CCN July 2013 sample: Edmonton Chess Festival

As editor of "Chess Canada", my target is to release each issue by the end of the first week of each month. Sometimes there are significant chess events that end so close to the deadline that I choose to push it back a few days. This month there are two: both the Edmonton Chess Festival and the CFC AGM ended July 1. It would have been ludicrous to push them back to the August issue, which will be more-than-full with reports on the CYCC and Canadian Open. So my plan was to finish and release the July CCN on July 8 or 9. 

While Eric Hansen and Fred McKim both met their July 6 deadlines, I have found myself swamped by preparations for the CYCC and Canadian Open (I'm on the organizing committee and am responsible for the websites). An optimistic friend of mine -- who I like but don't resemble -- would tell me that this is good news: what could be bad about a possible-record-attendance of 271 (and counting) in the CYCC!? While I can't see anything bad about that, as a natural complainer I'm focused on the fact that it leaves me too little time to meet the July CCN release date with a format and layout that meets my own (absurd) standards. 

Realistically, I can't expect to interview and photograph players at the CYCC and finish the CCN in the next 2-3 days.

 To tide you over until it is done -- and to show you that I haven't just been goofing off -- here is the illustrated and annotated report on the 2013 Edmonton Chess Festival. PDF

I think it's really good, but the entire issue will be ridiculously good, with reports and games from: GM Eric Hansen (6 games), IM Edward Porper (4), IM Jean Hebert (1), FM Vladimir Pechenkin (5), and three young tournament winners: Razvan Preotu, Michael Song, and Alexandra Botez annotating their favourite games from tournaments they won in June. 

I think it's worth waiting to see that in its best-possible format. But if you don't want to wait for the entire 52-game opus, here's a taste: PDF.

 - John Upper