Web Watch

7 June 2003

I would like to start this overview with GM Square, where you can find a poll concerning Dvoretsky's proposal to ban draw offers in chess. Please come and vote soon! The index page also has a link to Dvoretsky's article itself. As I mentioned already, CT received that article via Russian chess weekly called Shakhmatnaya Nedelia (Chess Week). It is a rather young publication, but it is already well established, with many top GMs and journalists contributing to it. For example, each issue has an article by Dvoretsky! The editorial team would be no strangers to you - IM Vladimir Barsky is the chief editor, while IM Maxim Notkin is one of the main contributors. If you speak/read Russian, I strongly recommend you to subscribe to that paper. It can be reached via editors@chessweek.ru.

If you speak Russian, you can find more information on this subject of banning draw offers on the Ukrainian Chess website, run by CT journalist GM Mikhail Golubev. Quite recently American Grandmaster Maurice Ashley suggested that draw offers should be banned before move 50 - you can find his well-written article on TWIC.

Mikhail Golubev reminded me that a while ago Chess Café published an old interview with Alexander Alekhine, with additional audio file. In case you missed it then, do not forget to check it now!

Recently Zoya Vlassova, sister of IM Nikolai Vlassov, sent me a link to an interesting article on the history of chess, which has a link to online material with names of chess pieces in 60 different languages!

Book reviews has become rather frequent in Chess Today, but if you are a new subscriber or simply missed certain reviews, you can find them all at the GM Square website. Of course, GM Square is not the only site with book reviews. For example, Chess Mail features book reviews by John Elburg. I would also like to mention Seagaard Chess Reviews website and a new book review by IM John Watson, which appeared on TWIC.

Talking about books, I should again mention Chess & Books Live Internet Radio Show with Fred Wilson at Chess FM. Starting June 11th, "Chess & Books with Fred Wilson" will be moving to Wednesday nights. It will start on June 11th with a repeat visit from the well-known chess author, teacher and coach Bruce Pandolfini. Tune-in to the live broadcast at http://www.chess.fm/ Wednesday at 9:00pm ET.

As I found in the most recent TWIC database, GM Patrick Wolff, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess and former US Champion, recently completed his game vs. ROW. He has his website, which offers access to hundreds of chess exercises and a regular instructional newsletter (about once every 6 weeks) for $20/year.

Finally, I would like to mention a column which is similar to our Web Watch - it is called Chess Watch and is run by Gene Venable on the Internet Chess Club site. Check it out for lots of interesting leads!