thanks to ChessNinja for bringing this to my attention.

Arne Moll, the primary writer for chessvibes.com, is known for publishing some pretty wacky articles. They're all in fun with subtle real points ... but VERY funny. The recent article entitled "What baby names can tell you about chess openings" is no exception.

A good but simple summary of the article might be ... "Baby names follow trends and chess opening selection does as well". Jump on over there and check out the full article. Then jump right back here and we'll still be friends, ok?

Seriously though, this picture is too cute not to share:

I got a huge kick out of the Boylston Chess Club Blog article on Senior Chess. You Should definitely check this out!

I'm not quite to the point of this article myself (by about 40-50 years) but God I hope I still have the sense of humor that Mike Griffin does!

Susan Polgar has announced on Her Blog that she is starting a webcast-esque video show on ICC. I won't waste precious time boring you with parroting the information but you should definitely Check It Out!

I hate to bring something to light that Susan already has in various ways for a while now but since she chose to publish a blog entry with the important stats I'll pass this on to Chessvine readers.

5 years ago in 2003, the U.S. Open drew big name GMs such as: Shabalov, Kaidanov, Yudasin, Wojtkiewicz, Sulskis, Minasian, Stripunsky, Ibragimov, Christiansen, Ehlvest, Granda, Akobian, Blatny, Lein, Browne, etc.

In 2008, only 2 GMs entered the U.S. Open: Shabalov and Yermolinsky.

The overall attendance took a downward trend: 543 players in 2006, 408 in 2007 and 379 in 2008.

The membership numbers also took a dive. In 2003, the USCF membership was around 95,000. In 2008, it is around 80,000.

What are some of the reasons for the dramatic decline? What do you think? What can be done to reverse this trend?

The numbers don't lie ... there's a major problem with the USCF.