There have been a number of games now with some very original titles.  I thank all of the teams who have thought about naming their game something other than "Let's Play."  Here are some of those games for your enjoyment:

lol

Week 2:

Week 3:

Lol - yeah, the game was over faster than a Cheetah Sprint. 

All the games that I have posted here were based solely on the titles.  Obviously some of these were not the most interesting games to view tho.  I invite anyone to post any of the other games whose titles may not be as interesting, but the games are.

I also did not have time to go thru the team comments and enter the highlights into the game notes.  However, I know that some of these games have some very interesting discussions that would make for great reading if someone was willing to post them.

Is anyone willing to post their games here with some colorful commentary?

 Nope.  That was my idea. 

You'd never be able to fit all the Chess Nuts comments in anyway.  I've never seen a more talkative bunch.    Your challenge would be picking which one comment per move you wanted to enter into the game notes. 

2600 comments!!  That's like 54 comments per move.  I'm sure that's a record!!

 Absolutely.... LOL

Week 4:

Here is the first of the Playoff Games.  It was certainly not the start any of us were hoping for as a couple of rogue voters obviously came in and sabotaged The Blakenators at the end.  This was a real shame because it seemed equally obvious that Kairav’s Chess Masters were functioning as a team much better than The Blakenators from the very start, and would have likely won the game anyway, but it really sucks that it ended the way that it did.    

Kairav’s Chess Masters averaged 6 votes per move, and 12 of the 25 votes (48%) were unanimous.  Another 7 (28%) had only 1 dissenting vote.  In fact, they had only 2 moves decided by 1 vote or less (only 1 move had a tie).  The Blakenators on the other hand averaged only 3.5 votes per move, and 12 moves were decided by 1 vote or less (3 moves had a tie).  The biggest blunder, in my opinion, was on move 14 when Ironworks said, “Do you think I should try to rustle up a few more players. There's only three of us voting.”  And Dannydawson replied, “only if you want to, I'm ok.”  Ironworks said, “Ok I'll leave it.”  Had they gotten more players, the sabotage would not have been possible, as the team could have simply vetoed the blunders by out voting the saboteurs. 

I’ve played in enuf vote games to know that the mole theory and saboteur accusations are far more common than they should be, and I usually dismiss any such charges as paranoia, but it is honestly the only reasonable explanation for 21…Na8 (and the vote to resign on move 7).  There were many other bad moves voted for thruout the game that may have been simply poor chess skills, but now even they are suspect.

I would give you the stats on how many players posted comments, and how many total comments and average comments per move were made by each team, but I really don’t feel like going thru all that work.  KCM had many moves with 2 or 3 PAGES of comments, and The Blakenators had many moves with only 1 or 2 comments.  Whatever the actual numbers are, it’s obvious that these stats greatly favor KCM as well. 

As great of a player as Dannydawson is (and everyone rightfully acknowledges him as such), he is still only one player, and this is a team sport.  If we are to learn anything from this game, it’s that you need to play as a team: you need to have as many players as possible, and you need to have as much discussion as possible.  If everyone can do this, we will not have any more disappointing results like we did here. 

Team Leaders: It would be a good idea to keep a very close eye on your team members.  Encourage each of them to post their ideas before they vote, and to post the vote results after they have voted.  You can see who is online at any given moment, so if everyone is posting their votes (with the exception of the saboteurs) it will be easier to determine who the saboteurs are. 

I am incredibly disappointed that these playoffs have been tainted like this.  We have had a great season, and this has been an incredible league.  But as you can see, it only takes a couple bad apples to spoil things for everyone.  The Blakenators are a great team, and if they choose not to return for Season 2 because of this incident, I will be highly upset (although I would understand), and the league as a whole will be hurt by their absence.

Here are the rest of the Quarter-Final Games:

Rd 1 Playoff Game

Here are the Semi-Final Games:

Some of the games are actually a bit crazy.

Some would even call them "Nutty".