Anybody know the winner and or the nominees? Thank you :mrgreen:
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Creating such an award, advertized through Chess Life, might bring…
(A) Increased sales of chess books from USCF.
(B) Increased interaction from members to the USCF website.
(C) Prestige from chess book publishers and authors who would trumped on the book cover - “Voted USCF Book of the Year 2014!”.
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Book
Winner: The United States Chess Championship, 1845 – 2011 by Andy Soltis, published by McFarland Publishing
The above is the report from the CJA awards for 2012.
The chesscafe book of the year is Aron Nimzowitsch,1886-1924
Rather expensive. I wonder if most of these games are not available elsewhere?
My database (which is old…I’m on CB10 w/ Bid Database 2008) has 578 Nimzo games.
Methinks the point is the previously unknown/unpublished historical insight to Nimzo’s life.
Books like this sell maybe 200 copies a year. In a good year.
It’s hard to imagine how it wins an election.
I wouldn’t call chesscafe an election. That said, it’s not hard to see how both books made it to the top in their respective groups (USCF and chesscafe). Both are considered significant historic accounts. “How to get better etc.” books will come and go, and many will have great material, but it takes years for those to be recognized in the pantheon (Art of Attack comes to mind). Much easier to see when a history book fills an informational void.
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Because ChessCafe intentionally withholds the absolute vote counts, its award cannot be taken too seriously.
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How many votes did the Oscar Best Picture get? They don’t announce that either.