If it works, and you are used to it, then i think you might as well stick with it. I am used to HTML::TokeParser::Simple, which is what i used below.

One problem with your script - it will not get past this site's spider blocker. The problem is that you have to accept and store the cookie that the site hands you so that you can present it back when you want to download the pgn file. You also have to fake your user agent string to a well known browser. Here is a version that should do what you want.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

use LWP;
use HTTP::Cookies;
use HTTP::Request::Common;
use HTML::TokeParser::Simple;

my $save = shift or die "USAGE $0 [savefile]\n";

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
$ua->agent('Mozilla/5.001 (windows; U; NT4.0; en-us) Gecko/25250101');
$ua->cookie_jar({
   file     => $ENV{HOME} . '/.cookies.txt',
   autosave => 1
});

my $request = GET('http://www.chessgames.com');
my $response = $ua->request($request);

my %game;
my $parser = HTML::TokeParser::Simple->new(\$response->content);

while (my $token = $parser->get_token) {
   next unless $token->is_comment;
   if ($token->as_is =~ /begintoday/) {
      $token = $parser->get_token;
      $game{date} = $token->as_is;
   }

   next unless $token->is_comment;
   if ($token->as_is =~ /begingameotd/) {
      $token = $parser->get_token;
      ($game{gid}) = $token->return_attr->{href} =~ /(\d+)$/;
      $token = $parser->get_token;
      $game{black} = $token->as_is;
      $token = $parser->get_token for 1..7;      # evil, but works
      ($game{white}) = $token->as_is =~ /(\w+)/;
      $token = $parser->get_token for 1..4;      # ditto
      $game{title} = $token->as_is;
   }
}

print Dumper \%game;
$ua->mirror("http://www.chessgames.com/perl/nph-chesspgndownload?gid=$
+game{gid}",$save);
[download]

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)