8Queens Competitors

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The International Chess Federation (FIDE) is the governing body of the sport of chess, and it regulates all international chess competitions. Constituted as a non-governmental institution, it was recognized by the International Olympic Committee as a Global Sporting Organization in 1999. FIDE currently has its headquarters in Lausanne, but it was initially founded in 1924 in Paris under the motto “Gens una Sumus” (Latin for “We are one Family”). It was one of the very first International Sports Federations, alongside the governing bodies of the sports of Football, Cricket, Swimming, and Auto Racing. It is now one of the largest, encompassing 201 countries as affiliate members, in the form of National Chess Federations. Chess is nowadays a truly global sport, with dozens of millions of players in all the continents, and more than 60 million games on average played every day.

Thirty-five years ago World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov said: "ChessBase is the greatest development for chess since the invention of the printing press." The company, founded in 1986 by physics student Matthias Wüllenweber, science journalist Frederic Friedel, and chess trainer Gisbert Jacoby, has revolutionized the game. ChessBase is a database software for the game, one that has become the international standard for top players, from the World Champion to ambitious amateurs. The current version, ChessBase 16, gives players over eight million games, and instant access to 200 million position evaluations, generated by the strongest chess engines in the world and stored in the Cloud. In addition to the powerful database software ChessBase also offers a chess playing program. Launched in 1992, Fritz won the Computer Chess World Championship a year later, ahead of a prototype version of Deep Blue. Twelve years later it beat the reigning human World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, in a six-game match, watched by millions world-wide. In 2001 ChessBase launched a chess server that allowed chess enthusiasts all over the world to play against each other. The server provides live coverage of all major tournaments, often with grandmaster commentary. For over twenty years ChessBase.com has been the leading news page for chess, and today provides important services to help chess players better understand the game. In 2002 ChessBase joined forces to develop teaching software for very young children. Fritz & Chesster was an enormous success, winning many international awards. It has been translated into 17 languages and is estimated to have generated a million and a half new chess players. Fritztrainer is another important ChessBase product. The company has produced over 400 training courses with videos of top players explaining different aspects of the game, while moving pieces and highlighting moves and squares on an embedded chessboard. Amongst the authors we find former World