2021 CJA Awards - Part 1

After the previous posts on the 2021 CJA Awards Announcement (May 2021) and the 2021 CJA Award Entries (July 2021), it's time to close the series with a look at the winners. Last year (see the 'Announcement' post for links to the 2020 posts), I split the discussion between a look at the award process and a look at the awards themselves. I'll do the same this year, although for a different reason.

The CJA -- 'Chess Journalists of America', if you haven't heard of the group before -- has a list of winners on their own site: 2021 CJA Award Winners (chessjournalism.org). The list includes a link to download a structured (CSV) version of the file. Most people interested in the CSV version would use it to create a spreadsheet, but I used it to create a database. The database allows me to look at the awards in different ways, as shown in the three charts below.

The chart in the upper left ('Category') corresponds to the categories shown in the 'Announcement' post. The chart in the lower left ('Award') shows the various types of award scattered across the categories. The three blank awards are Cramer Awards for an entry under 'Best State...'.

The chart on the right ('Org') counts which chess publications -- the CJA title is 'Media/Publisher/Source' -- won one or more awards. The 14 blank 'Orgs' are a mixed bag, e.g. writers who work independently. The well known Dan Heisman is listed three times with a blank org: 2 x Winner, and 1 x Honorable Mention.

I trust that the numbers in the three charts add up the same, 81 awards total. I'll come back to the subject in another post to look at my favorite awards.