The Chess Mind

As mentioned in this post, the U.S. Chess League is counting down the 20 entrants in their Game of the Year contest, for which I'm one of the judges (along with Alex Shabalov, Jenn Shahade, Robby Adamson and Ron Young), and game #20 has been revealed. The worst of the best is Bonin-Shmelov, a goofy but exciting game that shows the value of dogged defense. Bonin missed a shot in the early middlegame and should have lost right away, and even after surviving to the endgame he was in trouble there, too. Yet his resourcefulness, and ultimately Shmelov's lack of vigilance, wound up netting him the full point.

You can find the judges' report and a link for replaying the game here. And if you really want to go deep with these games, tune in to ChessVideos.tv in a day or two, as my weekly videos there will cover each of the USCL GOTY entries as they are revealed. (I'll give the direct link once they've posted the show.)