Judges' Contest 13th Place

A rather tame week given the judges fair consensus regarding this game (at least in comparison to last week's) despite having a change as to who's in the lead.



1st Place: Dennis Monokroussos (20, 13, 19, 18, 12, 17, 7, 11): 23 Points

2nd Place: Alex Shabalov (20, 12, 16, 15, 17, 10, 18, 9): 25 Points

3rd Place: Robby Adamson (20, 12, 19, 16, 17, 6, 18, 10): 26 Points

4th Place: Ron Young (20, 19, 13, 9, 7, 18, 14, 17): 29 Points

5th Place: Jennifer Shahade (18, 20, 8, 12, 17, 19, 5, 14): 33 Points


and the two non-judges,


Arun Sharma (20, 19, 18, 11, 12, 15, 5, 9): 23 Points

Braden Bournival (19, 20, 9, 17, 7, 4, 18, 14): 37 Points


We'll see if next week's elimination can provide some distance in the standings!

Game of the Year 12th Place Prediction

Another rather horrendous mistake by me. While I swore to stick by my principles until the bitter end, that doesn't mean I'm unable to alter them to a certain extent as if I endure another elimination of a game I don't even have on my main list, my future as a prognosticator is clearly in severe jeopardy. To that end, I will be adding a few more games to the main list to try to ensure that doesn't happen again yet will stick with my principles by keeping the games which I've had as the top contenders to go in their rightful place at the top.


36%: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs IM Larry Kaufman (BAL) 1-0


18%: SM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (BOS) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 1-0


12%: IM Bryan Smith (PHI) vs GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) 1-0


10%: IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0


7%: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs GM Hikaru Nakamura (NY) 1-0, IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Gregory Serper (SEA) 1-0, IM Lev Milman (CAR) vs IM Ron Burnett (TN) 0-1


3%: Any of the Other Games (Total)


Number of Points: 49


Tune in next week to see if I still have a job!

Game of the Year 13th Place Critique

Another very unfortunate pick by me, with for the second week in a row, the eliminated game not even appearing on my main list of candidates. While clearly if anyone else was actually willing to take this job I would have been fired for gross incompetence by now, I personally am not especially disappointed by the way things turned out for this game even though I feel it was way more deserving than Molner's other game which is still in the contest. Simply put, compared to the majority of the judges, my thoughts on this game (predicted 11th, would have ranked 9th) seemed right in tune with their own and thus hardly a horrendous overall pick by me. The larger issue seems to be that at this stage, the games in general are very very close and small variations can likely easily make the difference between one or two places in a game's ranking (with three games tying for 15th - 17th, etc.). Let's examine what the judges said.


Alex Shabalov: Well I'm sure everyone out there is screaming about what a hypocrite I am. I mean, here I've been begging for more nicknames the whole duration of this contest and now I go and censor one?? Unfortunately, the risk of being sued if I did print it simply outweighed my personal feelings on the issue so I really didn't have much of a choice. On top of that, I felt Shabalov ranking this game the same place that I would have was enough of a victory without needing the nickname also.


Robby Adamson: I really like his comment about Marc's inability to move his pieces, something which I held against this game initially (as I felt it was poor play by Black to not do so), but when I realized that that was definitely more a testament to White's good play, it was really what compelled me to pick this game as a Wildcard. It's good to know (in my opinion anyway) that Adamson let the sheer quality of play in the games really guide his decisions.


Dennis Monokroussos: I wish I could shed some light on his opening commentary, but I well ... can't (could have something to do with my lack of opening knowledge) so before I make a fool of myself, I'll move on.


Jennifer Shahade: I still can't find anything truly negative to say, but I will note her comment about ranking other games higher due to having more impressive sacrifices which, like Adamson, could definitely be a harbinger into what her yet unknown rankings might be like.


Ron Young: Well after reading his first sentence, I really wanted to concoct a strong rebuttal, but then I remembered what kind of trouble you're really asking for if you insult someone else's religion so I better abstain.


We'll see if I get pummeled some more next week!

Game of the Year -- 13th Place

This is the eighth part in a weekly series of articles which will count down to revealing what game was voted as the 2007 USCL Game of the Year. For more information on exactly how this process works and the prize information, please refer to: Game of the Year Preview.


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13th Place: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs FM Marc Arnold (NY) 1-0






















NM Molner continued with the fairly typical 18. Nd5! followed by the not so typical 21. Ne6+! which paralyzed Black's position, and White eventually broke through.



Below are the comments from the judges on why they ranked the game where they did and in parentheses is the ranking given by that judge and the number of points awarded for that ranking.


GM Alex Shabalov (9th Place, 12 points): Wizard's Apprentice vs X (Nickname censored by USCL Admins). X didn't know the correct move so instead of the theoretical 16... b4, he played 16... h5 and allowed Mackenzie to start a nice attack, which he executed craftily. This is the usual way Mackenzie plays when he's not sedated by whatever he's listening to. It was most likely Iryna Zenyuk who taught Mackenzie the whole variation.



FM Robby Adamson (10th Place, 11 points): This game featured a theoretical line that Mackenzie obviously made up, as he is normally an English Attack player against the Najdorf. 16. Bh3 is not theory. However, the creativity shown by Mackenzie cannot be overlooked with 18. Nd5, 21. Ne6+, and the subsequent inability of Marc to move any of his pieces. I wanted to rank this game higher, but the other games above it were better played by both players - something that guided my assessments throughout. I award this game eleven points.



NM Dennis Monokroussos (11th Place, 10 points): A good old-fashioned Najdorf with 6. Bg5 and 10. g4! It used to be the absolute main line in the Sicilian; it's B99 for a reason. Then everyone decided that Robert Byrne was a genius and people got sick of the Poisoned Pawn and that was almost the end of 6. Bg5. But I'm not getting paid to rant about opening fashion (actually, I'm not getting paid at all; you mean it's easier to judge these games than to play them?!), so let's get to the game. Molner played the unusual 16. Bh3 (16. Rg1 is the hottest move while 16. Qh5 is the traditional move), and it paid off: Arnold reacted as if to 16. Rg1 with 16... h5, and Molner gratefully used the tempo to speed up his attack. 18. Nd5 was unnecessary and typical but nice all the same. 21. Ne6+ is a trick borrowed from the 16. Rg1 lines, but I hadn't seen the very clever d6 + Re7 idea before. The play in this game wasn't perfect, but it was lively and refreshing. Some of the previous ten games were probably better than this one, but I'd rather replay and analyze this game than any of those.



WGM Jennifer Shahade (14th Place, 7 points): This was a very pretty game. The only reason I didn't rank it higher was because I felt some other games with similar arcs (one side dominates from the start with pretty tactics until the end, when an even prettier tactic decides the day) is because the sacrifices seemed more standard than some of the games that I ranked a bit higher.



FM Ron Young (17th Place, 4 points): I remember when the Nd5 sac in the main main main line Najdorf was a miracle from Heaven. Ok, I don't, but I do remember when Pong on your TV screen was the coolest thing ever. It is praiseworthy that White avoided Black's cheap mate threats after 31... b4 and 32... Rb4 but in an online game, an innocent face is not so dangerous a weapon.


Total Score of Molner vs Arnold: (13th Place, 44 Points)


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Stay tuned for eleven more such articles as the field shrinks by one game each week to see which of the following games will be the 2007 Game of the Year!


Week 3: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs GM Hikaru Nakamura (NY) 1-0 Article

Week 4: GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY) 0-1 Article

Week 6: GM Larry Christiansen (BOS) vs GM Patrick Wolff (SF) 1-0 Article

Week 7: IM Lev Milman (CAR) vs IM Ron Burnett (TEN) 0-1 Article

Week 9: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs IM Larry Kaufman (BAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard Round: FM Marcel Martinez (MIA) vs IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) 1-0 Article

Semifinals: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs IM Drasko Boskovic (DAL) 0-1 Article

Championship: SM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (BOS) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #1: IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #2: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs GM Alex Stripunsky (QNS) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #3: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Gregory Serper (SEA) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #7: IM Bryan Smith (PHI) vs GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) 1-0 Article


Eliminated:


13th Place (44 Points): NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs FM Marc Arnold (NY) 1-0 Article

14th Place (43 Points): IM Eric Tangborn (SEA) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 0-1 Article

15th Place (35 Points): IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0 Article

16th Place (35 Points): GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs IM Ron Burnett (TEN) 1-0 Article

17th Place (35 Points): IM Jay Bonin (NY) vs NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) 1-0 Article

18th Place (30 Points): FM Slava Mikhailuk (SEA) vs IM Jonathan Schroer (CAR) 0-1 Article

19th Place (29 Points): IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs IM Lev Milman (CAR) 0-1 Article

20th Place (7 Points): IM Jay Bonin (NY) vs NM Denys Shmelov (BOS) 1-0 Article

Judges' Contest 14th Place

A definite shake-up in the standings with this week's game, but the judges' leader remains tied for the judges' lead, and the overall leader still remains the same despite how tight it now is.



1st Place: Alex Shabalov (20, 12, 16, 15, 17, 10, 18): 21 Points

2nd Place: Dennis Monokroussos (20, 13, 19, 18, 12, 17, 7): 21 Points

3rd Place: Robby Adamson (20, 12, 19, 16, 17, 6, 18): 23 Points

4th Place: Ron Young (20, 19, 13, 9, 7, 18, 14): 25 Points

5th Place: Jennifer Shahade (18, 20, 8, 12, 17, 19, 5): 32 Points


and us non-judges,


Arun Sharma (20, 19, 18, 11, 12, 15, 5): 19 Points

Braden Bournival (19, 20, 9, 17, 7, 4, 18): 36 Points


We'll see if next week's game can provide a similar mix up in the standings!

Game of the Year 13th Place Prediction

A rather huge mistake by me in my placing for the most recent elimination. I suppose there really can't be any debate that all of my theories really have been debunked at this point. Nevertheless, debunked or not, they are still MY theories, and as I've noted I plan to stick with them to the bitter end (though all recent evidence is suggesting the end is going to be bitter indeed). One bright side of having the most recent eliminated game not even on my main list of those I expect to be eliminated, clearly doesn't require me to change my percentages much for this week. Here's what I would guess.


42%: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs IM Larry Kaufman (BAL) 1-0


21%: SM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (BOS) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 1-0


13%: IM Bryan Smith (PHI) vs GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) 1-0


10%: IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0


9%: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs GM Hikaru Nakamura (NY) 1-0


5%: Any of the Other Games (Total)


Number of Points: 47


Hopefully I'll get back on track soon (i.e. before this contest ends in May anyways!).

Game of the Year 14th Place Critique

A very unfortunate pick by me which could end up causing severe harm to my chances to win the judging contest. To a point, I'm not especially surprised that this pick wound up being so off as I did feel, based on the general commentary surrounding the game, that it was a fairly tricky game overall which could (and did) get a wide variety of rankings. This was by far the most the judges have differed on any game so far as all others to this point really had a majority of the judges in the same general vicinity, while this game got two high rankings, one medium/low one, and two very low ones. I think NM Monokroussos really hit on a good point in his comment as to why this might have happened: Namely that it's quite reasonable for anyone to look at this game in two ways, either as "White played rather poorly" or "Black played very well". While both of those are really accurate descriptions of it, depending on which happens to really dominate in your own mind, can definitely really alter where you might end up ranking this game. I happened to be one of the people whose mindset mostly was impressed by Black's play, but the judges seemed to be fairly evenly split on that concept which definitely accounts for this game's overall ranking. Here's my view on the judges' opinions.


Jennifer Shahade: Once again, Jenn chose the same ranking for this game that I would have given it so I'm unable to find anything derogatory to say. I know how much that continues to disappoint you readers (especially Greg), but I promise you it's inevitable for it to return within a few weeks.


Dennis Monokroussos: As I said above, I think his point about whether it was appropriate to censure White or praise Black in this game was really spot-on and to me is the exact reason why this game's rankings varied so much.


Ron Young: Really quite true, this game contained several interesting tactical moments, definitely worthy of diagrams in a tactics book yet none of them would be in the difficult section.


Robby Adamson: Another basically dead-on comment, just unfortunate for me and Kuljasevic that he chose to let the side of "White played badly" dominate his viewpoint. Personally though, given the other games in this contest to describe the winner's play as flawless with some nice tactics seems like it should warrant a bit of a higher ranking.


Alex Shabalov: I'm always disappointed when he doesn't include any nicknames, but you have to be impressed by the succinctness of the comment.


Hopefully come next week I'll resurrect myself from the dead and make a reasonable pick again!

Game of the Year -- 14th Place

This is the seventh part in a weekly series of articles which will count down to revealing what game was voted as the 2007 USCL Game of the Year. For more information on exactly how this process works and the prize information, please refer to: Game of the Year Preview.


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14th Place: IM Eric Tangborn (SEA) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 0-1






















IM Kuljasevic cleverly broke through White's defenses with 27... Nxh2! followed by 28... Bd4! after which the heavy pressure on White's King made Black's victory inevitable.



Below are the comments from the judges on why they ranked the game where they did and in parentheses is the ranking given by that judge and the number of points awarded for that ranking.


WGM Jennifer Shahade (5th Place, 16 points): I was so glad this game got a Wildcard pick because even if some of the attacking moves were obvious, the setup was not. The Trompowsky can be an annoying opening to play against, and I love how Kuljasevic used the open g-file to prepare his attack. To me, it's not relevant that White messed up by playing f4 since Black was drumming up a very dangerous attack anyway. (Bf6-Rg6-h6 is coming!)



NM Dennis Monokroussos (7th Place, 14 points): The first time I played through this game, I was more taken aback by White's play than taken with Black's attack, but subsequent viewings have changed my mind. For one thing, it's not easy to find one's bearings in such non-traditional positions. We underestimate just how much our knowledge of theory helps us figure out what to do in the middlegame, to the point where we're surprised whenever White comes out of the opening with an inferior game. So rather than blame Tangborn, I'd prefer to praise Kuljasevic. His play in the opening and early middlegame was more effective, and then the whole attacking concept starting with 20... Kh8 and 21... Rg8 was very powerful. Still, White does deserve censure for the 23. Bd3, 24. Bc2 idea: it wasted two big tempi, misplaced the Bishop, and allowed Black to plant his Knight on the great g4 square, after which White got rolled. ("Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?") Not a good game by Tangborn, but his opponent's play was convincing throughout.



FM Ron Young (14th Place, 7 points): Give your opponent enough rope, and he may hang himself. Or, he may hang you. If I were editing a magazine, this game would get several diagrams, but pretty does not always mean difficult, at least in chess.



FM Robby Adamson (18th Place, 3 points): This game got three points from me because while Kuljasevic played well, White didn't exactly make Black work for much. Tangborn played very passively and really never developed any kind of plan. Kuljasevic played almost flawlessly and had a few nice tactics to finish Tangborn off. White's lack of a plan caused this game to slip in my rankings.



GM Alex Shabalov (18th Place, 3 points): Nice straightforward attack by Black. White's opening play was just too passive. Whatever.


Total Score of Tangborn vs Kuljasevic: (14th Place, 43 Points)


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Stay tuned for twelve more such articles as the field shrinks by one game each week to see which of the following games will be the 2007 Game of the Year!


Week 3: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs GM Hikaru Nakamura (NY) 1-0 Article

Week 4: GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY) 0-1 Article

Week 6: GM Larry Christiansen (BOS) vs GM Patrick Wolff (SF) 1-0 Article

Week 7: IM Lev Milman (CAR) vs IM Ron Burnett (TEN) 0-1 Article

Week 9: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs IM Larry Kaufman (BAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard Round: FM Marcel Martinez (MIA) vs IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) 1-0 Article

Semifinals: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs IM Drasko Boskovic (DAL) 0-1 Article

Championship: SM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (BOS) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #1: IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #2: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs GM Alex Stripunsky (QNS) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #3: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Gregory Serper (SEA) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #6: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs FM Marc Arnold (NY) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #7: IM Bryan Smith (PHI) vs GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) 1-0 Article


Eliminated:


14th Place (43 Points): IM Eric Tangborn (SEA) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 0-1 Article

15th Place (35 Points): IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0 Article

16th Place (35 Points): GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs IM Ron Burnett (TEN) 1-0 Article

17th Place (35 Points): IM Jay Bonin (NY) vs NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) 1-0 Article

18th Place (30 Points): FM Slava Mikhailuk (SEA) vs IM Jonathan Schroer (CAR) 0-1 Article

19th Place (29 Points): IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs IM Lev Milman (CAR) 0-1 Article

20th Place (7 Points): IM Jay Bonin (NY) vs NM Denys Shmelov (BOS) 1-0 Article

Game of the Year 14th Place Prediction

Another small stumble but nothing more, and I feel fairly certain I'm about to get right back on track. As I mentioned, I am going to stick with my theories until the bitter end, no matter how many of them get debunked by the time this is over.


40%: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs IM Larry Kaufman (BAL) 1-0


20%: SM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (BOS) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 1-0


14%: IM Bryan Smith (PHI) vs GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) 1-0


11%: IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0


8%: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs GM Hikaru Nakamura (NY) 1-0


7%: Any of the Other Games (Total)


Number of Points: 41


We'll see if the game I've thought was going for the past three weeks can finally make it's well deserved exit next week!

Judges' Contest 15th Place

Now that a fairly reasonable number of games have been eliminated from the GOTY contest, it seems like a fine idea to try to truly gauge how accurately each of the judges is actually performing. While I've been critiquing both their rankings and commentary every week, some debate seems to have sprung up both amongst the judges themselves and the fans as to which judges are really ranking the games most correctly. I'm definitely not opposed to such debates, but as usual why not try to ascribe a more concrete way to really determine that?

So we'll have a "judges' contest" to help us all decide who the most accurate judge actually is. The scoring for this will be fairly simple. For each eliminated game, however far a judge was in his or her individual ranking from its overall ranking, they will receive that many points and obviously the lowest number of points is the goal (e.g. for the game ranked 15th, if a judge ranked it 14th or 16th they get one point, 13th or 17th two points, and so on). If two judges are tied then whoever ranked the most recent eliminated game closest will be considered ahead (and the second most recent if tied at the most recent, etc.).

I will also be track how the two people (that I know of) who were brave enough to make their own rankings despite not being judges, myself (my rankings can be found at the bottom of this post and note that I will be using my own individual rankings when I track my results, not my predictions) and FM Braden Bournival (whose rankings are here). I will just be noting our results at the bottom since this is designed mostly to be a contest for bragging rights amongst the judges alone and also because he and I are both at somewhat of an inherent disadvantage as our rankings cannot affect a games' overall ranking the way the judges' can (though for me, being at a disadvantage to start will make my inevitable triumph at the end of this contest even sweeter). So without further ado here are how things stand right now (in parentheses I will note each judges' individual rankings for the games in order, beginning with 20th).



1st Place: Dennis Monokroussos (20, 13, 19, 18, 12, 17): 14 Points

2nd Place: Alex Shabalov (20, 12, 16, 15, 17, 10): 17 Points

3rd Place: Robby Adamson (20, 12, 19, 16, 17, 6): 19 Points

4th Place: Jennifer Shahade (18, 20, 8, 12, 17, 19): 23 Points

5th Place: Ron Young (20, 19, 13, 9, 7, 18): 25 Points


and of course, the two lowly non-judges


Arun Sharma (20, 19, 18, 11, 12, 15): 10 Points

Braden Bournival (19, 20, 9, 17, 7, 4): 32 Points


I'll be updating this every week so that you all can keep in tune with who will wind up being the best judge in the end!

Game of the Year 15th Place Critique

Yet another not entirely correct prediction by me, but without a doubt the least troubling mistake so far as this game was barely off (predicted 17th vs finishing 15th), had the exact ranking I would have given it, and has been at my "second most likely" game to be axed in the last three weeks.

One thing I would like to remark on is the Commissioner's comment about how since the Becerra vs Burnett game was eliminated prior to the Tangborn vs Kuljasevic game that it suggests that the GOTW judges made the "wrong" choice in Week 8. While I don't necessarily disagree with that theory in regards to that particular case, as I know I for one struggled between picking between those two for 1st and 2nd (yet strangely enough had I ended up making the opposite decision, neither of those games would have won!, Milman vs Bhat would have), I still must take issue with the theory as a whole (as an additional indication that we did actually get it wrong in that particular scenario though, the Commissioner did rank the former game high and didn't rank the latter one at all, something which definitely lends credence to the theory that the overall pick was wrong).

While of course this GOTW/GOTY material is totally subjective, and there isn't any truly right or wrong picks (except again if you are talking about the Commissioner's personal picks, then there are definitely some indisputable errors), as I mentioned in previous posts, one simple fact is: For GOTW, oftentimes factors like how important a game was to the overall match and hence a team's overall standing can often make certain games have a much greater appeal than they normally might absent that factor (while that might not apply in this case, I feel it definitely might have applied to the Bonin vs Molner contest as that game's GOTW selection seemed to have several people taking up arms in protest to) while the GOTY judges don't seem to be really taking those particular factors into account much based on their comments. My main point is, considering the difference of factors taken into consideration in each of the two contests, it could well be that a certain game is a better choice for GOTW than another, yet in GOTY it could be a worse choice so them appearing in the opposite order doesn't necessarily imply to me that the wrong choice was made then.

Another fine job by the judges, and one where they seemed to be remarkably in tune, with four of the five of them making mention of how 33... Re8??, dropping a pawn, detracted greatly from their opinion on this game. Obviously this was something I think anyone might have expected, but I found it odd that despite nearly all of them mentioning that, not a single one made mention of 81... Kb7?? which dropped an entire piece! Granted, the former blunder might have been more of a "losing moment" than the latter, but I still was surprised not one said anything about it. Perhaps White might have been winning in that position anyway, but he definitely would have still had a long road ahead of him had Black chosen 81... Kb8 instead. I, of course, don't really know if the position is actually winning for White at that point (as Greg loves to remind me, since I'm a sub 2300 player, I obviously don't have any clue how to play endgames). If the position was actually winning for White, it might explain why the judges didn't consider that point especially relevant, but to me that was a big detraction of this game. Let's look at what the judges actually said.


Robby Adamson: The only judge who made no mention of the 33... Re8?? blunder (I suppose it's fairly natural that he would then be the one to rank this game highest). While I find his comment basically correct and in tune with his ranking for it, if I recall correctly, I don't think most onlookers thought this game was a draw (it seemed about evenly split to me, but those opinions seemed to mostly stem from who people happened to be cheering for, rather than an actual evaluation of the position).


Alex Shabalov: Once again, his comment seems strangely disproportionate to his ranking as he ends on such a large BUT note, yet ranks this game very reasonably.


Dennis Monokroussos: Basically spot on with what I was thinking for this game, and he ranked it exactly where I predicted it to finish so fairly hard to find fault.


Ron Young: Cheapo is now considered a vulgar word? My, I really have been out of the chess world too long I guess.


Jennifer Shahade: Once again, I'm unable to poke fun at Jenn's comment. While I know how much that's going to anger Greg when he sees this, he can always scroll up and read the comments about himself if he's so desperate for a Shahade to be insulted. While I find Jenn's ranking for this game to be quite reasonable, I still must take great issue with ranking this game below the Bonin vs Shmelov game.


Stay tuned for another installment next week!

Game of the Year -- 15th Place

This is the sixth part in a weekly series of articles which will count down to revealing what game was voted as the 2007 USCL Game of the Year. For more information on exactly how this process works and the prize information, please refer to: Game of the Year Preview.


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15th Place: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0






















IM Bhat found the nice tactic 34. Rxh5! exploiting Black's blunder, 33... Re8?? Not the hardest of moves to see perhaps but nevertheless likely the one which was the difference between winning and drawing this game along with determining if the Mechanics' long unbeaten streak would survive.



Below are the comments from the judges on why they ranked the game where they did and in parentheses is the ranking given by that judge and the number of points awarded for that ranking.


FM Robby Adamson (6th Place, 15 points): This next game deserves some discussion. First of all, Bartholomew is a Scandinavian beast, and if I remember correctly, has lost less than five Scandinavians in his entire life! Second, Vinay won the game with thirty seconds on his clock the entire ending and converted what many onlookers thought was an easy draw. Indeed, the win was not easy to find at all, though he did miss one easy one, but that was forgivable given the time constraints. This game is a great example that opposite colored bishops is NOT always a draw, especially with Rooks on the board. I award this game fifteen points - almost Top Five status.



GM Alex Shabalov (10th Place, 11 points): Blue Anand vs Bartholomew. Nice effort by Blue Anand with some interesting play in opening and endgame. White was quite inventive in his quest for the initiative throughout the game, but the real reason Black lost was the second pawn blunder.



NM Dennis Monokroussos (17th Place, 4 points): A good game by Bhat, with what seems to be a strong novelty (18. Rhg1) and dogged endgame technique in a competitively significant game. On the other hand, he let his opening edge slip and was only bailed out by Bartholomew's terrible 33... Re8??



FM Ron Young (18th Place, 3 points): Bhat faded late in the season, and one can guess why. He needs to play shorter games. A marathon here and a marathon there and soon the miles start to add up. 34. Rxh5 was a nice cheapo, but it's a bad sign when I am forced to use such a vulgar word.



WGM Jennifer Shahade (19th Place, 2 points): I ranked this game 19th because the game was largely decided by a blunder, 33... Re8??. This was from the second week of the USCL so the players were still only warming up.


Total Score of Bhat vs Bartholomew: (15th Place, 35 Points)


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Stay tuned for thirteen more such articles as the field shrinks by one game each week to see which of the following games will be the 2007 Game of the Year!


Week 3: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs GM Hikaru Nakamura (NY) 1-0 Article

Week 4: GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY) 0-1 Article

Week 6: GM Larry Christiansen (BOS) vs GM Patrick Wolff (SF) 1-0 Article

Week 7: IM Lev Milman (CAR) vs IM Ron Burnett (TEN) 0-1 Article

Week 9: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs IM Larry Kaufman (BAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard Round: FM Marcel Martinez (MIA) vs IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) 1-0 Article

Semifinals: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs IM Drasko Boskovic (DAL) 0-1 Article

Championship: SM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (BOS) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #1: IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #2: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs GM Alex Stripunsky (QNS) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #3: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Gregory Serper (SEA) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #5: IM Eric Tangborn (SEA) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 0-1 Article

Wildcard #6: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs FM Marc Arnold (NY) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #7: IM Bryan Smith (PHI) vs GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) 1-0 Article


Eliminated:


15th Place (35 Points): IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0 Article

16th Place (35 Points): GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs IM Ron Burnett (TEN) 1-0 Article

17th Place (35 Points): IM Jay Bonin (NY) vs NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) 1-0 Article

18th Place (30 Points): FM Slava Mikhailuk (SEA) vs IM Jonathan Schroer (CAR) 0-1 Article

19th Place (29 Points): IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs IM Lev Milman (CAR) 0-1 Article

20th Place (7 Points): IM Jay Bonin (NY) vs NM Denys Shmelov (BOS) 1-0 Article

Game of the Year 15th Place Prediction

Another small bump in the road, but as I mentioned in my critique, I feel this one only tried to trip me up rather than actually making me fall. Nevertheless, wrong is still wrong, and I'm really looking to get back on track this week. I do intend to stick with what I feel are the favored games to get eliminated for this week even though those games have failed me in the past two weeks since I have faith in the ultimate generally resting place for those games (plus this way I also have to be correct again at some point!). This is what I would classify each game's chances at for next week (note that I will be adding the Bhat vs Nakamura game to the "main" list from now on, in part due to my continued disdain for all who keep insisting that that game deserves to win somehow).


37%: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs IM Larry Kaufman (BAL) 1-0


16%: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0,
SM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (BOS) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 1-0


10%: IM Bryan Smith (PHI) vs GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) 1-0


8%: IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0


7%: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs GM Hikaru Nakamura (NY) 1-0


6%: Any of the Other Games (Total)


Number of Points: 39


We'll see if the road becomes more flat and less bumpy for me come next week!

Game of the Year 16th Place Critique

Another inaccurate pick by me this week. However, I personally found this mistake far less alarming than the previous one, as I did consider this game among the favorites to get the ax this week, and my overall prediction for it vs its actual finish (13th vs 16th) wasn't nearly as far off as the previous week's.

While I didn't end up predicting this game in the correct position, I personally felt this game was the best job done so far by the judges as all of them really seemed to hit on some good points for this game even though they clearly found such points of differing appeal. I do find it somewhat surprising that none made any mention of 53. f6!, given how nice a move that seemed to be (but of course watching that move occur live when both players were in time pressure might have made it seem more impressive to me than it actually was?). Let's examine what the judges actually said.


Ron Young: Once again even though his ranking differed greatly from the other judges', I personally don't find too much fault in it. However, it might simply be that I'm just super impressed that he actually managed to squeeze a note about the actual game into his anecdote for once!


Dennis Monokroussos: Not too much to say here, only that I'm somewhat surprised he would describe this game as "sedate" as, at least from what I remember in watching it live, it really seemed anything but. Of course, nearly all of the games in this contest might have that quality to a certain extent, but I still wouldn't be referring to this game in that manner.


Jennifer Shahade: As much as Greg keeps telling me to make fun of Jenn's comments/rankings every week, I really just couldn't find a way to do so this week as her ideas seemed too spot on. Hence I better just move on.


Alex Shabalov: I'm glad Shabalov is continuing to make at least some effort to keep up with the nicknames, but I must say a half one which is essentially only a rearrangement of the victim's actual name might have to qualify as his worst performance to date. I do also find it somewhat surprising how complimentary his comment about this game seems to be in comparison to his actual ranking for it. Another interesting footnote is his describing the endgame technique of this game as "flawless" while Monokroussos contends that there was a major blunder by both sides in it. While I know better than to get in the middle of this myself, hopefully you readers will feel compelled to weigh in on the matter.


Robby Adamson: Once again his comment seems to be right on par with what the general consensus is, so little for me to criticize here despite how disturbing I found the coining of the Commissioner as "Master Greg" to be.


We'll see if the judges can further surpass their good job this week in next week's elimination!

Game of the Year -- 16th Place

This is the fifth part in a weekly series of articles which will count down to revealing what game was voted as the 2007 USCL Game of the Year. For more information on exactly how this process works and the prize information, please refer to: Game of the Year Preview.


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16th Place: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs IM Ron Burnett (TEN) 1-0






















GM Becerra found the cute tactic 53. f6!, neatly trumping Black's threat to promote to an additional queen with a mating threat. Due in large part to this move, White was able to promote to his second queen on schedule, forcing Black into an inevitable mate.



Below are the comments from the judges on why they ranked the game where they did and in parentheses is the ranking given by that judge and the number of points awarded for that ranking.


FM Ron Young (7th Place, 14 points): A very instructive game. Can you promote to a queen if your own is still on the board? Evidently, you can! This was one of the more one-sided amongst the titanic-struggle type of games, but Becerra's strong play gets points.



NM Dennis Monokroussos (12th Place, 9 points): Dog bites man, news at 11. Just the sort of game one expects from GM vs. IM, especially when the GM has White. He gains an edge out of the opening, gradually increases it, and wins. Maybe this game got a little extra love from the GOTW judges on account of the four queens at the end, but since Black was basically getting mated at that point, the usual excitement of a bigamist board was absent. Add to that the routine nature of the game along with an exchange of serious errors (51. Kg3? Qc3?, 51... Qe4 might well have saved the game), and we have a mostly correct but sedate win by the better player. Not a Game of the Year!



WGM Jennifer Shahade (17th Place, 4 points): This is where it started to get hard for me to choose. This was certainly an excellently played game by Becerra, but for such a tough player as Becerra, it seems more like a game that I would expect him to win, straightforward and clean, but not especially striking except for the four queen finale.



GM Alex Shabalov (17th Place, 4 points): Becerra vs Brunette. Serious positional advantage was converted into material by cute combination. Flawless endgame technique. No obvious mistakes. Fun to watch. A real treat.



FM Robby Adamson (17th Place, 4 points): I wanted to rank this game higher because Becerra played very well and slowly ground down his opponent showing nice technique throughout. I asked myself: would I have ranked this game higher if the colors had been reversed, and it was Ron who ground down Julio? It might have affected its ranking, somewhat. As I ranked the games, I did what Master Greg instructed which was to put the games into categories. From this game forward, I had a very difficult time distinguishing one game from another. This game happened to fall under the well played but nothing special type of game. If the pool of games ahead of this had not been as good, I would have ranked it higher. I award this game four points.


Total Score of Becerra vs Burnett: (16th Place, 35 Points)


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Stay tuned for fourteen more such articles as the field shrinks by one game each week to see which of the following games will be the 2007 Game of the Year!


Week 2: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0 Article

Week 3: IM Vinay Bhat (SF) vs GM Hikaru Nakamura (NY) 1-0 Article

Week 4: GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY) 0-1 Article

Week 6: GM Larry Christiansen (BOS) vs GM Patrick Wolff (SF) 1-0 Article

Week 7: IM Lev Milman (CAR) vs IM Ron Burnett (TEN) 0-1 Article

Week 9: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs IM Larry Kaufman (BAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard Round: FM Marcel Martinez (MIA) vs IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) 1-0 Article

Semifinals: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs IM Drasko Boskovic (DAL) 0-1 Article

Championship: SM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (BOS) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #1: IM Dmitry Zilberstein (SF) vs IM John Bartholomew (DAL) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #2: GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs GM Alex Stripunsky (QNS) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #3: IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs GM Gregory Serper (SEA) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #5: IM Eric Tangborn (SEA) vs IM Davorin Kuljasevic (DAL) 0-1 Article

Wildcard #6: NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) vs FM Marc Arnold (NY) 1-0 Article

Wildcard #7: IM Bryan Smith (PHI) vs GM Eugene Perelshteyn (BOS) 1-0 Article


Eliminated:


16th Place (35 Points): GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs IM Ron Burnett (TEN) 1-0 Article

17th Place (35 Points): IM Jay Bonin (NY) vs NM Mackenzie Molner (NJ) 1-0 Article

18th Place (30 Points): FM Slava Mikhailuk (SEA) vs IM Jonathan Schroer (CAR) 0-1 Article

19th Place (29 Points): IM Josh Friedel (SF) vs IM Lev Milman (CAR) 0-1 Article

20th Place (7 Points): IM Jay Bonin (NY) vs NM Denys Shmelov (BOS) 1-0 Article