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No sooner has the offer "Exchange World Champion Kasparov for Stamp Yugoslavia" been posted than I receive an e-mail that the offer has been accepted. To be honest, it's no wonder, because to be honest, this "Kasparov" is definitely worth more, but if the Yugoslavian chess stamp is still missing from your collection to complete the stamp series, then you sometimes make deals like this. What are we talking about here? Well, cards.chessbase.com has become a lively exchange platform. Here chess fans who are keen collectors can either collect, sell, trade or add to the cards they have won with the help of Fritz19 (see also https://en.chessbase.com/post/fritz-19-pick-your-sparring-partner-a-review) or bought/won in the ChessBase shop (shop.chessbase.com).
Attacker, coward, swindler or endgame wizard: I'll show you how to win against anyone! After my World Championship victories in 2022 and 2023, I am the reigning Chess Software World Champion and am now looking forward to showing you how to become even stronger against your opponent. With my innovative training method, I simulate typical player personalities you know from tournaments and online chess: brash attackers, cautious cowards, passive players. But how do you win against them? Fritz will show you how!
So if rating points are no longer enough for you, you will find plenty of variety on the Cards platform (https://cards.chessbase.com):
Creatively designed series of cards with lots of information about the subject are available to choose from. These include world champions and famous players or tournaments, openings, the ChessBase Master Class and training tips.
Aesthetes will fall for the eye-catching stamp or chess art cards, while statistics buffs will probably prefer the stars in the Rating Lists category.
Even if you are looking for training material for a different club evening with online support, you can still have lots of educational fun with your club mates and the famous chess games and trading cards at the same time.
And don't worry, new additions are guaranteed! The programmers are constantly working on new collectibles. You can always see the latest released cards on the home page. A little further up the page, you can also see how many cards are currently being offered or wanted. This gives you a rough idea of the activity on the market.
If you then click on the blue number behind "Offered Cards", the "Market" page will open with all the trading cards currently on the market (https://en.chessbase.com/search?pattern=Trading%20cards). These can be sorted by date or price, and if you click on them you can see all the pages of the card - and yes, a trading card has more than just two pages and shows additional information and history, i.e. the creation and previous owners of the card, as well as the actual image. If you think the card would look good in your own collection, you can also see the current owner and the price they are asking for the card.
Below the card, you can choose to buy it at the requested price, offer it for trade, or make a counteroffer. With a few clicks and a possible counteroffer, you can either pay the desired price - if you have enough ducats in your account - or offer a card from your own collection for exchange, or even make a slightly lower offer (https://de.chessbase.com/post/cards-chessbase-com).
Keyword "ducats": If you don't trade at the moment, you'll need the ducats, which have been known at ChessBase for a long time. You can now use them not only to pay for training sessions or games against stronger players on Playchess or in the shop for ChessBase products, but also to buy trading cards. Conversely, a resourceful dealer of trading cards can of course also stock up on exciting courses in the shop. On the other hand, there are sure to be some surprised shop buyers who receive a trading card as a gift with their purchase.
The construct of the trophy hunt at Fritz19 and the trading cards in their own area originates from the idea of the makers of ChessBase to make playing with the desired opponent of the Fritz19 engine (https://en.chessbase.com/post/fritz-19-pick-your-sparring-partner-a-review) and the stay on the ChessBase site even more varied and to combine them into a new experience. "It is all about the fascination of chess", says Stefan Knappe. He is a programmer and has been involved in the trading card project from the very beginning. "Our whole team was convinced by the idea from the very beginning," he says, looking back on an exciting period of development, but most of all looking forward to the upcoming and permanent design phase. The aim is to increase the diversity of the different series even further. After all, everyone should be able to find something they like. The result is a kind of chess encyclopaedia on digital trading cards. No matter what topic you are looking for - the ChessBase trading cards will contain the information you need. This ranges from training cards for tactics, openings, middlegames and endgames to famous chess games, chess books and anything else you can think of. Please feel free to make suggestions ...
Stefan Knappe can report that the ChessBase staff were convinced from the start that the trading cards would be of great interest to chess players. And if you take a look at the site, you quickly realise that there is a lot going on and that there are always trading partners online. But you have to find out for yourself how to have fun with it. "You should just enjoy it and see what interests you the most", he suggests an uncomplicated introduction by learning by doing. And it's true: What may seem a little complicated at first can be learned quickly with a few trades. To ensure that your sales, purchases and exchanges do not go unnoticed, you will receive an email with a completion message after each transaction. You can immediately use the Ducats for new cards or sell the new card at a profit. In this way, you quickly get a feel for the value of the cards. Of course - and that's what collecting is all about - you can also proudly add the cards you've bought to your own collection and enjoy their great looks and exciting and educational content.
Finally, of course, we must also mention the "great look" and varied content mentioned above. In addition to the meticulous detail work, the card editors also use the AI to create attractive and collectible images with very individual styles - especially in the "Chess Art" section (https://en.chessbase.com/post/Chess-Art-Series). This keeps the excitement high, because you can only see and enjoy the cards if they are available either in your own album or on the supply market ...
Finally, some numbers and a few notes on the new trading cards:
- The trading card market went online in November 2023.
- There are (as of the end of January 2024) 442 different trading card motifs in 104 themed series and sub-series.
- There are 1,000 of each card, so a low serial number (e.g. 30/1,000) is worth more than a high serial number (e.g. 987/1,000).
- If you have more than one card, you can "gamble" by clicking on the double card and then on the dice. This will turn, for example, a 900 and an 800 into a 300 and, if you are lucky, into a two-digit card...
Finally, an impressive figure: after two months there are already more than 4000 chess players in possession of trading cards, many of whom have already become active on the market - and the trend is rising sharply! So if you want to buy and sell cards, you can always find someone to trade with. So what are you waiting for?
P.S.: If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the staff of the ChessBase Support Centre.
Attacker, coward, swindler or endgame wizard: I'll show you how to win against anyone! After my World Championship victories in 2022 and 2023, I am the reigning Chess Software World Champion and am now looking forward to showing you how to become even stronger against your opponent. With my innovative training method, I simulate typical player personalities you know from tournaments and online chess: brash attackers, cautious cowards, passive players. But how do you win against them? Fritz will show you how!
