The 3rd annual chessgames.com vote on the greatest games of the year commenced on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 and continued through January 7th of the new year. The rules remained unchanged from 2005: a kibitzer could select up to ten games from 2006 to vote for. Any nonvariant game of chess in the chessgames.com database, including those played under rapid, blitz, blindfold and simul conditions could be chosen. Kibitzers assigned a number to each of their choices, indicating which game they thought was best, second-best, and so on. I awarded ten points for the first choice, nine for the second, eight for the third, and so on down to the tenth game, which earned one point.

This year was a big first in voting history as two games tied for first place and shared Game of the Year honors. Both of them, and the rest of the top ten in the points tallies, are included in this game collection to stand for all time as chessgames.com's choices for the greatest games of 2006.