Game of the Year: 8th Place --------------------------------------------
by League Commissioner IM Greg Shahade
--------------------------------------------
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.