2010-04-30

ChessBomb Premium - Free for Everyone this Saturday

Tomorrow (Saturday, 1 May 2010) we will temporarily upgrade everyone's account to Extra Premium status during the game (round 6 of the Anand-Topalov match). Here's a gentle reminder about the additional features you will experience during this demo:
  • Ad-free interface
  • Unlimited analysis time (unleashing the full power of Stockfish)
  • Unrestricted chat
  • PGN file download
Even non-registered guest visitors will see unlimited analysis time and no ads. So jump on board, and bring friends as well :) These features are normally available starting from € 1.99 / month.

There are a couple of caveats, however:
  • We expect the chat to become almost unusable due to the tremendous message flood. You will see why the restrictions we have in place are necessary :) Unfortunately, the chat room paradigm is not designed for many thousands simultaneous posters in a single room.

ChessBomb moderator at work tomorrow
  • The Premium features put the server infrastructure under greater stress. When enabled for everyone, the stress is significant. So small disasters are possible... although we expect to hold well.

Main ChessBomb server after tomorrow
    Now please excuse us while we run to prepare our poor little servers for this torture ;-)

    2010-04-24

    ChessBomb Premium Goes Live

    We are proud to introduce for you several new features, in time for the Topalov-Anand World Chess Championship Match in Sofia 2010. First, rest assured - all our previous features remain free, just like before. However, starting today we are offering several new Premium features, for a small fee (as low as € 1.99 per month).

    Here are the benefits available to the owners of our new Premium Accounts:
    • Advertisment-free interface.
    • Infinite analysis of the last played move. In this manner you can enjoy the full power of our preferred engine Stockfish (which is dethroning Rybka 3 from the top spot in various rating lists) with regular updates for the current position.
    • Unrestricted chat - premium accounts are not subject to the 10 messages per minute limitation.
    • PGN file download of every game.
    See detailed comparison and upgrade your account here.

    2010-04-22

    Anand-Topalov World Chess Championship match live on ChessBomb.com

    Today (April 21, 2010) the official opening of the most anticipated chess event of the year took place in Sofia, Bulgaria - the match for the world title between champion Viswanathan Anand and the challenger ex-champion Veselin Topalov. The clash of the titans will start on the board one day later than originally planned. The postponenement was due to the long trip of Vishy Anand to Sofia caused by the volcano in Iceland. So the first game is scheduled for Saturday, April 24 2010 12:00 GMT (15:00 EEST).


    The ChessBomb team is working hard to bring you the best online coverage of this great and long expected match. The realtime analysis will be provided by the awesome Stockfish engine, which we additionally tweaked and upgraded to the latest 1.7.1 version (it has already dethroned Rybka 3 from the first place on some lists, for example CCRL FRC). As you may recall, we recently replaced Rybka 2.2 with Stockfish.

    Stay tuned for some additional great announcements from us before the start of the games...