The Chess Mind

Coming in fourth place in the U.S. Chess League's countdown to the 2007 Game of the Year is Larry Christiansen-Patrick Wolff, a fine attacking win by Christiansen in a Classical Sicilian. The judges' report is here, and in a few days my analysis of the game will be posted on the ChessVideos.tv site.

As mentioned here, the 5th place game in the USCL 2007 Game of the Year Contest was Bhat-Nakamura, and it was quite the battle from start to finish. See for yourself here, as I cover the game for ChessVideos.tv - it's free and available on-demand.

The countdown to the US Chess League's 2007 game of the year continues, and this week the first prize-winning game (not to be confused with the game winning first place) has been selected (and eliminated). In fifth place, we have Vinay Bhat's fighting win over Hikaru Nakamura, a dramatic game that saw the underdog (that would be Bhat, just in case there are some very casual fans reading this) fight for the win even when down a pawn and behind by a ridiculous 71 minutes to 1 minute margin on the clock. (There were increments, but still.)

Here's the game, while you can read the judges' comments here. My ChessVideos show on the game will show up sometime later this week.

My coverage of the USCL countdown continues here; next week, coverage begins of the money games.

This unfortunate spot goes to the Perelshteyn-Charbonneau game; unfortunate because the top 5 games win cash awards and the rest don't. You can read the judges' report here, and check out the comments that might arise the next few days criticizing one judge in particular. (I was by far the harshest critic of the game, finding it neither especially accurate or entertaining - it struck me as one of those "you had to be there" events.)

I'll present this game, along with the 7th place battle between Becerra and Stripunsky (a much better game, in my opinion), in a few days on ChessVideos.tv.

The judges' report is here and the game itself here. Stay tuned next week, when I'll present this game along with the 6th place finisher on ChessVideos.tv.

The identity of the 9th and 8th place finishers in the U.S. Chess League 2007 Game of the Year contest have already been revealed, but those games secrets haven't been, at least not until now. I've analyzed them in a combined presentation for ChessVideos.tv, and now we can say that their secrets...still haven't been fully revealed. Still, the video should help, and as the games are instructive and entertaining, it's worth your while to have a look. Enjoy!