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Last update: Friday June 3, 2005 9:44
Editors Alexander Baburin, Ruslan Scherbakov & Vladimir Barsky
www.chesstoday.net; 3-4 A4 pages daily; approx. $15.00 for 4 months
Billed as the "first daily chess e-newspaper", Chess Today is one of
GM Alexander Baburin's latest web projects and seeks to build on the success
of his Coffee Break Chess newsletter. Chess Today is sent out
to its subscribers fairly late each evening, and can then be either viewed on
your computer or printed out and read on the way to work. The technical aspect
of things, in the safe hands of Graham Brown, is very good, with the e-newspaper
being e-mailed out in .pdf format. This format can be easily read by Adobe Acrobat
4, which is available free on the internet, and this program displays chess
fonts and diagrams without the need to install any special fonts. All the games
annotated each day also arrive in ChessBase format, often also along with some
bonus games, which is useful for ChessBase users, whilst of course ChessBase
Light is another free program available on the internet.
Is there a market available for Chess Today? The internet is full of chess news and comment sites, such as Kasparov Chess, but, as all those who have ever read Alex Baburin's excellent free Coffee Break Chess will know, Baburin's views are always interesting and he both writes and annotates clearly. The early issues of Chess Today seem to be mainly written by Baburin, although which editors contribute what may well depend on where and when they are playing at that time. Baburin provides all the latest news, such as the Olympiad results, and is not afraid to air his own views; such as by quite rightly being critical of FIDE changing their pairing system just before their World Championship begins. Weekday issues always see a recent well-annotated game and web-links to those sites providing more detail of what is discussed in that day's Chess Today. Weekend issues are rather special as they also contain some important coaching materials, such as by providing key knowledge, illustrated by recent examples, of the ending of R+2 v B+2 (with all pawns on the same side).
Chess Today provides not just news and annotated games but also puzzles and interesting interviews. Chess Today 12 is thus a good issue to look at in a little more detail. Initially there is a brief biography of GM Ruslan Ponomariov, followed by an interview with him by Baburin from just after Ponomariov's October success in the Faeroe Islands. Ponomariov makes very interesting reading, such as his belief that "after 30 your results go down", whilst he is also realistic in acknowledging that, "we may need a special [above GM] title ...Kasparov is a GM and I am a GM! This is not the same". Following this 1½ page interview Baburin presents Ponomariov's win over Conquest from the Faeroe Islands and has, as ever, chosen well as this game is an excellent illustration of an important theme, how to make use of a space advantage.
Chess Today has made a good start and, as it picks up more contributors, should continue to improve, whilst it will be interesting to see how it will cope with coverage when several top events take place at the same time. My guess is that this well organised e-newspaper will rise to the challenge and it is definitely good value for money.
Richard Palliser