03/20/2007

Game of the Year: 2nd 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)


2nd Place:
Week 4: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs GM Pawel Blehm (BAL)  1-0



Becerra vs Blehm: White to move after 22....Ne5
White found the powerful 23. Bg5, completely dismantling
black's position.  White eventually won in fine attacking
style.


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 (1st Place: 13 points):
Though this game might have had little effect on the overall standings, I couldn't find it lacking in other regard. It was well played, exciting, the key to Miami's match victory that week, and fully deserving of the Game of the Year title. It also contained several nice tactical shots, with 16. Bf5! being one of the nicest moves of the season.


IM Greg Shahade (2nd place: 12 points): A very nice and smooth game by Becerra, which would be great to show
one's young students. However it was a bit too one sided for me to put it in first place. An impressive display by Becerra and it was play like this that earned him the MVP award.


NM Dennis Monokroussos (4th Place: 10 points): It was a good game with a nice idea and thematic attack by White, but there were enough inaccuracies by both sides - especially Black - to keep it off tmy medal platform.


GM Alex Shabalov and WFM Elizabeth Vicary (4th Place: 10 points):

AS: It was a beautiful game, 14. Bh6 was fantastic, but honestly I don't think it can be number 1 because it was too much of a one sided affair.



Total Score of Becerra vs Blehm (2nd place, 45 points)

Final Standings:

1st Place (46 pts): Week 2: GM Pawel Blehm (BAL) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY)  1/2-1/2         article
2nd Place (45 pts): Week 4: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs GM Pawel Blehm (BAL)  1-0    article
3rd Place (38 pts): Week 5: IM Lev Milman (CAR) vs GM Larry Christiansen (BOS)  0-1     article
4th Place (37 pts): SemiFinals: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Gregory Serper (SEA)  1-0   article
5th Place (32 pts): Week 7: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Gregory Serper (SEA)   1-0    article
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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