2017 Gibraltar - Best Game

One tradition that still continues in some the UK events I visited or played at was the awarding of a "Best Game" prize. This was done at Hastings, and was also done at Gibraltar. In Australia it used to happen on occasion, but fell by the wayside as there were often not enough nominations, and not enough qualified judges.
In such a big event as Gibraltar I'm not sure how they found the time to check all the games, as there were a number of brilliant games played. Having on site commentators probably helped, as Simon Williams and Jovanka Houska featured the best games from each round, often bringing the winner in for an interview. Even then I saw 2 or 3 games a round that could easily have won such a prize in a smaller event, so making a final decision seemed difficult.
In the end the winner was Veselin Topalov's win over Bogdan-Daniel Deac (if I heard the announcement correctly that is). At the time I first saw it it looked spectacular, and the judge(s) obviously agreed. Topalov allowed Deac to get a black pawn all the way to c2 (forking rooks) but it was all to late as Toplaov had calculated a massive win of material due to the threat of mate on the bank rank. And all in 25 moves.


Topalov,Veselin (2739) - Deac,Bogdan-Daniel (2572) [E04]
Tradewise Masters 2017 Caleta Hotel, Gibraltar (5.12), 28.01.2017

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. g3 dxc4 5. Bg2 Bd7 6. Ne5 Bc6 7. Nxc6 Nxc6 8. e3 Qd7 9. O-O Rd8 10. Qe2 e5 11. Nc3 Be7 12. dxe5 Nxe5 13. Bxb7 Bb4 14. Rd1 Nd3 15. e4 Bxc3 16. bxc3 Qb5 17. e5 Nd5 18. Rb1 Nxc3 19. Qf3 Qxe5 20. Qc6+ Kf8 21. Bb2 Ne2+ 22. Kg2 c3 23. Ba3+ Kg8 24. Qe4 c2 25. Rxd3 1-0