan (DAL)  0-1    article
SemiFinals: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Gregory Serper (SEA)   1-0    article
Finals: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY)   1/2-1/2    article


Eliminated:

8th Place (27 pts): Week 9: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs IM Georgi Orlov (SEA)  1-0   article
9th Place (26 pts): Week 10: FM William Kelleher (BOS) vs FM Tegshsuren Enkhbat (BAL)   1-0    article
10th Place (18 pts): Week 6: Jose Cabrera (MIA) vs Michael Lee (SEA)  0-1     article
11th Place (14 pts): WildCard: FM Slava Mikhailuk (SEA) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL)   1-0    article
12th Place (12 pts): Week 3: FM Boris Privman (NY) vs NM Ilya Krasik (BOS)  0-1  (Annotated by Ilya Krasik)     article
13th Place (7 pts): Week 1: NM Keaton Kiewra (DAL) vs NM Mark Pinto (SF)  0-1  (Annotated by NM Sharma)


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