Boston Blitz players GM Larry Christiansen and Jorge Sammour-Hasbun are still very much alive in the USCL Game of the Year voting, which takes the top 20 games from the season and every week elimates one more game from contention.  The voting is now down to just 10 games remaining, with the only two Blitz games that qualified still in the hunt for a prize.

The USCL Game of the Year contest takes all of the Games of the Week from the 13 weeks in the season, along with 7 wildcard games, to give a total of 20 games.  These games have been ranked from 1-20 by the 5 judges, FM Robby Adamson, NM Dennis Monokroussos, GM Alex Shabalov, WGM Jennifer Shahade and FM Ron Young.  Each week, the game remaining with the lowest score from the judging gets eliminated.

The Blitz had 2 winning games in the top 20.  Christiansen’s pretty win against San Francisco’s top GM, Patrick Wolff, in week 6 is included along with Sammour-Hasbun’s tactical melee in the USCL Final against Dallas’ IM Davorin Kuljasevic.  Here are the two games for your viewing pleasure:

Even though this may seem like a way to keep fans interested in the USCL during it’s down time (which it is), there is also a very generous prize fund at stake with the winning game receiving $1,000.  The remaining prizes are 2nd $500, 3rd $300, 4th $200 and 5th $100.  A total prize fund of $2,100!

I guess I should also mention that the Blitz has 2 games still in the running in which it was on the wrong side of the result.  Both of GM Eugene Perelshteyn’s losses during the season, week 4 to GM Pascal Charbonneau and week 7 to IM Bryan Smith.  I guess if you’re going to lose, you might as well do it in Game of the Week style!

There are also a couple of interesting “side lines” to go with the USCL Game of the Year contest, such as Arun Sharma’s attempts to predict the finishing position of all 20 games.  According to his latest projections, Sammour-Hasbun’s game will be the next one voted off the island, although he just snapped a 6 week losing streak by correctly predicting the week 11 game, which coincidentally was also the same game he projected would go in weeks 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17.  Guess he’s going to get at least one right with that system!

Also entertaining is a weekly video of the latest casualty by NM Dennis Monokroussos.  Dennis gives a good insight into the games and explains a lot of the thinking around his particular rankings.