Dortmund – and now for the videos

The TV ChessBase show in Dortmund started on Monday, July 11, with round four – officially. On Sunday, after round three, we did a "test transmission", which of course went so well that a full room of spectators watched and enjoyed it.

With the start of the official TV broadcasts the show began in proper. It was supposed to be at 19:30h each day, but of course we could not stick to this schedule. Sometimes the games lasted longer, often someone had won a great game before the announced time and turned up in our studio corner to do commentary. Believe us, you do not turn away Adams, Kramnik or Naiditsch, when they want to show you (and the world) the brilliant win they have just completed.

Live transmission on TV ChessBase, here with Emil Sutovsky

The shows were a great success, a first in the coverage of a chess tournament. It is an extraordinary experience to see a player immediately after a tough game, still flushed from the excitement, showing us all the lines he had been looking at – actually executing them on the graphic chessboard. A typical example was Emil Sutovsky, who played what a superficial observer might have called a lack-luster game against Peter Svidler in round five. But watching his rapid-fire post-game analysis on TV ChessBase made you realise that what goes through these players minds during the game is infinitely more interesting and exciting than the relatively staid moves they eventually execute on the board.

A special treat was the round eight broadcast which saw both winner Vladimir Kramnik and his opponent Peter Heine Nielsen analysing their game together for the audience. It is a remarkable experience, something only a few players and journalists have thus far experienced, when players analyse together in the press room of the big tournaments. The additional invaluable advantage is that you don't have to stand there trying to take notes, as the journalists do during the postgame sessions. Everything is recorded in the gamescore, so you can run through the lines and continue analysing with Fritz, once the show is over.

How to see the video reports

If you did not catch the live reports when they were originally transmitted this is not a problem. The video streams (with synchronised game replay) are all stored in the archives of the Playchess server and can be watched at any time after the event. This is how you do so:

1. Log into the Playchess server
2. Click on the "Radio ChessBase" and enter the room "English":
   
   
   
3. Click on the "Games" tab in the left window.
   
   
   
4. In the list that appears you can load any of the files to replay it. The file names will be replaced at some stage with descriptive names – for the moment you can use the following table:
   
   

   Dortmund_2005_3	Dortmund3 - van Wely
   Dortmund_8a	Dortmund8 - Kramnik, Nielsen
   Dortmund_6a	Dortmund6 - Adams part 2
   Dortmund_6b	Dortmund6 - Pfleger
   Dortmund_6	Dortmund6 - Adams part 1
   Dortmund_5	Dortmund5 - Sutovsky
   Dortmund_5b	Dortmund5 - Bischoff
   Dortmund_7	Dortmund7 - Gustafsson
   Dortmund_2005_4b	Dortmund4 - Lutz
   Dortmund_2005_4	Dortmund4 - Bacrot
   Dortmund_8	Dortmund8 - Gustafsson
   Dortmund_2005_9a	Dortmund9 - Naiditsch
   Dortmund_2005_9	Dortmund9 - King, Naiditsch

Payment

The TV ChessBase replay is not free. It costs you two ducats to watch a show. Ducats are the server currency and are worth about ten cents, so that you will be paying twenty cents (26 US cents) to watch a session that lasts 30-40 minutes. You can watch the first minutes free, and will be asked to pay the viewing fee only after that. The transaction requires just one click of the mouse.

So where do you get ducats (assuming you do not have a fair sum on your account already. Many Playchess members have accumulated ducats by playing in tournaments or for ducats against each other. But the best way to get ducats quickly is to purchase them in the ChessBase Shop.

Clicking on the above picture will take you directly to the relevant section of the shop, where you can buy ducats using your credit card. Ducats are purchased in batches of 100, and will be automatically added to your Playchess account. Note that first-time buyers get a bonus of 10 ducats in addition to the amount they purchase.

Ducats can be used to view archived transmissions and lectures (e.g. those of the Glasgow 3rd Floor and the Dennis Monokroussos), but you can also play for ducats or offer titled players a sum for them to play you. You can also use the ducats on your account to purchase items in the ChessBase shop. So it is advisable to stock up on a small amount of ducats and gain one-click access to the many interesting features that Playchess has to offer. Like the Dortmund lectures described above.