Chess Today

Chess Today was the first, and is the longest running, Internet-only daily chess newspaper,[1] having continued virtually uninterrupted since 7 November 2000. It is distributed to subscribers by e-mail. Each e-mail has the PDF of the newspaper attached, as well as a small collection of recent games.[1] The editor and proprietor of Chess Today is Grandmaster Alexander Baburin.[2][3] Each edition contains at least one tactical puzzle, an annotated game, and world chess news. Other elements of the publication include 'On This Day', endgame analysis and chess reviews.[4] Chess Today has also conducted and printed interviews with at least four former World Chess Champions.[2][5][6][7]

Chess Today
Front page of the Chess Today newspaper
TypeDaily Internet-only newspaper
FormatE-mailed PDF file
Owner(s)Alexander Baburin
EditorGraham Brown
Founded7 November 2000 (2000-11-07)
Headquarters3 Eagle Hill, Blackrock, County Dublin, Ireland.
CountryIreland
Websitechesstoday.net
  • Media of Ireland
  • List of newspapers

Editors and contributors

In addition to proprietor and current editor Grandmaster Alexander Baburin, for much of the life of Chess Today Graham Brown was both web designer and editor and Ralph Marconi was the second editor.[8] Some editorial work was also done by Tim Harding in the early years.[9] A number of Masters and Grandmasters have contributed either entire editions or contributions to editions of Chess Today including Grandmasters Mikhail Golubev[10] and Ruslan Scherbakov, and International Masters Vladimir Barsky, Nikolai Vlassov and Maxim Notkin.[11][12] Grandmaster Karsten Müller also contributed endgame analysis to some of the early issues.[9]

Technical format

Chess today is sent to subscribers by e-mail. Every issue of Chess Today includes three files in different formats. The PDF file contains the entire (printable) newspaper which varies in length but is generally 3–5 A4 pages in a two-column format.[13] The games in each issue come in a CBV (Chessbase Format) file and are duplicated in a PGN file.[14]

Milestone editions
EditionDate
Issue No. 1Tuesday 7 November 2000[15]
Issue No. 1000Monday 4 August 2003[9]
Issue No. 2000Sunday, 30 April 2006[16]
Issue No. 3000Saturday 24 January 2009[17]
Issue No. 4000Friday, 21 October 2011[18]
Issue No. 5000Thursday, 17 July 2014[19]
Issue No. 6000Wednesday 12 April 2017[20]

Circulation

Although Chess Today began with a relatively small readership (only 650 readers [including 40 Grandmasters] by the 1000th issue[9]) its readership has continued to grow and it has for a number of years remained one of the main paid-for sources of chess news on the web [21][22][23] often referred to as a source of material and point of reference by other authors.[24][25][26][27][28][29][30] For example, many of the 'Move by Move' series of books (particularly those authored by Cyrus Lakdawala) cite 'Chess Today' in their bibliographies as an electronic resource.[31][32][33][34][35] Originally planned to cost $15 every 4 months[36] the price has effectively increased slightly from €19 for 4 months in 2001[4][37] to the current €15 for 3 months.[38]

Origins

Chess Today was created by Alexander Baburin. He has related that he had the idea to create and run a daily Internet-only chess newspaper in the middle of 2000 while flying to Copenhagen. He has stated that he identified a gap in the market for paid-for daily chess news intended to inform, educate and entertain.[9]

Content

Chess today contains a mix of different articles, each edition includes a selection from the following:

Test Yourself!/Tactical Quiz

This generally takes examples of recent tournament and match games and sets the reader the challenge of trying to find the tactical win available.[14][23][38][13]

On This Day

This section is present in most editions. It includes facts about well known chess players who were born or died on this date in previous years. It also notes other significant chess events that occurred on the same date in previous years.[14][23]

World Chess News

This includes news stories not only about chess tournaments and matches, but also the goings-on in FIDE and other chess organisations.[4][38][13][14]

Annotated game

This section is present in every edition and includes detailed annotations on a recent game between strong players (generally Grandmasters).[4][13][14][23]

Chess reviews

This section generally includes reviews of recently published chess books. Reviews have in the past been contributed by Sam Collins, Don Aldrich and Andy Ansel but there are reviews from other players too.[38][13][14][23]

Endgame kaleidoscope

This is a speciality of Chess Today and usually involves Grandmaster Baburin investigating a topical or recent endgame or endgames in great detail, also making use of endgame tablebases (sometimes using ‘FinalGen’[39]) and modern chess engines.[40][41][42]

Web watch

This section offers readers updates on changes in the lay of the land in terms of the presence of chess on the Internet.[43]

Beware: blunder!

This section gives examples of relatively or very strong players making mistakes and allows readers to find improvements and understand the reason for the blunder.[44]

Interviews

Occasionally Chess Today includes interviews with Grandmasters and with other important individuals from the chess world.[4][13][23] Some of the most notable interviews have been with Grandmasters Glek,[2] Anand[2] (five-time World Chess Champion), Svidler,[2] Smyslov[5] (former World Chess Champion), Spassky[6] (former World Chess Champion) and Ponomariov[7] (former FIDE World Chess Champion).

References
  1. "chesstoday.net". chesstoday.net. 2017-06-07.
  2. "Chessbase on Chess Today". chessbase.com. 2017-06-08.
  3. "Chess Periodicals". Glenn Giffen. 2017-06-08. Archived from the original on 2007-09-26.
  4. "theweekinchess.com". theweekinchess.com. 2017-06-09.
  5. "GMSquare Smyslov". gmsquare.com. 2017-06-10.
  6. "GMSquare Spassky". gmsquare.com. 2017-06-10.
  7. "GMSquare Ponomariov". gmsquare.com. 2017-06-10.
  8. "1460th Issue of Chess Today (4 year anniversary edition)" (PDF). chesstoday.net. 2017-06-08.
  9. "1000th Issue of Chess Today" (PDF). chesstoday.net. 2017-06-08.
  10. "KingPinChess". kingpinchess.net. 2017-06-10.
  11. "Chess Today Editors". chesstoday.net. 2017-06-08.
  12. "clube de xadrez online". clubedexadrezonline. 2017-06-10. Archived from the original on 2017-06-17. Retrieved 2017-06-10.
  13. "Chessville Review of Chess Today". chessville.com. 2017-06-08. Archived from the original on 2012-03-21.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  14. "Seagaard Chess Review of Chess Today". Seagaard Chess Reviews. 2017-06-08.
  15. "1st Issue of Chess Today" (PDF). chesstoday.net. 2017-06-08.
  16. Baburin, Alexander (April 2006). "Header". Chess Today. 2000: 1.
  17. Baburin, Alexander (January 2009). "Header". Chess Today. 3000: 1.
  18. Baburin, Alexander (October 2011). "Header". Chess Today. 4000: 1.
  19. Baburin, Alexander (July 2014). "Header". Chess Today. 5000: 1.
  20. Baburin, Alexander (April 2017). "Header". Chess Today. 6000: 1.
  21. "Washington Post Article". Washington Post. 2017-06-09.
  22. "Susan Polgar Chess Daily News". chessdailynews.com. 2017-06-11.
  23. "John Watson review ten years on". theweekinchess.com. 2017-06-11.
  24. Emmanuel Neiman (2014). Tune Your Chess Tactics Antenna: Know When (and where!) to Look for Winning Combinations. New In Chess. p. 23. ISBN 978-90-5691-450-9.
  25. Geert van der Stricht; Sipke Ernst (2015). Tactics in the Chess Opening 6: Gambits and Flank Openings. New In Chess. p. 69. ISBN 978-90-5691-625-1.
  26. Gary Lane (2013). Improve Your Chess in 7 Days. Pavilion Books. ISBN 978-1-84994-131-0.
  27. Junior Tay. The Old Indian: Move by Move. Everyman Chess. p. 204. ISBN 978-1-78194-234-5.
  28. "Huffington Post article by Kavalek". Huffington Post. 2017-06-13.
  29. "unknown". Chess Life. Vol. 57 no. 7–12. United States Chess Federation. 2002. p. 44.
  30. Aagaard, Jacob; Ntirlis, Nikolaos (2013). Playing the French.
  31. Cyrus Lakdawala. The Petroff: Move by Move. Everyman Chess. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-78194-259-8.
  32. Cyrus Lakdawala. The Slav: Move by Move. Everyman Chess. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-85744-887-0.
  33. Cyrus Lakdawala. The Nimzo-Larsen Attack: Move by Move. Everyman Chess. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-78194-114-0.
  34. Cyrus Lakdawala. Kramnik: Move by Move. Everyman Chess. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-85744-955-6.
  35. Cyrus Lakdawala. Carlsen: Move by Move. Everyman Chess. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-78194-209-3.
  36. "John Watson original review". cheescenter.com. 2017-06-09. Archived from the original on 2001-02-03.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  37. "Archive of chesstoday.net". chesstoday.net. 2017-06-09. Archived from the original on 2002-01-22.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  38. "easytorecall.com". easytorecall.com. 2017-06-07.
  39. "University of Reading Chess Endgame News" (PDF). University of Reading. 2017-06-13.
  40. Joel Benjamin (2015). Liquidation on the Chess Board: Mastering the Transition into the Pawn Ending. New In Chess. p. 8. ISBN 978-90-5691-554-4.
  41. "Review of Nick Pelling's 'Chess Superminiatures' in Kingpin Chess Magazine". KingPin. 2017-06-12.
  42. "Dejan Bojkov Chess Blog". Dejan Bojkov. 2017-06-12.
  43. "GMSquare Webwatch". GMSquare. 2017-06-15.
  44. "Collection of games at chessgames website". chessgames.com. 2017-06-12.
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