National Master Dana Mackenzie wrote a chess blog, Dana Blogs Chess, from 2007 to 2022. He wrote 1,245 blog posts and selected about 40 of his favorites to update and improve. New In Chess published Mackenzie’s revised blog posts, plus new material and two appendices, in book form in 2025. The book’s title is Did You Come Here to Play Chess or to Have Fun?
Play Chess
The chess inDid You Come Here to Play Chess or to Have Fun? consists of well-annotated positions and games, mostly played by Mackenzie. Mackenzie’s specialty is the Bryntse Gambit, 1.e4 c5 2.f4 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Ng5. According to chessgames.com, the opening is named after Swedish correspondence champion Erik Arne Bryntse.
One variation of the Bryntse Gambit allows White to sacrifice a queen, on move 6, for two minor pieces. But opportunities to give away one’s queen are relatively rare. Even as devoted a Bryntse Gambit player as Mackenzie only sacrificed his queen about once every eight years.
He is most proud of his win over IM David Pruess in the queen sacrifice variation. Mackenzie calls this game his “lifetime masterpiece.”
Have Fun
One of Mackenzie’s treasured memories is of the first time he defeated a master, whose name was Richard Delaune. After he won, he overheard Delaune say that he “just got outplayed.” Mackenzie was impressed that Delaune didn’t offer any excuses. As Mackenzie wrote, typically players who lose “almost never admit to being outplayed. They always make excuses.” The chapter’s name is “Richard Delaune, Chess Gentleman.”
In a different chapter, titled “Funniest Chess Anecdotes,” Mackenzie offered as his “funniest story from a tournament” an anecdote about “Bill Mason, the strongest undergraduate player at Duke.” When Mason lost to a woman, he said he lost “because he couldn’t think of anything but her beautiful eyes!” Mackenzie thought this anecdote was funny because Mason, who he described as “definitely a male chauvinist,” lost “a game because he fell in love with his opponent.”
The winner, described as a “Women’s Champion of Costa Rica,” did not get the same respect that Delaune gave Mackenzie. That is, according to Mackenzie, Mason did not admit that he was outplayed but instead gave an excuse about his opponent’s eyes.
In another chapter, called “The Santa Cruz Chess Scene,” Mackenzie wrote, “You don’t see a lot of women in chess clubs anywhere, and especially not older women.” Perhaps there are connections among the excuses some men make after they lose to women, other men finding such excuses funny, and how few women attend chess clubs.
But those are not connections made by Mackenzie. And perhaps Mason isn’t the male chauvinist that Mackenzie portrays, either: A different depiction of Mason is in his obituary. Although Mackenzie updated his blog posts for publication in Did You Come Here to Play Chess or to Have Fun?, he failed to mention that Mason had died. Nor did Mackenzie state anything positive about Mason, a man he described with the adjectives “brash, self-confident, obnoxious.”
CJA Awards
As mentioned in a previous SparkChess article, the Chess Journalists of America (CJA) gives annual awards. In 2021, Mackenzie’s blog “Dana Blogs Chess” won the “Best Online Blog Award” from CJA.
CJA awards Best Book of the Year, Best Book – Instruction, Best Book – Self-Published, and Best Book – Other. New In Chess submitted Did You Come Here to Play Chess or to Have Fun? for consideration in the “Best Book of the Year” and “Best Book – Other” categories. To see all the award nominees, go to https://chessjournalism.org/2025-award-entries/
Winners will be announced at the CJA meeting at the 2025 U.S. Open, on Thursday, July 31, at 9 a.m.
