2016 CJA Awards

In a follow-up to last month's post on this blog, 2016 CJA Award Entries, the Chess Journalists of America have released their Prize List for 2016 CJA Awards. True to form, the group's 2016 announcement is a copy-paste of last year's announcement where someone twice neglected to change the year (also the date?) in the introduction:-

[The CJA Awards Committee] has provided the following list of awards for the 2015 competition for best chess journalism, as announced at the annual CJA meeting on 7 August 2015.

I'd like to follow my own lead from last year's post, 2015 CJA Awards (August 2015), and list 'the four awards to which I pay the most attention'...

• Best Book (paper-printed only)
• Chess Journalist of the Year
• Best Chess Art
• Best Chess Blog

...but there's a hitch: the award structure isn't the same. The book award is now three awards...

• Best Book - Instructional (paper copy) -- 'Is Your Move Safe?' by NM Dan Heisman - Mongoose Press
• Best Book - Other (paper copy) -- 'Jose Raul Capablanca: A Chess Biography' by Miguel A. Sanchez - McFarland Pubishing
• Best Electronic Book -- 'The True Origins of Chess: Ancient Greece - Yes, India - No!' by Dr. Gerald M. Levitt

...which compensates for the disappearance of 'Best Chess Blog', with nary a trace in the awards list.

The most prestigious of the awards is undoubtedly 'Chess Journalist of the Year', won by Al Lawrence for the second time; the year 2000 was the first (see Chess Life, November 2000). Lawrence has already made several appearances in this blog; see The Start of the Scholastic Boom (July 2014) and Chessathons and SuperNationals (September 2014) for starters.

The award for 'Best Chess Art' went to 'The Chess Game' by Yael Maimon. Repeating here the composite image from July's 'Award Entries' post, the winning work is shown in the top left. An 'Honorable Mention' went to the work next to it, 'Walter Browne' by Scotty Phillips.

Since the purpose of this post is to showcase the 'Best Chess Blog', which was dropped from the awards, I'll mention 'Best General Chess Website' instead. The award went to The Oklahoma Chess Foundation (ocfchess.org). As for winner of the best eBook (why the separate category?), 'True Origins of Chess: Ancient Greece', that deserves a separate post.

Congratulations to all 2016 CJA prize winners!

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Follow-up: Murky, Murkier, Murkiest (August 2016).