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Chess.com is thrilled to bring chess fans around the world more options to watch their favorite players live. To grow the chess streaming ecosystem, Chess.com is offering a number of benefits to chess streamers of all skill levels who want to get involved on Twitch, YouTube, Mixer, and other streaming platforms!

First, create a streaming account on Twitch, YouTube, or any other streaming platform.

Next, you'll need to download streaming software. There are many great programs which allow you to share your computer's screen, along with your microphone and webcam. Some popular programs include OBS, Streamlabs OBS, and XSplit. We recommend OBS! This is the software we use for big events such as the PRO Chess League and the Speed Chess Championship.

Chess.com's producer, @aranhawaii, has produced a quick and concise tutorial playlist to help you get started.

Once you have a channel set up, and you understand your streaming software, there's nothing stopping you from streaming at any timeplaying games, solving puzzles, or doing anything you'd like on Chess.com! What the Streamers program does is help promote you, making it easier for interested viewers to find your channel. Here are some benefits:

Still have more questions? Check out our FAQ below.

Fill out the form below. Once Chess.com staff have verified the information you provided, we will add you to the Streamers page and send you an introductory email with useful resources and further instructions to complete your setup as a Chess.com streamer.

Please note that we will only respond to serious inquiries.

I have a great personality, and it sounds fun, but is there really an audience for this stuff?Yes, there is! Live streaming and E-sports are taking over the internet. Twitchhas an average of two million people streaming a multitude of games every day! Other services like Mixer and YouTube are also actively hosting web events across the globe every minute. Chess.com/Streamers already lists many of the world's most famous "chess streaming" personalities, and there's room for you!

What software should I use for my shows? Is there an easy way to understand the differences between them? Chess.com recommends OBS for its helpful tools and easy to understand user interface, but here are some quick links to tutorials on your options:

Do you have any recommendations on sound and equipment? We do! Surely there are many great microphones and webcams, but we've done our research and have lots of experience. Most of Chess.com's paid streamers and video authors use the following:

Will Chess.com help my streams look good? Yes, we will.

Many logos and standard streaming assets are already available on our brand resources page. Additionally, Chess.com will:

Why do I see some streamers get their shows embedded at Chess.com/TV and mine aren't? Streamers on Chess.com/TV have "Partner Status" with Chess.com and are considered amongst our best, most entertaining streamers. They receive this perk of reaching thousands more viewers via the Chess.com/TV embed for the quality of their shows and service to the community.

N.B. Partner with Chess.com is NOT equivalent to Twitch Partner. We use this as an internal designation only.

How do I earn "Partner Status"?The first thing you should do is take note of what current partner streams excel at and try to emulate that experience. We are always on the lookout for entertaining new streamers!

Secondly, Partner status requires that:

If you meet these requirements, please fill out the form embedded in this article, and we will be in touch with you if we feel you would be a good fit for our program!

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How Do I Start Streaming On Chess.com? - Chess.com

Weve been focused on the loss of professional sports worldwide because of the coronavirus, but competitions of all kinds are being postponed and canceled. On Wednesday, the N.H.L. became the latest North American league to announce a round of schedule changes, postponing its scouting combine, annual awards ceremony and draft, all of which had been set to take place in June. There was also deflating news about the Scripps National Spelling Bee and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

They may not be the Summer Olympics, but their enthusiasts are lamenting the same sudden voids in their lives as sports fans.

The National Spelling Bee scheduled for this week was postponed indefinitely. The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, scheduled for last weekend, has been moved to September. And perish the thought, the Eurovision Song Contest was canceled outright. How will the next Abba or Celine Dion, competitors in their unknown days, emerge on the music scene?

The World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, which starts its preliminary events in late May, is still on for now. Casinos on the Strip are closed for now, with many scheduled to reopen after March 31. People from all over the world converging in one place and passing cards around. What could go wrong?

One event proceeding as scheduled is the chess Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg, Russia. One of the most important events on the calendar, its winner will challenge the world champion, Magnus Carlsen, for his title.

Its a rare gathering of human beings in this time of social distancing, but precautions are being taken. There are no spectators, and news media members have limited contact with the players and must wear masks. There are no pre- or postmatch handshakes, with elbow bumps the favored replacement. Players and officials are being checked by doctors twice a day.

Still, the decision to press on certainly drew some critics. One of the eight qualified players, Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan, pulled out because of virus fears and was replaced by an alternate.

When the tournament started on March 17, things were unclear, said Milan Dinic, the press officer for the event. In Russia, they do not have many cases.

Theyre playing in complete isolation, Dinic said. If someone feels unwell, they will stop the event.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France and Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia were the early leaders in the event, which is to run through April 4. The lone American is Fabiano Caruana, who was the last challenger to Carlsen, losing in a tiebreaker after 12 consecutive draws in 2018. He is in third, within striking distance for another shot at the title.

Fabi is a perfectionist, said Mehreen Malik, his co-manager. I think hes been relaxed and very positive. There is all still to play for.

Chess tournaments are tough during the best of times and certainly much tougher now, Caruana said. Hopefully it gets peoples minds off of the epidemic.

The tournament is streaming online, and Chess.com and other sites report strong viewership numbers from quarantined folks desperate to watch some competition, any competition.

Top athletes need to train. But in all likelihood they are currently cooped up inside, perhaps with children underfoot. So theyre getting creative in using what they have.

Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City did leg lifts, with his children providing the weight. Curiously, while one wore a De Bruyne jersey, the other opted for Raheem Sterling.

The boxer Tyson Furys live-streamed workout with his wife, Paris, was repeatedly crashed by twirling, jumping and dancing children. Hey, thats cardio.

For the runner Ben Bruce, training was a treadmill session while shooting arcade basketball with his son feeding him. He reported going at a sub-10-minute pace while scoring 36. Listen to the man, and dont try that at home.

The Chicago Bulls player Zach LaVine, on the other hand, found his dog Grizzy was a good defensive player in quarantine. LaVine, however, got the shot to fall: 2-0. AirBud, youre up next.

As usual, there were more cancellations. The Kontinental Hockey League, based mostly in Russia, had stopped play in the middle of the playoffs. Now they have called the season off entirely. Well, Russian fans, theres always chess.

Horse racing is one of the last sports still trotting along, with races scheduled in Florida, Ireland and South Africa in coming days. But not in Victoria or New South Wales, Australia, where racing was shut down after a jockey flew on a plane with a confirmed coronavirus case among its passengers.

But Belarusian soccer plays on. Round 2 of its Premier League season begins Friday.

There may be light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel. Japans J-League, the top soccer competition, has set a date of May 9 to resume play. (And if youre even more desperate, the second division is to start May 2.)

It may not happen, of course, but well gratefully take the hopeful signs when they come. And maybe someday soon we will crowd out the cancellation news with a slew of sports relaunch stories.

Original post:
On the Schedule: Chess, Horse Racing and Children Lifting - The New York Times

The World Chess Candidates Tournament in Ekaterinburg has been halted at the half-way stage. The stated reason was the cessation of all air travel to and from Russia, enforced as of yesterday. Had action not been promptly taken, the entire staff and players could have been marooned. It was, in fact, the only major sporting event in the world which had not been cancelled or postponed. Even the Tokyo Olympics has been shunted forwards to next year. Ekaterinburg was to have determined the challenger to the throne of the Champion Magnus Carlsen and it was, for its now truncated duration, probably the most health-conscious chess event ever staged.

As I mentioned last week, the eight aspirants were subjected to twice daily tests for infection from the Covid-19 virus, spectator numbers had been severely reduced, while the media had been largely banned from the playing hall. In a well-intentioned extra measure, devised to entirely eliminate contact between the press and the players, organisers also created miniature cardboard cutouts of the contestants for the photographers, but this somewhat risible strategy was, however, swiftly abandoned.

Most people present, apart from the players, were wearing facemasks. Meanwhile, the players themselves had ditched the traditional pre- and post-game handshakes in favour of awkward elbow bumps. As a result, according to one favourite, Russian Grandmaster Alexander Grischuk, the atmosphere in Ekaterinburg was so tense, uncertain and hostile that he had, even at a much earlier stage, called for the competition to be aborted, writing on Twitter: Its no coincidence that everything else is stopped. Were the only major sport event in the world and I think it should be stopped and postponed. Grischuks cri de coeur has now been answered

Furthermore, one member of the international cohort of Candidates, the previous World Title Challenger, US Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana, had presciently voiced doubts as to whether he would be allowed to travel home, once the tournament had concluded. There has now been a mass exodus to the airport before yesterdays travel ban took effect.

Even without the coronavirus precautions which had been in force in Ekaterinburg, modern elite Grandmasters tend to follow a monk-like existence, based on the knowledge that smoking, drinking, and especially drugs, are all utterly inimical to the fully functioning operation of the human brain. Although smoking was, for example, once obligatory at Eton College, being regarded as a sovereign remedy against infectious disease, we all now realise its health drawbacks. Of course, smoking during official chess games is now absolutely banned. There was even a brief vogue by puritanically-minded zealots for trying to forbid coffee during games, on the specious grounds that caffeine is a prohibited stimulant.

This is all a far cry from the Bohemian past of chess champions. Not everything that is forbidden to monks is forbidden to chess players. Jose Capablanca (World Champion 1921-1927) was a noted charmer, and of course sex has not been eliminated from the otherwise austere lives of the current crop of mental athletes, as they like to style themselves.

Emanuel Lasker, World Champion from 1894-1921, was a philosopher and mathematician, who was friendly with Einstein. Lasker was, therefore, not an obvious candidate as a Bohemian, but he was notorious for smoking cigars during his games. So prevalent was smoking at chess tournaments, that the Red Czar of Soviet Chess, Mikhail Botvinnik (World Champion from 1948 on and off until 1963) engaged a training partner to blow smoke into his face during practice, with, for good measure, a radio turned on full blast to simulate distracting background noise in the competition hall. This was a clever precaution since, without exception, during the heyday of Soviet chess dominion, major chess championships would have been packed with thousands of excitable and noisy fans.

Extreme examples of the Bohemian tendency were the World Champions Alexander Alekhine (1927-1935/1937-1946) and Mikhail Tal (1960-1961) both smokers and drinkers on an epic scale.

Grandmaster Harry Golombek OBE, several times British Champion, was once demonstrating to team-mates a win of which he was particularly proud. Up strolled an inebriated Alekhine, who without hesitation pointed out a vital improvement which Golombek had completely overlooked. This led Harry to the observation that a drunken Alekhine played better chess than a sober Golombek.

I also recall, when I competed alongside Mikhail Tal at the Hastings International Tournament of 1973/74, that I went to the hotel bar one evening after a hard days play to order a brandy. My modest request was thwarted when told by the barman: that Russian gentleman (he meant Tal, who was in fact from the Latvian part of the Soviet Imperium) had consumed the hotels entire stock of brandy during a drinking session into the early hours the night before.

As to smoking, the Olympic standard was set by the Dutch Grandmaster Jan Hein Donner, who seemed to exist on a diet of black coffee (of which 90 per cent was heaped up white sugar) and hand rolled, chain smoked cigarettes. A new biography of the man described as the greatest Dutch contrarian of the 20th century, has just appeared, published by New in Chess.

At the 1973 match between England and the Netherlands, played in Manchester Town Hall, I drew my game on top board against the former Dutch World Champion (1935-1937) Dr Max Euwe. After we had finished discussing our game, I wandered over to watch the game on board two between Donner, a formidable player who had numbered both Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer among his victims, pitted against ten-times British champion, Dr Jonathan Penrose.

The contrast with modern chess could not have been more marked. At that time, smoking was permitted during play, and to accommodate the ash, outsize circular Bakelite ashtrays were placed on each table. Donner constantly refilled his sugar-fuelled black coffees, and backed up this stimulant with cigarette after cigarette, lighting each new one with the stub of the old and thereby building up a vast pile of half burnt cigarettes in the ashtray.

Eventually, the pile of ash increased to mountainous dimensions, it began to emit smoke itself, then burst into flames and caused the giant ashtray to crack into two. There was now, literally, fire on board! The two players seemed transfixed, horrified, and unable to react in this crisis.

Realising that urgent action was mandatory, during this temporary mental paralysis of the two combatants, I, with what I considered to be admirable presence of mind, seized Donners coffee cup and hurled the contents onto the flaming heap of ash, thus extinguishing the flames. Given the very high sugar content of the liquid, however, my prompt action had the effect of converting the conflagration into a thick, black, sticky, hot, steaming pyroclastic flow, trickling slowly across the table, but at least no longer threatening to consume Manchester Town Hall in flames.

As if emerging from a trance, Donner and Penrose looked up at each other, spontaneously, agreed the game drawn, fled from the scene and left me to explain to the janitor what had happened , before he set about cleaning up the liquefied mini-volcanic residue still smouldering on their chess table.

This week, a famous game from the ancient chess archives, played in the days when smoking, on this occasion of a pipe, was customary.

Go here to read the rest:
Chess: Smokescreens - TheArticle

Chess isnt what it used to be. Once a silent, stuffy game for swots, chess has mutated into a thrilling new genre called the auto-battler, and Epic Chess is the latest example.

It looks promising, too. Developed Pathfinder8 (with Glohow lending support on providing the best possible service to users), the game sees you battling both with and against your fellow players for supremacy on the global leaderboards.

Theres a multitude of different races and classes to choose from, and the aim is to combine these into invincible teams of fantasy badasses. Hero and rune settings allow you to plan ahead and apply strategy to your battles, while you can also buy and strengthen items using gold for that vital extra advantage on the battlefield.

Being an auto-battler, Epic Chesss fights play out automatically, but you can improve your odds with canny choices.

Theres a team battle multiplayer mode, too, which allows for cooperative play a pretty much unique feature in the auto-battler genre and deeper strategy through rules such as Showdown Battle and the shared slot system. Youll just have to play the game to see what that means.

Epic Chess is visually stunning, with detailed, realistic backdrops and character models, and an exciting dark fantasy aesthetic.

Alas, Epic Chess isnt available yet, with a launch date pencilled in for some time in the first half of this year. But you have a chance of sampling its gameplay and contributing to its development right now by joining the games closed beta.

From now until midnight on April 5th, you can apply to participate through the official Epic Chess website. If successful, youll get a product code sent to you at the email on your application.

Plus, when the game goes live youll get some lovely rewards for your troubles, which is a double win in our book.

Head on over to the Epic Chess website to get involved.

The rest is here:
Epic Chess is a Gorgeous Auto-Battler with Co-op Gameplay Apply for the Closed Beta Now - Gamezebo

My plans were fixed: I was invited to the Grenke Chess Open & Classic, where many good friends would be playing (Magnus, Vishy, Fabiano, Maxime, Levon, Alexei, Vincent). I had enjoyed it tremendously last year and planned to stay longer this time. Then it was cancelled. Then a wonderful Summer Nostos Festival 2020 in June in Athens, at which I was billed to do a section (as were Garry Kasparov and Judit Polgar), was also cancelled. In mid-June we have Dortmund 2020, which I also love to attend. They are still hanging on, but I have faint hope that it will happen. And hard and fast the cancellations are coming, top tournaments, leagues and opens.

The last major event (of this year?) is the eight-player Candidates tournament that determines who will challenge Magnus Carlsen for the title of World Chess Champion. The picture shows what it was like getting there that's Anish Giri at an airport on his way to Yekaterinburg in Russia.

The World Senior Team Championship in Prague, from March 5-15, was terminated after seven rounds. The US Chess Championship has been cancelled, and there is little hope that any major event will take place in the next months. ChessBase India is keeping track of popular tournaments, worldwide, that will not be happening.

All of this, as you doubtlessly know, is due to the coronavirus Covid-19 epidemic which has swept round the world, bringing society and commerce to a standstill. Here are some facts you need to know and some advice you would do well to heed.

A lockdown is an emergency protocol that is implemented by government authorities and prevents people from leaving their homes. "Shelter in place" is another way of telling people they must seek safety in their places of residence (and not community or emergency shelters). This, and social distancing avoiding groups of ten, five or even three people is currently being adopted all over the world. All movie theatres, pubs, sporting events, barber shops, etc. are closed. Only food outlets and pharmacies remain open and accessible. In Italy the lockdown is total; in New York it will soon be, as far as I can tell.

Working from home

In Germany all schools are closed, and home schooling is part of the daily agenda. The schools are sending daily lessons by email to the students. Incidentally, grandson Enders (above right) is writing a Journal of the Corona Year. It's supposed to emulate something Daniel Defoe did for Yersenia pestis in the 17th Century.

The staff in theChessBase office is down to five people the others can all work without much difficulty from their homes. Each of the five who come to the office have their own rooms and will, hopefully, come through this unscathed. I want to advise our customers to opt for the download versions of our products. It is very easy and convenient, and there is absolutely no delay in delivery. People are moving more comprehensively than ever onto the Internet. It's a good time to join them.

Master Class Vol.2: Mihail Tal

On this DVD Dorian Rogozenco, Mihail Marin, Oliver Reeh and Karsten Mller present the 8. World Chess Champion in video lessons: his openings, his understanding of chess strategy, his artful endgame play, and finally his immortal combinations.

From our colleagues we are getting pictures of empty cities, town squares and beaches.

John Nunn, who is currently in Cornwall, sent us this picture of a popular beach

This is what Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, can look like in normal times

This is a picture Fat Fritz author, Albert Silver, took from his flat on the beach highway, yesterday

Ken in California say he finds it difficult to keep six feet away from prople when there is nobody to keep away from.Friend Ashwin, who works for Intel Bangalore, writes: India is on a complete lockdown. Guideline is that no one steps out of the houses, apart from few exceptional roles/situations. No public transportation within or inter-city, no flights, no commercial establishes open, schools shutdown since ~10 days now, police on the road etc.). Across the entire country for 21 days starting today!I remind you: India has 1.3 billion people!

This is graphic (byDr Siouxsie Wiles) illustrates how the coronavirus can spread if left unchecked, and what happens if social distancing is applied.

Illustration of how to curtail the infeaction spread

It is clear that isolation and working from home is an effective weapon against the coronavirus.

Naturally every scientist, or institution involved in any kind of medical research, has dropped everything to look for the ideal solution: medical relief for the symptoms of the disease, and a vaccination that will prevent it from infecting people and spreading in the first place.

It is a trillion-dollar search.

Kevin Simler has posted quite a remarkable page, which provides playable simulations of a disease outbreak. "Playable" means you'll get to tweak parameters (like transmission and mortality rates) and watch how the epidemic unfolds.

On the left is a screen shot (click or tap to enlarge) of the "Full Model" that is located at the end of Kevin's article. It lets you set the parameters like incubation, symptoms, self-quarantine rate, strictness, encounters per day, hospiral capacity, fatality rate, and then displays the running results (red dots = infected, grey = recovered, black = dead).

I advise you to spend quality time running this simulation. It is highly informative and greatly improves your understanding of the spread.

Especially interesting is to try and find parameters that will most effectively stop the virus from spreading, and bring the outbreak to a halt. I spent an hour working on this. You should try as well and let us know which (realistic) settings work best. Do it at:

Outbreak by Kevin Simler March 16, 2020

I consulted Demis Hassabis, whom I have known since the 1990s. Demis is the founder of DeepMind, the company that built AlphaZero. Currently they are using their AI software technology to calculate the folding of proteins. My simple question was: "Demis, isn't there anything DeepMind could do about Covid-19?" His reply: "Yes, we are doing everything we can. Did you see this?" and sent me to a site which describes their work:

The scientific community has galvanised in response to the recent COVID-19 outbreak, building on decades of basic research characterising this virus family. Labs at the forefront of the outbreak response shared genomes of the virus in open access databases, which enabled researchers to rapidly develop tests for this novel pathogen. Other labs have shared experimentally-determined and computationally-predicted structures of some of the viral proteins, and still others have shared epidemiological data. We hope to contribute to the scientific effort using the latest version of our AlphaFold system by releasing structure predictions of several under-studied proteins associated with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. We emphasise that these structure predictions have not been experimentally verified, but hope they may contribute to the scientific communitys interrogation of how the virus functions...

Chapeau! Read the full DeepMind article...

Irina Krush is an old and treasured friend, whom I have known since her mid-teens. We were recently in contact regarding herGrandmaster Chess School, whose mission is to help young chess players achieve their full potential by learning from top players and each other. Suddenly our correspondence was interruptedshe untypically stopped replying to my emails.

Irina Krush with students

I was slightly alarmed, and justifiably so. The reason for her silence became plain to me when I read a post on her Facebook page, of which I give you a few excerpts:

Last Wed night, March 11th, I started to feel a little bit under the weather. By Friday night I lost my sense of smell completely [a known symptom Ed.]. I could not smell the cup of coffee right in front of my nose. On Monday evening, I felt a shortness of breath, a symptom Ive never experienced before. On Tuesday morning, I had an internet lesson. I just couldnt talk without taking extra pauses to breathe.

I went to CityMD right after my lesson. When they saw I had no temperature, that my chest X ray was clear and there were no signs of pneumonia, the doctor visibly relaxed (since it didnt look like I had coronavirus). She had no explanation for the shortness of breath, though, and suggested a CT scan at the ER to check for blood clots. The CT scan showed early coronavirus and pneumonia in both lungs. I was also given the actual test, which only came back today [March 20] (positive). I spent a couple days in the hospital, I guess mostly under observation as there wasnt much that needed to be done for methey did test my blood for oxygenation and found it was fine. So now I am hometaking the hydroxychloroquine tablets.

I thought Id share this as I know the trajectory of my illness was not completely typical, and it can help some of you get tested/treated/go into quarantine earlier. And it absolutely made me see the importance of staying home and doing your part to slow the spread of this. Wish you all to stay healthy!

You can read Irina's full text on her page

Five times World Champion Viswanathan Anand came to Germany in late Febuary, to play in the Bundesliga, and found himself trapped in his flat in Frankfurt, unable to return home. Let Vishy tell us the details:

Master Class Vol. 12: Viswanathan Anand

This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors how to successfully organise your games strategically, consequently how to keep your opponent permanently under press

This is a global flight tracking service that provides you with real-time information about thousands of aircraft around the world.Flightradar24tracks 180,000+ flights from 1,200+ airlines, flying to or from 4,000+ airports around the world, in real time. You can keep checking and see how the number of flights decreases, and make any travel arrangements you might be contemplating accordingly.

http://www.flightradar24.com

This is valuable advice I got from a highly respected (and conscientious) expert: Take Vitamin D3!I am following his advice and have passed it on to friends and colleagues, who are passing it on to others. Snowball effect.

Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) is responsible for increasing the absorption of calcium, magnesium, and phosphate. It has many other biological effects like reducing the body's ACE2 enzyme. All Coronaviruses, including Covid-19, attach to the ACE2 enzyme in human cells. Researcher have been trying prevent or alleviate Covid-19 infections with massive doses of Vitamin D3. They advocate increasing the D3 levels in your blood to over 50. The natural source for Vitamin D is sunlight on your skin. In winter in northern latitudes, with heavy clothing, this is a tad hard to come by. On the specific advice of my expert I am taking a large dosage of D3 and augmenting this with capsules that contain Vitamin C, Quercetin, Zinc, each of which improves immune systems. But of course: you should consult your doctor before taking any medical supplements.

If you want to know the scientific background of what I am saying watch this video lecture by highly qualified Ivor Cummins. It is long and technical, but very convincing in its conclusions.

One other piece of advice from the experts that I adhere to is keeping your spirits up. In this global crisis there is certainly reason to be scared, and depressing news keeps coming hard and fast. This exacerbates your ability to cope. "Lower your stress," says the New York Times.

"Worries about the coronavirus, the stock market and the general disruption of life have added to our stress levels. We know that stress also can make you more susceptible to respiratory illness and other injuries as well. Did you know that marital or partner conflict is especially taxing to the immune system? In a series of studies, researchers at the Ohio State University inflicted small wounds on the arms of volunteers, and then asked the couples to discuss topics both pleasant and stressful. When couples argued, their wounds took, on average, a full day longer to heal than after the sessions in which the couples discussed something pleasant. Among couples who exhibited especially high levels of hostility, the wounds took two days longer to heal." Source: New York Times.

So, in summary:you should react more calmly to the crisis than this!

Keeping calm and cheerful is what I am trying to do, and receiving daily assistance from my good friend Vladimir Kramnik, who shares my opinion, Vlady is similarly in lockdown with his family in his flat in Geneva. He never fails to send me (and probably other friends), once a day, some snippet of information or a cartoon that makes me smile, and lift my spirits. I want to share a small sample with you.

The fresco painting by Italian artist Michelangelo, appropriately modified

This is how you may have pictured yourself during an Apocalypse and this is reality today

Protection? There is a world-wide obscession to stock up on toilet paper, of all things!

Hey mum, when is this corona thing gonna be over?Just shut up and eat your toilet paper.

A video Kramnik sent me: Fred Klett: Women Know Things That Men Don't genuinely funny nine minutes on YouTube. Thanks, Vladimir, for helping us keep our spirits up!

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The coronavirus, and its effect on chess - Chessbase News