Nr. 32, 28th August 2002

Dear Friends!

   It has been over a year since I produced the last issue of CBC and many might be wondering now why they belong to this particular mailing list. I would like to remind you that CBC started as a loose collection of Web news and my chess analysis, which I shared with chess community for free. I would like to continue with it, even though my busy schedule made it hard for me. This short issue is an attempt to catch up with the news a little bit. But before I start, I should mention that I did not subscribe people to this list and therefore do not un-subscribe anyone from it myself. I hope you like receiving CBC, but if you’d like to leave the list, please do it yourself.

My Chess Work

 

Lately my work has been closely related to Chess Today – the first daily chess newspaper on the Net. I already wrote a lot about Chess Today in previous issues of CBC, so I'll be brief now. For a small fee our readers receive news, annotated games, tactical puzzles, interviews with leading players and young stars and much more! You can see a few sample issues at www.chesstoday.net. For example, at http://www.chesstoday.net/readers-write.html you can read what our readers say about the publication. Recently we had a poll among CT readers (more than 230 took part!) and over 31% of recipients called the quality of Chess Today ‘excellent’, while over 51% thought that it was ‘very good’ and more than 16% believed it was ‘good’. Just two readers were not happy with the paper. I am going to send you the latest issue, so you can see what Chess Today is about.

Another project of mine is Grandmaster Square site (www.gmsquare.com). It was completely re-designed recently. Have a look at it – there you can find the latest interview with GM Bologan, online chess auction results and much more! For example, at http://www.gmsquare.com/gmdiary.html you can read about one week in my life – see how it is be a chess professional!

The site has a pretty decent online chess shop. Any shop needs visitors so we have a special promotion – free delivery for all items bought between 28th August and end of September! This offer might not apply to certain regions, but European countries, North America and many other destinations will qualify. Don’t miss your chance – visit https://www.web-guardian.com/gmsquare/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi soon! Browsing the shop is easy and you can search for particular items.

Web Watch

   The Chess Café recently published a big interview with me – please check it out at http://www.chesscafe.com/skittles/skittles.htm

If you have interest in chess composition, have a look at Bruno Berenguer’s site Chess Problem of the Day.

I have recently seen another site with daily chess problems – it is called Scahhi: il Matto del Postino and is in Italian. However, when it comes to tactics, language is not so important – you either see the checkmate or you don’t! :-)

If you ever wondered what it takes to run a scholastic chess tournament, then have at look at Arlen Walker’s account of the recent junior team tournament at his The ChessMill site – pretty interesting reading. Arlen is also the Web master of GM Square and Chess Today sites.

If you are interested in correspondent chess, there is a new site called Let's Play Chess – check it out.

My Tournament Plans

   Lately I played mostly in leagues. Now I am going to play a couple of tournaments. Both will take place in USA (I am off there today) – first in Oklahoma and then in San Francisco. The latter tournament is organised by the Mechanic’s Institute Chess Club (director – IM John Donaldson) and will be one of the strongest closed tournaments held in USA in the last decade or so. It is a 10-player round robin (Category 12 - 2538 FIDE average). The participants are: GMs Yuri Shulman, Walter Browne, Suat Atalik, Nick De Firmian, Alex Yermolinsky, Alex Wojtkiewicz and John Fedorowicz, as well as two young players - Varuzhan Akobian and Hikaru Nakamura. I plan to report on my US tour in the next issue of CBC and provide some games and analysis – stay tuned!

With best wishes,
Alexander Baburin
www.gmsquare.com
www.chesstoday.net

Technical support

I am very grateful to Igor Yagolnitser for his help with this project. For assistance regarding CBC, please contact Igor at igor@yagolnitser.com. I'd like to thank Graham Brown for proof-reading this issue and creating its PDF file.

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