2006 Award Winners
Congratulations to this year’s CJA Award Winners!
Fred Cramer Awards Committee for Excellence in Chess Journalism
Joint Announcement
The following list of prize winners in this year’s CJA Awards program was provided by Pete Tamburro, Chief Judge of CJA and Chairman of the Awards Committee.
Pete Tamburro, Chief Judge
Cramer Award Categories
Category 1
Chess Journalist of the Year (by CJA vote)
| Peter Tamburro |
Category 2
Gallery of Distinguished Chess Journalists
|
Normally only three journalists are selected each year, but the top four so clearly separated from the field that this year four were selected. The following four chess journalists were voting into the Gallery of Distinguished Chess Journalists this year (in no particular order):
|
Category 3
Best Book
| 1st | Soltis: Why Lasker Matters |
| HM | Cary Utterberg: De la Bourdonnais versus McDonnell, 1834 |
Category 4
Best Chess Column, Any Media
| 1st | Soltis: Chess to Enjoy, Chess Life |
Category 5
Best State Magazine/Editor, Open Division
| 1st | Chess Horizons (Ed. Mark C. Donlon) |
Magazine Editor Categories
Category 6
Best State Magazine, Under 1000 Circulation
| 1st | Georgia Chess (Editor: Mark N. Taylor, Senior Editor: David Woolf) |
| HM | NW Chess (Ed. Fred Kleist) |
Category 7
Best Club Bulletin
| 1st | En Passant, Journal of the Pittsburgh Chess Club (Ed. Bill Hoppman) |
Category 8
Best Correspondence Chess Magazine
| 1st | The Chess Correspondent, Joseph Ganem, Editor |
Category 9
Best New Magazine
| (no entries) |
Category 10
Most Improved Magazine
| 1st | MidKnight Kibitzer (Ed. Lola Nunn) |
Category 11
Best Cover
| 1st | Georgia Chess, March/April, 2006 |
Category 12
Best Layout
| 1st | Chess Life, April 2006 |
| HM | Georgia Chess Mar/Apr 2006 |
Magazine Author Categories
Category 13
Best Regular Magazine Column
| 1st | Andrew Soltis, Chess to Enjoy, Chess Life |
Category 14
Best Magazine Tournament Report
| 1st | Maurice Ashley, Jerry Hanken, The HB Global Chess Challenge, Chess Life, August 2005 |
| HM | Macauley Peterson, Adams v. The Many Headed Hyrdra, Chess Life, September 2005 |
Newspaper Author Categories
Category 15
Best Regular Newspaper Column (tie)
| 1st | Lubomir Kavalek, The Washington Post |
| 1st | David Sands, The Washington Times |
Category 16
Best Regular Newspaper Column of Local Interest
| 1st | Bill Cornwall: “Chess: A Knight’s Tour”, Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel |
Category 17
Best Newspaper Tournament Report
| 1st | David R. Sands: The Washington Times |
Web-Based Categories
Category 18
Best State Website
| 1st | http://www.georgiachess.org Bill Noyes, Webmaster |
| HM | http://masschess.org/ |
Category 19
Best Internet Chess News Site
| (no entries) |
Category 20
Best General Chess Web Site
| (no entries) |
Category 21
Best Web-Based Review
| 1st | “Half a Bitch is Better Than None” by Neil R. Brennen http://correspondencechess.com/campbell/articles/a060214.htm |
Category 22
Best Web-Based Analysis (tie)
| 1st | “When is a King Safe?” by NM Dan Heisman http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman56.pdf |
| 1st | “Game of The Month” for February 2006 by A.J. Goldsby http://www.geocities.com/thegotmman/gotm_feb-06.html |
Category 23
Best Web-Based Instruction
| 1st | “The Theory of Chess Improvement” by NM Dan Heisman http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman54.pdf |
| HM | “Initial and Final Candidate Moves” by NM Dan Heisman http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman59.pdf |
Category 24
Best Correspondence Chess Website
| 1st | The Campbell Report, J. Franklin Campbell, Webmaster. http://correspondencechess.com/campbell/ |
Category 25
Best Web-Based Interview
| (no entries) |
General Author/Artist Categories
Category 26
Best Press Release
| (no entries) |
Category 27
Best Human Interest Story
| 1st | John Donaldson, “Grandmaster Igor Ivanov”, Chess Horizons, January-March 2006 |
Category 28
Best Historical Article
| 1st | Olimpiu G. Urcan: “The Mysterious Chess Life of Rudolph L. Sze” http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles277.pdf |
| HM | Neil R. Brennen: “‘The Queen of Chess’: The Correspondence Chess of Ellen Gilbert” http://correspondencechess.com/campbell/articles/a051107.htm |
Category 29
Best Interview
| 1st | Howard Goldowsky, “A conversation with Greg Shahade…”, Chess Life, November 2005 |
Category 30
Best Editorial
| 1st | Matt Traynor, “It’s not the Legality that matters it’s the Value” http://www.chessreporter.com/Ilyumzhinov100105.htm |
| HM | Matt Traynor, “The case for Kramnik vs. Topalov” http://www.chessreporter.com/case_for_kramnik_vs_topalov.htm |
Category 31
Best Review
| 1st | Tim Redman, “The Imagery of Chess Revisited”, Chess Life April 2006 |
| HM | Peter Tamburro, “The Day Kasparov Quit and Other Chess Interviews”, Chess Life, May 2006 |
Category 32
Best Analysis (very close vote between 1st and HM)
| 1st | Peter Tamburro, “Attacking Strategies in the Ruy Lopez”, Chess Life, February 2006 |
| HM | Alexandra Kosteniuk, “Kosteniuk in Samara”, Chess Horizons, January – March 2006 |
Category 33
Best Instruction
| 1st | “The Trojan Horse Draw Offer” and “The Sense of Danger”, both by Jon Jacobs!, Chess Life, July 2005 and October and December 2005 |
Category 34
Best Humorous Contribution
| 1st | Bob Basalla, “Losing Advantages”, House of Chess Newsletter, March 2006 |
Category 35
Best Cartoon
| 1st | Alejandro Yegas, School Mates, Oct 05; Bill Lange (R.I.P.), “Pawn Chain Gang”, Oklahoma Chess Quarterly, January 2006 Winter edition |
Category 36
Best Chess Art
| 1st | Chess in the Spotlight, Nathaniel Lagemann |
Category 37
Best Chess Photograph
| 1st | Macauley Peterson, Chess Life (Kamsky photo), April 2006, p. 20 |
| HM | Tony Cortizas, Chess Horizons (Patrick Sciacca photo), January-March 2006 |
| HM | Lola Nunn, MidKnight Kibitzer (Sun Sets on 3rd Round) |
| HM | Lola Nunn, MidKnight Kibitzer (Time Stands Still for Jared), Volume 1, Issue 2 |
Category 38
Best General Chess Article
| 1st | The Trojan Horse Draw Offer, Jon Jacobs, Chess Life, July 2005 |
| HM | Looking Back at the 2005 US Junior, Jonathan Hilton, Chess Life, March 2006 |
Category 39
Best piece with a chess related theme to appear in a non-chess or mainstream publication
| 1st | The Grandmaster Experiment, Carlin Flora, Psychology Today http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-20050614-000002.xml&print;=1 |
| HM | “I’m not Bobby Fischer” (Salon.com) by David Kushner http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/03/11/chess/index_np.html |
| HM | “Checkmate on the Prairie” (National Geographic) by Chris Carroll http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0605/feature6/ |
| HM | “Planet Kirsan” (The New Yorker) by Michael Specter http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060424fa_fact4 |
| HM | “Pawn’s Shop” (Philadelphia Weekly) by Liz Spikol http://philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=10788&highlight;=Shahade |