Academicchess.com ..... a manifesto.

By Eric Hicks (director and founder of Academic Chess)

6/26/03

I have decided to embark on the giant project of redoing academicchess.com in the way that I have always wanted it done. Through the years we have used various “Web Designers” and the site always came out severely lacking. I am sick of people telling me they are worth $100 an hour for web design ...because it is going to take thousands of hours to do a proper chess site, and that kind of money is nowhere in the chess world...not for a web site. Plus these guys are full of BS. Web design skills are a dime a dozen these days. Frustrated, I checked out a bunch of books on web design, and java tricks…. you would be amazed how easy it has gotten...and now finally the Academic Chess site is starting to come together and be a good compliment to the incredible chess teaching program we offer. Since April, I have been working 14 hours a day on the site. Thank the Chess gods for portable computers (laptop) or I would have no life this summer. My day consists of working at my desk, at a cafe near my house, at the dog park for at least 2 hours of the day while my dog runs loose, and at Mechanics Library which has the 3rd largest chess book collection in the country.

I worked this way in the beginning of Academic Chess designing 900 pages of curriculum. Although most of this curriculum is publishable quality, most of it kids have never seen. The reason is it is expensive and a hassle to actually print the stuff. For this reason, the web is an incredible medium. It is sad, living in San Francisco during the .com rise and fall, it took me this long to realize it. The web could be the best thing that ever happened to chess. Chess translates well to computers. You can compile games, look at games, problems and analysis without having to use a chessboard.

ACADEMICCHESS.COM will eventually contain all 900 pages of that curriculum plus probably another 1000 pages of additional curriculum. At this point, I am blessed with my writing ability and especially when it comes to writing about chess, the love of my life, I am extremely prolific. While a student at Berkeley I would write 20 page short stories in a weekend for the creative writing seminars I was taking. Other students would take months on the same type of project. I have never been the type to labor over sentences. I believe that good writing is better when it is spilled out of the brain like hot coals out of the fire, and the more you fiddle with it…the less potent it becomes. You may say that quality is more important than quantity…but for me I have been blessed with both. My last year at Berkeley I won the $3000 Eisner Prize (the most prestigious writing award in the University of California system) for creative writing, the only undergraduate to win it in 8 years. My submission consisted of 60 pages of short stories…one semester’s work. (I plan to attach the documents soon) There were over 250 applicants for the one prize. So to all the questions I got back in college, that yes I can write, and yes I can play chess, and yes I will have a Berkeley literature degree....what am I going to do with those things? Teach school. Well yes, I am going to teach schools chess, and I am going to write the world's best chess web site! After I have accomplished those things in a magnificent way, then I will die a happy man.

Now I am spending a great part of my day adding commentary to chess games. Looking at annotating games is one of the best thing's you can do for your chess...but writing the commentary for these annotated games is even better. While annotating these games, I am forced to truly understand them. Last thing I would want to do is look foolish to these stick-in-the-butt chess nerds who make up the US chess community. This involves playing through the game over and over on Chessbase, sometimes reading the commentary of great masters who have written about the game, and using my Crafty chess computer engine to play through each of the moves. When I am confident I truly understand the game, I begin writing on each individual move. One of my favorite chess books is Logical Chess which thoroughly explains every move. I have taken that approach to the analysis. But I try to keep the analysis short and to the point since I realize a lot of the viewers of this site will be children who do not have patience for too much reading. One thing this site will not be is “self-indulgent” the problem with 90% of all writing out there. I want this site to just do what it is designed to do…teach chess in a fun way using the exciting methodology of Academic Chess. Of course this page here will be self indulgent, because this is the only place on a 1000 page site that I am able to talk about me!

Today I decided to lay out this diary to document for all what has become one of the greatest projects in my life. I am proud of this site to the point where I won’t let anyone else touch it. I plan this site to be something I show my grand kids proudly. I am doing everything myself from selecting the games, selecting the diagrams, analyzing the games, writing the lessons, doing the graphical lay outs, and of course all the web design stuff. ACADEMICCHESS.COM is my labor of love….my precious summer project. I am driven by my passion for creating, my love for chess, and my love for teaching chess. This project is extremely fulfilling and is good therapy for me. These are rough times, and this site gives me reconciliation. Recently Academic Chess has become the largest chess program in the country. Many of our competitors are jealous of this fact and talk smack about us claiming that we are not a “serious” chess teaching program. I feel this type of attack is unfair and completely untrue. By creating nothing less than the greatest learning chess site on the planet, I feel this myth will be easily rebuffed. All anyone needs to do is look at our web site and then look at the smack talker’s…then tell me who is more serious about teaching chess.

Now, just 3 months into this project I am shocked to see that we already have by far the most in depth teaching site on the planet. I am extremely proud but I have no intention of stopping. I have a to-do list 7 pages long, and I intend to complete it.

And this web site will mirror Academic Chess in that it will teach chess in a fun and exciting way. Yes there will be artwork, crazy stories, and weird throw ins....but none of those things will exist on this site for no reason....all will do what is my life's mission to do....to teach chess in a fun way...and to keep people of all ages motivated to learn Chess.

ERIC HICKS