NCA Best Game Prize 2012-13
Steve Burke
After volunteering to arrange this, I was quite pleased when it turned out that there weren’t any from Ashfield players, so I could have the honour of making the decision myself rather than farm it out to another independent judge.
However, despite having Houdini 3 to check the tactics, ChessBase with the Big Database for theoretical background, and several hours of analysis, this wasn’t as easy as I’d expected. So, as I sit writing this, I still haven’t finally decided which game will win.
The contenders were from David Coates, Claudio Mangione, Tim Walker, David Levens and Chris Budd. All were interesting in their own way, but those ways were so different!
- David C had a rollercoaster game with many ups and downs, although he was always (at least slightly) better.
- Claudio took advantage of a series of small errors to efficiently create a winning outside pawn advance.
- Tim played a very finely balanced game before pouncing on a single mistake by his opponent to win.
- David L had the ultimate up-and-downer, recovering from a lost position to win with a great tactical blow.
- Chris played a very sound game until his opponent made a couple of mistakes and he crashed in with a spectacular breakthrough.
In its own way each has a valid claim, so it comes down to “What is a Best Game”? Having thought about this myself, and canvassed opinions, I’ve concluded that for me it should:-
- have accurate play with some element of “wow factor” (whether tactical or strategic)
- be generally entertaining to watch
- the winner really should not have been lost at any point.
However, in the final analysis, I guess it comes down to a personal feeling and I’ve narrowed it down to two games – Chris and David C. Chris tops the list for point 1 and David for point 2, while both meet point 3.
It really is very close, and the final choice for Best Game is…. Both of them!
The two games are so different that it seems unfair to choose one over the other.