Traditionally, opening words will be spoken by GM Sergey Ivanov, one of the elders among our experts:

"2007 July: a wonderful, excellent collection, one of the best to my taste, if not the best one in the whole project. The top twenty is marked by several noticeable events: a number of masterpieces from Bile and Montreal, a presence of Vassily Ivanchuk in the top lines of our charts for many month in a row, a long-awaited coming back of Emil Sutovsky (¤f5! in his game against Yemelin made to remember good old Emil at once), and much more... For instance, I was enormously impressed by Gajewski's victory: in a previously unknown variation 'a la Marshall Counter Attack' Black literally wiped all white pieces out of the board having promoted his pawn to a knight on the way! And putting his queen under attacks of a rook and a pawn – £f4! – demonstrated by Alexei Shirov in a rapid game against Boris Gelfand, it is something extraterrestrial, composers may go and rest! How fine that of the three elements of chess (sport, science and art) the latter sometimes steps forward!"

Sergey's judgement is confirmed indirectly by the absence of a mutual opinion among referees: a gap between 1st and 8th places turned out very small, likely due to abundance of worthy choices. It is worth to note that each of the 20 games is present at least in one list and the only game liked by all the experts without exception took a place far from 1st. Read further to know more!

In the tight struggle the laurels goes to Sergei Tiviakov for his victory over Pavel Eljanov in Montreal (Zagrebelny and Lysyj ranked it 1st, one 2nd place and the sum is 50 points). Though the author himself noted a slippery moment in his commentaries, the beauty of his plan overweights: sacrificing of a piece for constructing a strong pawn centre followed by a roundabout march at the queenside – very unusual! An unexpected exchange of the "Spanish" bishop and white rooks' maneuvering impress tremendously.

The second place is taken by the "extraterrestrial" game Gelfand – Shirov (1st place by Ivanov, one 2nd, one 3rd, 46 points). It is a little pity that the version of the queen sacrificing chosen by Alexei was not the most accurate one and we did not see a maddening mate on the board. But how it happened in reality was not so bad!

The third is the decisive game of the Biel tournament Carlsen – Radjabov (one 2nd, two 3rd, 41 point). "They did not invite us but we are here already – it is about ¦a1-a3-e3-e4!!!" (Landa).

Only one point behind stand Van Wely – Radjabov (one 2nd, one 3rd) and Kuznetsov – Gajewski (ranked 1st by Deviatkin and Landa, one 3rd).

"I cannot but give the 1st place to the game of this original Polish chessplayer. His investigations in worn out variations of Ruy Lopez are striking. His sacrifices surely will be refuted by computer, but Black's play gives fantastic impression!" (Landa).

As to the other of the two games having shared 4th place, Konstantin said: "I am sorry for Loek. It was an interesting game. I know one thing for sure now – Indians will not take Loek into their tribe! I mean the saying 'the Indian will not step on the same rake twice'!" Indeed, Van Wely loses to Radjabov in the King's Indian for the third time this year.

To soothe Loek let us introduce a game liked by everyone: Van Wely – Carlsen. Yes, it enters all experts' tens but stands only the 6th (four 4th, 39 points). A piece sacrifice, an excellent "mouse slip" 21.£h6 (instead of automatic capturing on h7) that did not allow the black king to run away to the other side of the board; transition into the endgame, a fan of pawns and a mass breakthrough to the edge of the board (though there some serious complications might arise as Loek made a couple of inaccuracies).

Another sharing goes next: Sutovsky – Miton (two 2nd places) and Anand – Topalov have 35 points each.

Konstantin Landa: "Sutovsky – Miton. An excellent attack by Emil partly prepared at home, I think, but very beautiful nevertheless. I should possibly rank Anand – Topalov somewhat higher (Konstantin ranked the game exactly 8th – M.N.) but Topa seems to have mixed up something in his favourite Najdorf".

9th and 10th places are shared again. A victory by Topalov over Kasimdzhanov deserved highest appreciations from the best one-fourth of the arbiters' board (both Alexandra and Olga gave it the first place). However the battle of champions did not impress stern hearts of men. Ivanchuk – Bluvshtein (1st rank by Barskij) gathered 26 points as well.

Some of July creative achievements not mentioned here will present in my future review as almost all the laureate games have been commented elsewhere. See you soon!