Just when reviewing the latest issue of the Chess Informant was becoming formulaic, the team in Belgrade have once again made some fairly radical changes to this well-established periodical, now 51 years old. Some parts remain the same, but in the prose sections the changes are substantial. Let's deal with each in turn, starting with the parts displaying continuity.
The historical heart remains in place: there are 200 games annotated with symbols but without natural language covering the relevant time period from late February to late May of 2017. This is how the Informant began back in 1966, except back then almost the entire periodical consisted of these languagelessly annotated games. Also remaining in place: sections for solving combinations (nine of them), endings (18!), studies (9), the best game of the preceding volume (Nepomniachtchi-Li Chao, from Sharjah), the best novelty of the preceding volume (Giri's 12.c6! against Harikrishna, from Wijk aan Zee), and tables for the FIDE events covered in this issue.
Some bits are gone, however. For a long time, some super-GM has had a column: Kasparov, Morozevich, and Adams in particular. In this issue, the super-GMs are gone. This is not to say that a work is without value without a super-GM, of course, nor is it to insult the level of the contributors. Robert Markus has a FIDE rating of 2672, and both Ivan Ivanisevic and Milos Perunovic are also rated over 2600, so we're not talking about club players. Still, it was nice seeing the insights and reflections of some of the world's absolute best. Mihail Marin's "Old Wine in New Bottles" column is gone too, and so is Karsten Mueller's column on the endgame.
So here's what's in this issue. There's a report on the extremely strong 2017 European Championship, with sections on games, attack, combinations, endings, and blunders. There's little prose here; it's more like a mini-Informant devoted to the tournament.
The next chapter has more prose, as the aforementioned GM Markus tells of his difficulties in facing 1.e4, and describes how he came to choose Alekhine's Defense as his new repertoire choice. He then presents the repertoire, albeit with old-style symbolic annotations and without language.
Ivanisevic then offers his thoughts on trying to "crack open" the Hedgehog, and presents some games based on an approach recommended to him by his fellow GM Branko Damljanovic.
Perunovic looks at an anti-Sicilian line that used to be an occasional part of my own repertoire (I learned the line from Craig Chellstorp, a talented player who gave up the game at a fairly early age): 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 dxe5 5.Nxe5. White cannot prove a theoretical advantage, but the positions are fresh and unfamiliar enough to offer decent practical chances.
Nikola Dukic looks at the "Banker Scandinavian" for Black, i.e. the 3...Qd8 line. It's solid, easy to play, and not the sort of variation where one must live in fear of a big novelty. Dukic used it against Magnus Carlsen in the 2014 Olympiad and had no problems from the opening, and later in the event Carlsen used it successfully against Fabiano Caruana.
Switching to the trendier, or even avant-garde, IM Goran Arsovic has a look at the recent tries 6.a3 and 6.h4 against the Najdorf. Both moves have been used, successfully, by great players, so even if they are mainly good for surprise value, that shouldn't be underestimated.
In Informant 130 Benjamin Gledura wrote about 3...Nh5 against the 3.f3 Anti-Gruenfeld, showing an impressive game he won with the black pieces. GM Danilo Milanovic offers his analysis of the line, concluding that with best play White may obtain a slight advantage. The lines are very intricate and the theory is developing apace, so one should not conclude that 3...Nh5 has been tamed.
Next, Branko Tadic offers a survey of the 2017 Serbian Championship that's similar in format to the article on the European Championship mentioned above. This one has sections on games, the most important theoretical novelty, "storming initiative", attack, combinations, endings, and blunders.
Just over to the west, Srdan Sale looks at the 2017 Croatian Championship. There are sections with the most important theoretical novelty, endings, selected games, and blunders.
Finally, in a surprise move, one of the former Informant traditions has been restored with a "Best of Chess Informant" section on Wesley So. No fewer than 31 of his best games are given, along with seven of his best opening novelties, 24 "excellent moves and combinations", and six of his best endings. I think bringing this feature back is a good idea, even if it's not done in every issue.
There is a remarkably small amount of text in this issue. In all the columns mentioned above, the authors offered some introductory remarks, but once actual chess moves were presented the subsequent commentary was only given in symbols. I'm not certain why they've made the change. Was it a one-off? Is it a cost-cutting measure to save paper? Are they attempting to win or improve their readership in countries without a significant number of English readers? Or perhaps they're outsourcing the language commentary to the American Chess Magazine and British Chess Magazine? I must confess that it makes the publication less attractive, though the Informant remains a valuable resource for serious players.