02/14/2007

Game of the Year: 6th 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)

6th Place: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY)   1/2-1/2


Friedel vs Charbonneau after 45. Ne7
Black found the cute tactic 45....Be5, sending the large
Internet crowd into a fervor.


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:


IM Greg Shahade (1st place: 13 points): I was alone in my high ranking of this game, but I can explain. All fans love games where the outcome is in doubt until the very last moment, where both players are going at it from move 1 and where until the game is actually over, no one can determine the final result. Some examples of great sporting events are the fight between Hagler and Hearns, the recent NFL playoff game between New England and Indianapolis. I believe if you look at these events objectively, you cannot say that they were better played than other sporting events, but simply that they were most dramatic.

    This game was being played where it was pretty clear that the result of the League Championship Match would be riding upon it. After 84 hard fought moves, they finally agreed to a draw in a situation where if either side won, their team would have been the USCL Champion. Also please note that a lot of the blunder moments came when the players were in dire time trouble. After move 40 both players had about 5 minutes left with the thirty second increment. Given the immense pressure and the stakes of the game, I don't think a few missteps are all that improbable. There were people who were watching the game online who even kibitzed "This is the game of the year". I decided to let the fans have what they want, yet the other judges have let me down.


NM Dennis Monokroussos (6th Place: 8 points): A very exciting see-saw struggle that saw both players fight very hard on defense. From a purely dramatic standpoint, it's the game of the year, at least given the choices. But 45. Ne7 is really awful.


GM Alex Shabalov and WFM Elizabeth Vicary (8th Place: 6 points):  Meatball vs Loverboy (At least one of these nicknames will be explained in future weeks).

AS: (Move 32): Somebody's better, I just don't understand who.
AS: (After the Game): Nice tricks by the loverboy. Unusual things can happen in the dark valley of reason when the loverboy meets the meatball. One of those twilights of the mind.



NM Arun Sharma (10th Place: 4 points):  In terms of excitement, this game may have been the best as it was from the Championship Match. While being well played for the most part, it was difficult for me to overlook the fact that the most exciting moments of the game occurred due to blunders from one side (ie 45. Ne5 Be5!! and then Black giving the exchange back about 20 moves later). This was why I couldn't rank this game higher than most of the others, despite it's huge dramatic factor.


Total Score of Friedel vs Charbonneau: (6th Place, 31 points - This game finished ahead of Blehm vs Panchanathan due to better tiebreaks)
 Stay tuned for 5 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
SemiFinals: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Gregory Serper (SEA)   1-0    article


Eliminated:

6th Place (31 pts): Finals: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY)   1/2-1/2    article
7th Place (31 pts): Week 8: GM Pawel Blehm (BAL) vs GM Magesh Panchanathan (DAL)  0-1    article
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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