Chess Today
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.png) Front page of the Chess Today newspaper | |
| Type | Daily Internet-only newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | E-mailed PDF file |
| Owner | Alexander Baburin |
| Editor | Graham Brown |
| Founded | 7 November 2000 |
| Headquarters | 3 Eagle Hill, Blackrock, County Dublin, Ireland. |
| Country | Ireland |
| Website | chesstoday.net |
Chess Today was the first, and longest running, Internet-only daily chess newspaper,[1] having continued virtually uninterrupted from 7 November 2000 through to December 2020. It was distributed to subscribers by e-mail. Each e-mail had the PDF of the newspaper attached, as well as a small collection of recent games.[1] The editor and proprietor of Chess Today was Grandmaster Alexander Baburin.[2][3] Each edition contained at least one tactical puzzle, an annotated game, and world chess news. Other elements of the publication included 'On This Day', endgame analysis and chess reviews.[4] Chess Today also conducted and printed interviews with at least four former World Chess Champions.[2][5][6][7]
In addition to proprietor and 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 contributed either entire editions or contributions to editions of Chess Today including Grandmasters Mikhail Golubev,[10] Andrei Deviatkin,[11] and Ruslan Scherbakov, and International Masters Vladimir Barsky, Nikolai Vlassov, and Maxim Notkin.[12][13][14] Grandmaster Karsten Müller also contributed endgame analysis to some of the early issues.[9]
Technical format
Chess today was sent to subscribers by e-mail. Every issue of Chess Today included three files in different formats. The PDF file contained the entire (printable) newspaper which varied in length but was generally 3–5 A4 pages in a two-column format.[15] The games in each issue came in a CBV (Chessbase Format) file and were duplicated in a PGN file.[16]
Milestone editions
| Edition | Date |
| Issue No. 1 | Tuesday 7 November 2000[17] |
| Issue No. 1000 | Monday 4 August 2003[9] |
| Issue No. 2000 | Sunday, 30 April 2006[18] |
| Issue No. 3000 | Saturday 24 January 2009[19] |
| Issue No. 4000 | Friday, 21 October 2011[20] |
| Issue No. 5000 | Thursday, 17 July 2014[21] |
| Issue No. 6000 | Wednesday 12 April 2017[22] |
| Issue No. 7000 | Thursday 7 January 2020[23] |
Circulation
Although Chess Today began with a relatively small readership (only 650 readers [including 40 Grandmasters] by the 1000th issue[9]) its readership grew and for a number of years it was one of the main paid-for sources of chess news on the web [24][25][26] often referred to as a source of material and point of reference by other authors.[27][28][29][30][31][32][33] For example, many of the 'Move by Move' series of books (particularly those authored by Cyrus Lakdawala) cited 'Chess Today' in their bibliographies as an electronic resource.[34][35][36][37][38] Originally planned to cost $15 every 4 months[39] the price effectively increased slightly from €19 for 4 months in 2001[4][40] to €15 for 3 months.[41]
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]
