Or a second-price auction, Dutch auction--in part the choice of auction depends how strategic/how much room for error you want in the bidding.

Personally, I'd rather see a longer tie-brake format -- e.g., two games before an Armageddon game is played -- but if it has to be one game, I like the idea of some type of auction.

I liked the commentaries by Ashley and Shahade very much. I think they found the right mixture of explaining the positions in general terms and of concrete analysis. They worked together as a team very well, and it being 12 games every round there was always enough to discuss. Definitely one of the most entertaining chess commentary I've ever listened to.

At the beginning I was not so sure about the format, but I think it worked out reasonably well. I had thought that 7 rounds may be too few rounds to produce four clear "winners", but with only 24 players it might just be enough. However, imagine there were only 3 players tied with several behind competing for he fourth spot, you have a lot of tie-breaking to do, something which should be avoided imo.

And sorry, but in spite of what just was posted by curtains but I think the tie-breaking procedure used to find a winner has a major flaw: I just don't like that someone can be winning the title by reaching a draw. Sure, it was an exciting game, but Kamsky still only drew, and nevertheless he wins the title.
I liked the procedure they used in the World Cup much better: first four rapid games, and then pairs of blitz games until there is a clear winner. That can of course be modified, but the main idea (pairs of games until there is a clear winner) is just more logical and it avoids this artificial tradeoff between thinking time, colour and draw-odds. And in the end, the winner has actually defeated the runner-up.

I quite like the tiebreaker. I thought the format for the whole tournament was a bit silly though, it definitely seems like something the sponsors wanted rather than a way to improve the tournament for the players.

I wouldn't mind seeing the format from the old days, or maybe that movie, the Ludzin Defense or whatever it's called.

Take, say 16 players, Chop them in half, ie 1,4,5,8,9,12,13,16, then do a Round Robin.

The winner of both RR's play a match for the championship. I guess this only works if there's a few top prizes though.

Naka is still human, and he really hasn't had that major of a blunder in a long time. He still seems to be in good spirits after the game, and he went for the win. Sometimes you come up short.

He's not ranked #1 in the country for being soft a times, he's still a Super GM and was one of younger participants in the field.

Gata had a great tournament, and it's good to see him playing well again.

Naka still has some big tournaments coming up next year, and maybe this is just a speed bump up his path of the rankings chart.

The other thing you have to realize about Naka is that he doesn't spend 14 hours a day studying chess like others do. Perhaps if he did, he'd be a top 5 player, but seriously, who wants to spend their lives looking at a 64 square chess board? He's making a good living now and still enjoying life.

Could he be better? Yes

The best tournament format is K.O. obviously. No team play, no prearranged draws like Shulman vs Onischuk.

I've seen a couple different sites, including Chessbase, in their discussion of the tie-break format, state that "Most players expect that unless the winning bid is close to 60 minutes, then the person with less time will choose black."

I don't get the "unless" part... wouldn't black with draw odds ALWAYS be preferable to white, regardless of how large your time handicap is? And the only question is how much time you're willing to give up in order to have black? Why, if the winning bid were close to 60 minutes (such that there was little to no handicap) would someone suddenly choose white?

The idea is that if the winning bid is closer to 60 minutes, that it means the players clearly don't value black so much, so maybe it's a bit more likely that they want the white pieces? I dunno some guys play much better with white, although at the highest levels I suspect they will almost always want black.

I have a feeling that Naka studies chess more than he let's everyone think he does..

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I understand going for it and coming up short. I just think with his repertoire and multifaceted playing style that he could have found a safer way to play for a win that didn't involve as much risk. (i.e. A long protracted struggle in a semi-open game starting via 1. c4)

Those of you in the Boston area can attend a June 23 lecture by Larry Christiansen. He'll be discussing the games and players of the 2010 U.S. Chess Championship.

Link to Boylston Chess Club announcement