A combative game from early in the season, featuring a nice piece sacrifice got fairly strong reviews from all the judges but unfortunately not quite enough to boost it into the Top Five.
This is the thirteenth part in a series of articles which will count down to revealing what game was voted as the 2013 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 Contest
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8th Place: GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY) vs GM Robert Hungaski (MAN) 1-0
With 31. Nxg5!, White smashed his way toward the Black King soon regaining his lost material with interest which he later skilfully converted
GM Alex Yermolinsky (5th Place, 16 Points): Pascal’s treatment of the opening is questionable, but it allows him to get a complex position. Robert seems to play all the right moves, but he fails to contain White’s activity as the Black Pawns begin to go forward. Charbonneau is merciless with his attack launched by a nice piece sacrifice.
GM Alejandro Ramirez (7th Place, 14 Points): A nice tactical finish in a complex game.
IM Jake Kleiman (7th Place, 14 Points): This was a complex game. Pascal was able to pick up on the 29… Ned8 blunder and handled the rest of the game quite nicely.
FM Ron Young (10th Place, 11 Points): Three pawns and an opened King position is a pretty good price to fetch for a Knight on h3. As Tarrasch said “A knight at the edge of the board is a candidate for selbstmord“.
FM Ingvar Johannesson (13th Place, 8 Points): The players ventured into some Marin-esque English theory which turns out to be a Benoni with colors reversed. Hungaski seemed to deviate from known lines with 14… Rb8, and the game looked dynamically equal in the early middlegame. Black perhaps got too ambitious with 24… g5 although it looked fine at the time it was played. His Kingside turned out to be too weakened when Pascal sacrificed a piece on g5 later in the game. From there he played more or less the best moves and wound up in a minor piece endgame up three Pawns which provided no problems.
FM Alisa Melekhina (14th Place, 7 Points): Pascal craftily transposed the game into a reverse Benoni and executed it with Grandmaster precision. I’m completely on board with his approach to eschew chess theory in favor for system-based positions where it’s up to the players to demonstrate what they can do OTB. The game was clean, but nothing too memorable though 31. Nxg5 was an aesthetic sacrifice.
By now players should be cautious about moving their Pawns too far in front of their King against Pascal! They become immediate targets for this GM. On his part, Hungaski showed great resoluteness by fighting until the very end.
Total Score of Charbonneau vs Hungaski: (8th Place, 70 Points)
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Stay tuned for seven more such articles as the field shrinks by one game almost every day to see which of the following games will be the 2013 Game of the Year!
Week 5: IM Dmitry Schneider (MAN) vs GM Joel Benjamin (NJ) 0-1 Article
Week 6: IM Marc Esserman (BOS) vs GM Tamaz Gelashvili (NY) 0-1 Article
Week 8: GM Conrad Holt (DAL) vs IM Jonathan Schroer (CAR) 1-0 Article
Semifinals: GM Sam Shankland (NE) vs GM Tamaz Gelashvili (NY) 1-0 Article
Wildcard #1: GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY) vs FM Steven Winer (NE) 1-0 Article
Wildcard #3: IM Justin Sarkar (CON) vs IM Levon Altounian (ARZ) 0-1 Article
Wildcard #5: GM Alex Stripunsky (NJ) vs GM Melikset Khachiyan (LA) 1-0 Article
Eliminated:
8th Place (70 Points): GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY) vs GM Robert Hungaski (MAN) 1-0 Article Elimination Article
9th Place (69 Points): GM Giorgi Margvelashvili (DAL) vs GM Ben Finegold (STL) 1/2-1/2 Article Elimination Article
10th Place (58 Points): FM Eric Rodriguez (MIA) vs IM Irina Krush (NY) 1-0 Article Elimination Article
11th Place (58 Points): GM Zviad Izoria (MAN) vs GM Tamaz Gelashvili (NY) 1-0 Article Elimination Article
12th Place (58 Points): IM Vitaly Neimer (STL) vs FM Eric Rodriguez (MIA) 0-1 Article Elimination Article
13th Place (56 Points): GM Emil Anka (SEA) vs FM Tom Bartell (PHI) 0-1 Article Elimination Article
14th Place (51 Points): IM Andranik Matikozyan (LA) vs GM Julio Becerra (MIA) 0-1 Article Elimination Article
15th Place (44 Points): GM Conrad Holt (DAL) vs GM Julio Becerra (MIA) 0-1 Article Elimination Article
16th Place (43 Points): GM Julio Becerra (MIA) vs GM Tamaz Gelashvili (NY) 1-0 Article Elimination Article
17th Place (43 Points): GM Joel Benjamin (NJ) vs GM Pascal Charbonneau (NY) 1-0 Article Elimination Article
18th Place (41 Points): John Michael Burke (NJ) vs NM Ryan Goldenberg (MAN) 0-1 Article Elimination Article
19th Place (40 Points): GM Niclas Huschenbeth (BAL) vs IM Steven Zierk (BOS) 0-1 Article Elimination Article
20th Place (40 Points): GM Tamaz Gelashvili (NY) vs GM Julio Becerra (MIA) 1-0 Article Elimination Article