[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: USCL 2007 Game of the Year #9: Friedel-Serper

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
USCL 2007 Game of the Year #9: Friedel-Serper
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1206266721.shtml


   Twelve down, eight to go.
   The latest game to get eliminated in the [1]U.S. Chess League's Game
   of the Year contest for 2007 is Josh Friedel's week 9 win over Gregory
   Serper, a funny game where Serper kept pushing the pawns in front of
   his king until he got mated. I'll cover this game in some detail on my
   [2]ChessVideos show next week, together with the 8th place game, but
   for now you can read the [3]judges' comments and replay the game
   [4]here.
   Let me add in passing that I'm apparently leading an informal judges
   contest, where the goal (unknown to the judges beforehand) is to have
   one's picks as close to the actual results as possible. This "contest"
   strikes me as entirely pointless at best, if only because USCL commish
   Greg Shahade instructed us to judge the games according to whatever
   criteria we wanted, making things such that there is no "right"
   placement for any of the games. So I'm pointing this out only because
   the contest's inventor, USCL blogger Arun Sharma, seems to be slightly
   annoyed that he's not in the lead. ([5]Here's the link with the
   judges' standings after GOTY #10; my lead has increased because I
   picked Friedel-Serper for 9th place, while Sharma - already six points
   back - did not.)
   (In fairness to Sharma, who isn't an official judge and whose guesses
   don't count, the contest is unfair to him, unless his calculations
   take the following reasoning into account. The point is that my
   guesses "skew" the results in my favor while his don't. Suppose
   everyone but me and Sharma vote a game for 10th place, while I put it
   in 5th and he puts it in 15th. To evaluate which of us is closer to
   the norm, either both our votes should count or neither should. Either
   way, the game would end up with an average rating of 10th place and
   we'd be equally wrong. With my vote counting but not his, however, I'm
   closer, as the average with my vote only is a 9th place rating - I'm
   two places closer.)

References

   1. http://www.uschessleague.com/
   2. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/chessvideos_shows/
   3. http://usclnews.blogspot.com/2008/03/game-of-year-9th-place.html
   4. http://www.uschessleague.com/games/friedelserper07.htm
   5. http://usclnews.blogspot.com/2008/03/judges-contest-10th-place.html