Game of the Year Contest

Now that the season is over, it's once again time to put the main focus on the Game of the Year contest, so like last year, I'll give you readers the complete scoop on what exactly this contest will entail.

First off, there will again be twenty games in this contest with prizes going to the top five which are:


1st: $500
2nd: $300
3rd: $200
4th: $100
5th: $50


The scoring for this year's contest will be the same system as used last year; each judge will rank their choices from 1st - 20th with their 20th place getting one point, 19th getting two points, and so on to 1st getting twenty points, and then the games are ranked by highest total score. The games will be released from 20th to 1st as usual, but in much quicker fashion this year than last due to public demand: one game every day for the first ten games, then one game every two days for the next five, and finally the top five games every three days, making the contest last a bit over a month (again starting in early January).

The five judges for this year's contest will be (with only one being a veteran from last season!):


GM Jan Gustafsson
IM Ben Finegold
FM Daniel Ludwig
FM Ingvar Johannesson
FM Ron Young


And like last year, along with the thirteen Games of the Week are the Wildcard games picked by the three Game of the Week judges: Jonathan Hilton, myself, and Greg Shahade. This time, Jonathan had the first pick, myself the second, and Greg the third. Repeating this process twice and then collaborating on the last, we once again came to the seven Wildcard picks. So starting in the next day or so, we will announce what the seven Wildcards are (announcing one every day or two) and then will begin the Game of the Year contest in early January. So be sure to keep a close eye on this blog and the USCL website to keep tabs on which game will be voted the best USCL game of 2008. Hopefully with the sped up process of releasing these games, everyone will be able to keep a close eye on the entirety of this contest!