Chesspub is such a wonderful resource and it’s a shame it is not popular in India. 5 kilo meter radius from my house has 3 GMs, 20 IMs three age category world champions and 250 players rated over 2000 points by FIDE. This includes Anand and Sasikiran. Still, I won’t be surprised if I am the only subscriber from this area!

That said, I can think of two ways to make it popular.

IPA validation is the easiest route. Any one logging in from specified countries get a specific reduced price. It’s fairly that simple. It’s far fetched to assume someone from England is going to misuse this even if we assume, he is a regular business traveler to, say, India. You are anyway asking the real name and address. Nobody, decent enough is going to lie to you to get the concession. Even here I think, there will be a mechanism to validate credit card information.

You do this Tony and I’ll do what I can to popularise the site. For starters, we can get the info published in Indian chess web pages across the net. I’ll get a couple of yahoo groups, spammed thro’ my friends! (Just kidding) Personally, though, I’ll get a poster stuck next to wall chart in tournament halls. We can get the tournament prospectus advertise this fact. (Not kidding! Might take a small amount of money to defray the printing cost etc. But, it can be done) We can offer AICF with one year free membership for their age category champions in return for a permanent front page link in their web page. Well, I have lot of ideas. If you are interested, may be we can discuss this outside the board.

Other way out is little cumbersome. Sell x number of memberships at a time to Chess Book and chess equipment vendors and children coaches who travel from one tournament site to another and they can sell at a mark up.

Either way I can help things rolling and for the sake of record, I don’t want a penny out of it. It’s simply out of interest. I was championing the cause of cheaper books in line with “Easter Economy Editions” of McGraw Hill text books in various forums. I’m satisfied things are moving in that direction. You are the starting point. Chessbase is the target. Please think it over and get back to me. 

I think it will interest quite a few of you guys. For me, nothing like destroying good old rain forest, when it comes to chess material.

Anyway, unconfirmed sources tell me that Everyman has contracted with a local firm to convert their books into chessbase eBooks. Basically, outsourcing services. I assume it is for sale. What’s of interest to me is, the same firm has contracted with Everyman to print and distribute Everyman books in India. If Batsford experience is any indication, we should get the books at around $7-8 per book. Sometime back, I suggested this concept to popularize Chesspub in developing economies. It could still be done. Is Tony reading this?

Don't know if this web page http://wwwu.uni-klu.ac.at/gossimit/c/book.htm has been mentioned here before.

I was quite pleased with the Euwe/Kramer file. This is a real classic. Have to go through the material again now. Donaldson's "Strategic Opening Repertoire" is also good to see. I've been interested in this book but it has been oop for a while and used copies often are $100 or so. Quite interesting repertoire. It's a pity the announced updated edition with Carsten Hansen as co-author hasn't been published yet.

Quite recently, I bought Bookup. The first thing I did was to make a pgn file of all game references in John Cox's "Starting Out: 1.d4" and import that file into Bookup. Very helpful. It's also easy to include additional analysis to the material.

It's much quicker to click through lines on the computer rather than moving pieces on a board. Why do you think books still is the dominant format for chess instruction? Is it because companies are afraid of illegal copying? I think reading is much easier from paper than from screen but otherwise I much prefer to study chess electronically.