Game of the Year: 1st Place

03/20/2007

Game of the Year: 1st 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)

1st Place: Week 2: GM Pawel Blehm (BAL) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY) 1/2-1/2

Blehm vs Charbonneau: Black to move after 27. Qh6
Charbonneau planned the sacrifice 27....Nxb3! after
which some exciting fireworks took place. The game
continued 28. axb3 Qa1+ 29. Kd2 Rdxd3+ 30. Ke2!
30....Rfe3 31. Qxe3 Rxe3 32. Kxe3 Qc3+ 33. Kf4 Qf6+
34. Ke3 Qc3+ and the game was agreed drawn after
repeating moves a few more times.

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 and WFM Elizabeth Vicary (1st Place: 13 points): Blehm vs Loverboy

AS: Very sexy game, hard fought by both players. A borscht of tactics.

NM Dennis Monokroussos (3rd Place: 11 points): It was well played, dramatic, and picturesque to boot.

NM Arun Sharma (3rd Place: 11 points): Despite the peaceful result of this game I feel that it warrants a high ranking as it contained a lot of exciting moments and complications that were created by both players. The only minor detraction from this game was that the result was irrelevant in the overall match score, as Baltimore dominated New York 3.5-0.5

IM Greg Shahade (3rd place: 11 points): A short yet beautiful game that inspired the fans watching on ICC. Charbonneau himself was very proud of this battle, as he presented it to members of the Marshall Chess Club during a lecture at the club. I am quite surprised that it ended up winning first place, but it was the only game that was ranked in the top three by all four judges, so it was clearly deserving. I do have to say I find it quite interesting that a draw ended up winning Game of the Year. It just goes to show you that the draw isn't a problem, but instead a lifeless and dull draw is what really harms the game.

Total Score of Blehm vs Charbonneau: (1st place, 46 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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