Durarbayli.com

ChessEver 2.0: Live Video, Desktop, and a New Website for the Olympiad

ChessEver logo – best way to follow chess events app

A year ago I started ChessEver because following live chess on a phone was painful. Boards were on one site, commentary on another, and standings on a third. None of them felt designed for a screen you hold in your hand.

ChessEver began as a phone app for serious players who wanted every board of an event with better navigation. It has grown since then. One day before the Olympiad in Samarkand, we are releasing what I am calling ChessEver 2.0.

Live video inside ChessEver

This is the biggest change. Commentary streams from YouTube and Twitch can now play alongside the live games. Open a board, choose a stream, and follow both at once instead of constantly switching between a board and a separate video app.

For an event as international as the Olympiad, language matters. Bringing the available commentary choices together makes it easier to find a stream that fits you while keeping the games in view.

A real desktop workspace

ChessEver Desktop is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It connects live-event following with the longer work serious players do: opening boards, reading notation, analyzing positions, importing PGNs, and preparing for opponents.

The goal is not to copy every old chess-database feature. It is to make the essential workflow cleaner: follow a game, inspect the critical moments, save what matters, and continue studying later. You can read more on the current ChessEver Desktop page.

A rebuilt website

If you prefer following in a browser, chessever.com has been rebuilt around live games, event context, video, standings, player profiles, rankings, news, and the calendar.

The central idea remains simple: following an event should not require a collection of disconnected tabs. The board, the event, and the people explaining it should belong to one experience. You can start with the ChessEver broadcast directory.

Why I am writing about it here

The Olympiad is the event where the whole chess world watches at once, and I would like you to watch it using the thing I built. If it is better than what you use now, keep it. If it is not, tell me why. That feedback is more useful than a download without an opinion.

See you in Samarkand—at least on the boards.

Vasif Durarbayli

Vasif Durarbayli is a highly accomplished Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster. He was born on February 24, 1992, in Sumgait, Azerbaijan, and began playing chess at the age of six. Durarbayli quickly showed a talent for the game, winning several national and international chess competitions as a young player. He holds the record for being the youngest player ever to represent the Azerbaijani Olympic chess team, achieving this feat at just 14 years old. To this day, his record has yet to be broken or renewed. He also won the World Youth Chess Championship U14 and the European Youth Chess Championship U18. He was awarded the title of International Master in 2007 at the age of 15 and became a Grandmaster in 2010, at the age of 18. Throughout his career, Durarbayli has competed in and won numerous prestigious chess tournaments, including the Azerbaijani Chess Championship twice (in 2021 and 2023). He was also ranked among the top 16 players in the World Cup in 2021. Durarbayli has represented Azerbaijan in several Chess Olympiads. Currently, he resides in St. Louis, MO.