English Chess Forum

Are there rules for the ECF book of the year contest? Who proposes books? When are the requisite dates of publication? Are new editions of books eligible? Do books have to be in English? Do the ECF members have a say in the voting, or is it just the judges? How are judges selected to assess chess books across various specialised subjects?

Feedback welcomed. Thank you.

" .. and who will guard the guards themselves .. ?

I have never seen any written rules/ procedures for how judges are appointed but I would guess it is down to the CEO or another executive director after discussion with current/ continuing judges. I believe the judges are entirely responsible for drawing up the shortlist and deciding the winner. Members have never had a say and I don't think opening this up to a vote of the membership is a remotely practical suggestion. Generally I think the current (and past) judges have done an excellent job in deciding on the ECF Book of the Year.

Mike Gunn wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 12, 2025 1:10 pm

. Generally I think the current (and past) judges have done an excellent job in deciding on the ECF Book of the Year.

The 2024 winner was signed off by Ray Edwards, Jovanka Houska, Sean Marsh
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/english ... year-2024/
as was the 2023 winner
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/ecf-boo ... year-2023/

Does a full list of winning titles exist, going back to the award's inception under the BCF in, I believe, the late 1980s?

John Townsend wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 12, 2025 2:02 pm

Does a full list of winning titles exist, going back to the award's inception under the BCF in, I believe, the late 1980s?

Someone would need to compile this list and present it here. Having a full set of BCF and ECF Yearbooks and copies of "The Yearbook of Chess" I could no doubt do this if persuaded.

John Townsend wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 12, 2025 2:02 pm

Does a full list of winning titles exist, going back to the award's inception under the BCF in, I believe, the late 1980s?

ECF book of the year 2002 to 2014

Lots of other info ECF Resources

To John Upham: John, a list of winners should be a useful thing to add to the ECF website. If you decide to have a stab at it, here is a link to earlier forum discussion which should help:

viewtopic.php?t=10839

There is also Mick Norris's useful contribution above.

Mike Gunn wrote: " Members have never had a say and I don't think opening this up to a vote of the membership is a remotely practical suggestion."

Why not? All it needs is a list of titles on a website, preferably with a little accompanying information, with instructions where to send their votes and by when. Why is that remotely impracticable?

John Townsend wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 12, 2025 4:15 pm

Mike Gunn wrote: " Members have never had a say and I don't think opening this up to a vote of the membership is a remotely practical suggestion."

Why not? All it needs is a list of titles on a website, preferably with a little accompanying information, with instructions where to send their votes and by when. Why is that remotely impracticable?

The risk of it ending up like the Player of the Year did (i.e. people not voting based on the merit of the books, but on some other criteria) and the risk of people voting having only read some, or even only one, of the books.

If necessary, the members' votes could be in addition to, rather than instead of, the judges' votes, perhaps weighted accordingly. You might expect this opportunity to be a part of the process would be received well by the membership of an organisation which does not recognize the voting rights of individual members. For the winner to be determined partly by the members would also mean that the result reflected the views of the members.

Mike Gunn wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 12, 2025 1:10 pm

Generally I think the current (and past) judges have done an excellent job in deciding on the ECF Book of the Year.

Nigel Short’s book Winning was both innovative in format (a collection of tournament wins, with the games from each tournament annotated) and superbly written. Throw into the mix Short is England’s most accomplished player since Howard Staunton, and it was the first book he had ever written. While Voronkov’s book on the History of the Soviet Chess Championships was a good book, for it to win the English Chess Federation’s Book of the Year award in 2021 ahead of Short’s was the most absurd thing since Short came second in the ECF Player of the Year award in 1993. The year he was hardly ever out of the press when he beat Timman to play Kasparov later that year.

Paul, it seems a strange decision that Winning did not win in 2021. I wonder why not.

Addendum: Winning was a very special book, being the first book by the only British player to have contested a world championship match. It was well written and very attractively presented. I received a copy from my son as a present and was getting stuck into it, plotting how I would use it to prepare for some county matches. Then it suddenly disappeared from my shelves and found its way - back to my son's house! Evidently, he found it excellent too.

John Townsend wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 12, 2025 12:01 pm

Are there rules for the ECF book of the year contest? Who proposes books? When are the requisite dates of publication? Are new editions of books eligible? Do books have to be in English? Do the ECF members have a say in the voting, or is it just the judges? How are judges selected to assess chess books across various specialised subjects?

Feedback welcomed. Thank you.

My understanding is a publisher can nominate 2(?) books, and the window for publication is 1 August-31 July (so 1/8/24 - 31/7/25 here). Presumably have to be English as I’ve never seen a none English book in the shortlist, as presumably (perhaps excluding Jovanka) the judges aren’t multi-lingual.

Mike Gunn wrote:

"Generally I think the current (and past) judges have done an excellent job in deciding on the ECF Book of the Year."

Could Mike clarify what criteria he uses to say that "an excellent job" has been done?