2016 Brings New Content to ICA Website

With the new year, brings much newness... not the least of which is the challenge to remember to write the correct year on notation sheets.

The ICA website is at a crossroads and we'd love your feedback. Do you find the articles to be helpful and interesting?  What features would you like to see added? Do you yourself have an idea for an article?  Do you know someone in the chess community who is worthy of a profile?  Or are you aware of a chess organization which we may not know about?

Also, we are looking for skilled and insightful players to annotate games from our major tournaments played by members of our chess community.

If you are a coach, this is a fantastic way for potential students to learn how articulate you can be when analyzing others' games.

As a player -- or a chess parent -- if you have an interesting game that you or your child played in at an ICA event -- either scholastic or all-ages -- please send the notation to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. along with any related thoughts. Help us preserve the history of Illinois chess beyond the story told by the crosstables.

If you or your child played at a chess tournament, and you have pictures of either the tournament in action or the awards ceremony, we also welcome submissions and give photo credits. We want the ICA site to be a community commons of chess memories, our communal album if you will.

We will also be launching a monthly "essay contest" -- and for January the topic is "How Chess Has Helped Me Away From the Chessboard".  If you have an idea for this topic... and can put down between 100 and 500 words, we'd love to hear what you have to say. The submitting author maintains all rights to their own works, but grants the ICA permission to use the submission in part or in total. 

The winning submission will receive recognition and a modest honorarium.

Please submit the essay by the second Monday of the month, January 11, 2016. Send it as an email or an attchment to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

2016 should be an amazing year and we'd love to hear from any or all readers as to what they would like from the ICA website!