Launch of Two New Chess Web Sites

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Dear chess friends!

I recently launched two new Web projects and would like you to know about them. One is called Grandmaster Square and it can be found at www.gmsquare.com. Currently there are sites of three GMs there - Alexander Morozevich, Lev Psakhis and myself. In the near future Grandmaster Square plans to add Web sites of some other GMs and expand the existing pages. However, you can already see a few annotated games of those three Grandmasters in Java or download the games of Morozevich and Psakhis in a PGN format. Biographies, photo gallery and a discussion forum are just some of the features of the site. Hopefully it will help chess fans to establish a contact with some of their favourite players. A chess shop and auction site will shortly be added to www.gmsquare.com. Daily reports from 34th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul and reports from the FIDE World Championship in Delhi are also featured at the site.

My other project is a daily newspaper called Chess Today - www.chesstoday.net. It provides news, annotated games, interviews and instruction to a wide range of players. Each issue feature news from around the world and usually one annotated game or some puzzles. Weekend issues feature some instructional materials, particularly useful for club players. A typical issue is about 3 pages. Subscribers receive attachment in PDF format, which they can print out and then read Chess Today on a train or over a cup of coffee. Thanks to PDF format (Acrobat Reader is available for free at www.adobe.com) readers are be able to see and print chess fonts and diagrams even if they do not have them on their PCs. Producing a daily chess newspaper is a rather bold idea, which requires a lot of work. I do not do it alone - IM Vladimir Barsky, GM Ruslan Scherbakov and Graham Brown (technical editor) are other people behind this project.

Subscription is not free - Chess Today costs about $15 for 4 months (you can pay by credit card or check), which is only about 12 cents per issue or 4 cents per page. As this newspaper can save you a lot of time searching chess sites every day and can also help you to learn more about chess, this may be a good deal. Those readers, who subscribe before 25 December 2000, will enter a lottery with a chance to win a wooden chess set & board (worth over $130), a chess clock (worth about $70) or a good chess book (choice of 3 titles, including a signed copy of Winning Pawn Structures). More information and 4 sample issues are available at www.chesstoday.net.

-- Alexander Baburin (ababurin@iol.ie), January 08, 2001


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