Dear Mr Surratt,

I want to thank you for your interest in our site and your detailed analysis of its content. There are some discrepancies I would like to point out in order to be your review even more informative.

First of all, you claim that ChessMix provides "little free chess content". In terms of this statement I would ask you to compare our site's content with other chess resources, especially our abundant Calendar (possible to view by month or country). For comparison for June there are 156 tournaments (82 Classics, 74 Rapids), for July - 109 tournaments (80 Classics, 29 Rapids).

Another free service is the big range of Current World Events (at the moment we're showing 17 tournaments in progress), also our rich archive of events that has being growing since our opening a week ago. Furthermore, appear our 10 DAYS issues, coming up three times monthly providing our visitors with the most comprehensive archive of the latest games from all round the world, including even from the most "indecipherable" tournaments as you have defined them. For instance, here are the last statistics concerning the amount of games: for May - 7724 games, June - 7983 games.

Referring to your remark about your first impression of the site's design I put down to the fact that such a complete chess site full of range of sections and information hasn't been seen. That's why I consider it's normal to make a first impression of "clutter". A deeper look on it would surely change this to an attitude of respect thanks to the fast navigation and sensible organization.

In addition to that, we decided to make our visitor's life even easier by linking to useful resources (as quick reference to the database holding the current ELO status and different tools related to Travel organization) and saving them considerable time. We have a Links page, that may lead our visitors to the most important sites as FIDE, ECU and the +68 chess federations as you correctly counted them.

By setting up paid services we have filled a gap in the Web of chess. We offer unique E-books that can be download as well as seen on the site by the people that don't have ChessBase, that makes accessible for all our visitors. By our sections "Find a Club & Player" and "Closed Tournaments" we act as mediators helping people find opportunity for realization for additional success. And this is a service that is not possible to be determined as a service for everyone, but only for the professionals that encounter difficulties in finding Clubs or Players.

As I have noted you haven't understood the process of our services. First of all, by registering at ChessMix you are automatically able to control all the information you have published in any of our sections. That's why some pages require authorization, but as you saw it's not obligatory for the majority of the content. Consequently you can permanently determine your Language, and by choosing a Country the latest events in this country will be provided on every page during your stay at the site. Furthermore, we are creating many other possibilities for our registered users as our site is being developing since its beginning.

When you register the site you are allowed to be part from the list of players looking for Clubs or the Clubs looking for Players. On the other hand, where comes your confusion, we charge for viewing the Player's/Club's profile that contains the contact and all the additional information our user has provided, such as ELO, FIDE ID etc.

I tried to find you in the ELO list of FIDE but unfortunately I couldn't. As appears your knowledge in chess is not at professional stage and it will be impossible to state fundamental principles about the complex game. In general, I can say that every single game even the more "indecipherable" has its own unique value, not important who the players are. Some the most interesting innovations with contribution to chess are made from games between opponents, and consequently analysed by elite Grand Masters.

In your analysis you have missed to cite the moves related to every E-Book as provided on the site, making a serious technical mistake. It appeared to be a confusing situation.

One of your remarks is absolutely well-founded - you were unable to use our Contact Form because of the unnecessary restrictions of characters. This problem has been resolved by our Support Team and I would like to ask you to refer to our team if you discover other mistakes. We apologize for this problem.

In conclusion, the most important content which the chess players are interested in, such as calendar, games, information about current tournaments, ELO, travel organization etc, is available. And I'd like to thank you once again for your efforts to review www.ChessMix.com as deeply as possible. I hope that you'll consider my letter and that it will be published in addition of your review, as now it's misleading many people.

I'm looking forward to a future collaboration with Chessville.