A Quick Review of Informant 113

When I first started reviewing issues of the Informant a few years ago, this once great publication was a dying dinosaur. For those unfamiliar with the informant concept, it is most fundamentally a periodical, presenting hundreds of annotated games from a recent time period. Generally the period in question was many months ago by the time of publication, and while that was fine in 1966 when it first came out on through its heyday in the 1980s, it wasn't much good when people would watch the game live, see quick notes that night or the next day and detailed annotations in New in Chess Magazine or ChessBase Magazine a month or two later. What the Informant still had over those competitors was quantity: it would have hundreds and hundreds of games, often annotated by all the best players in the world. But by the mid-to-late 2000s, that was over too. Almost no really strong players bothered with the Informant, so elite games would be handled by staffers, offering nothing that wasn't available through other, speedier e-publications.

Happily, the Informant team started making changes - small, incremental ones at first, and now bigger ones - and the publication has returned to relevance. Among the small changes were the inclusion of sections on "Excellent Moves" (like combinations, but without starting with a sacrifice), endgame studies and problems.

They've also developed some special materials on openings. The format varied for a while, and in its current incarnation there are ten theoretical articles - all by grandmasters. Further, there is prose not only in the introduction to each article, but in the analysis itself - another innovation. This issue has articles on the English by Delchev (the Keres Variation) and Halkias (the Hedgehog), an article by Markus on the Benko Gambit, one by Perunovic on the Kan Sicilian, Pap on a gambit line in the Advance French, Erdos on the Rio de Janiero Variation of the Berlin, Sundararajan on the Berlin endgame, Cheparinov(!) on the Exchange Variation of the Queen's Gambit, Sanikidze on the Vienna variation of the Queen's Gambit and Ivanisevic on the Classical King's Indian.

The Rising Stars mini-section continues from the previous Informant; this time featuring 19-year-old Greek IM and national champion Antonis Pavlidis, who annotates a couple of his own games.

Also in this issue - as in all the issues for a long time - are a recap of the Best Game and Best Novelty from the previous issue, a collection of annotated games from the relevant period (the last quarter of 2011), sections on combinations and endgames, a summary of results from all the significant FIDE-rated events from the relevant period, and a mini-Informant decided to a leading player (Morozevich this time around).

Now let's turn to what's new.

The featured attraction, which even gets mentioned on the cover, is "Garry's Choice". By Garry Kasparov, the column is subtitled "The 13th World Champion Dissects Top Games of Modern Chess". Ironically, the game presented in the inaugural column features a comparatively low-rated GM taking on an IM. The reason for the game's inclusion is aesthetic: Black had (but alas, missed) the chance for chess immortality when he missed a tactical blow that to Kasparov's recollection would have been unique in chess history.

After that comes another fine new section: "Top Five: Notable Achievements by Top Players". Five very strong players (four of whom are [well] over 2700, while the fifth is just under) deeply analyze their games - again, to continue the Informant's new trend, in English, not just symbols. The five this time around around Alexander Morozevich, Alexander Moiseenko, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Nikita Vitiugov and Ernesto Inarkiev.

All in all, it's an attractive issue, and I can happily recommend the Informant to strong club players and up.

You can find ordering info on the Informant site or, in the U.S., in the Chess Cafe shop.

A Quick Review of Informant 112

From its inception in 1966 and for a long time afterwards the Informant was the de facto standard reference for chess players. At one time it ruled the roost by itself, but now many other publications have come to be competitors. For a time it looked as if the Informant had outlived its usefulness, but in recent years it has been revitalized by series of new features: "mini-Informants" (my term) dedicated to particular players, opening articles, new sections on tactics, endgame studies and problems and in the latest issue there's a new feature on promising young players.

As always, the hearts of the Informant is its collection of deeply annotated games - 315 in this issue. The games are annotated by symbols alone – there is no text commentary – but the symbol set is rich enough to be instructive to the experienced club-level players and up. The games offer a window on contemporary professional play, and also help readers with their theoretical prep. (A help, but because of the serious lag by contemporary standards, it's insufficiently up-to-date for volatile variations. Informant 112 covers the middle third of 2011 - it's 6 months behind at the moment.)  Additionally, there are special sections on openings, combinations and endgames that add to the book's value.

This time around the Mini-Informant is dedicated to Victor Bologan. This might seem a surprising choice, as Bologan has never quite been a member of the super-elite, but nevertheless he's been near an elite GM for a long time and strong enough to win the Dortmund super-tournament back in 2003. Further, his lively style and fighting spirit have made him a fan favorite for those who know his chess.

The "Chess Informant Labs" section is one of the more recent developments, a series of theoretical articles that are a kind of cross between the surveys in the New In Chess Yearbook and the ECO. Each has one or more paragraphs of introductory English text leading up to the meat - which is again limited to moves and symbols. In this issue there are seven theoretical articles: Dragan Solak on a sharp line of the Classical Caro-Kann; Milos Perunovic on an anti-Taimanov Sicilian plan with castling queenside followed by 9.f4; Dejan Pikula on a subvariation of the Moscow Sicilian (3.Bb5+); Bojan Vuckovic on the Pirc/Philidor hybrid; Ivan Ivanisevic on the von Henning-Schara Gambit in the Tarrasch QGD; Kidambi Sundararajan on the Botvinnik Semi-Slav and finally Aleksander Delchev on the Blumenfeld Gambit.

As mentioned earlier, there is a new section in this issue of the Informant. Called "Rising Stars", it features 19-year-old Canadian International Master Eric Hansen. There's a page-long profile followed by a couple of his games with (for the first time in Informant history?) textual annotations! Hansen analyzes a crazy game he lost to Vugar Gashimov from the 2011 World Cup followed by a victory from the 2011 Canadian Championship.

All in all Informant 112 offers good value for the money and is a reasonable purchase for serious chess players, say, those rated over 1800.

The Informant website is here, while U.S. ordering info is here (and click here for a look at Delchev's theoretical article on the Blumenfeld).

Informant 111: Further Improvement

I've reviewed quite a few issues of the Informant for this site, so many of you will know the general story already, even if you've never seen a copy before. The Informant is published three times a year, and the meat of each issue comprises several hundred games and game fragments played during the relevant four month period. (There are 301 such games and fragments in issue 111, which covers January-April of 2011.) All the games are annotated using the symbol sets they pioneered back in the 1960s; there are no natural language comments.

There are also sections on combinations and endings, an appendix of sorts listing the results from FIDE events from the covered trimester, and a "mini-Informant" on some prominent player (Alexander Grischuk in this issue), giving some of his best games, novelties, combinations and endgames. The voting for the best game and best novelty of the previous issue is shown, along with the winning games.

The foregoing has been standard for a long time now, and there have been some recent additions. To the combination and endgames section they've added ones for "excellent moves" (like combinations, but without an initial sacrifice), recent studies (composed positions that are gamelike), and problems (composed positions that usually bear no resemblance to normal chess.

A more significant recent addition is the "Chess Informant Labs" section, a series of articles on opening theory. Each (with one exception) is introduced by a bit of English prose (generally about a paragraph) followed by several pages of theory presented in the usual symbols-only format. In this issue, the theoretical articles are:

• Milos Perunovic on 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.h4 h5 5.c4 e6 6.Nc3 Ne7 7.Nge2
• Robert Markus on 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7 5.g4 (with a short paragraph on 5.h3)
• Ivan Ivanisevic on 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nge7 and 3...a6 4.Ba4 Nge7
• Wesley So on 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 d5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.Bg2 Nb6 7.Nc3 Nc6 8.e3 0-0 9.0-0
• Bojan Vuckovic on 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5
• Dragan Solak on 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Nf3 0-0 5.g3 d6 6.Bg2 Nbd7 7.0-0 e5 8.e4 c6 9.Be3

So's article is the only one without any preliminary prose, but in every other respect it's the cream of the crop: a very deep presentation of one of the hottest theoretical lines in chess, by a player rapidly entering the world's elite.

Finally, there are two brand new sections in Informant 111, both consisting almost entirely of (English-language) prose. The first is called "Chess History" and the second "Women and Chess". The first, by Harald Fietz, looks back at San Sebastian 1911 on the occasion of its centennial. San Sebastian was Jose Raul Capablanca's debut in major tournament chess and a clear announcement to the chess community that he was already high up in the world's elite. Fietz not only recaps opinions before the tournament and how Capablanca did during it; he also adds a substantial section on how the tournament was used by Capablanca as a PR tool aftewards, along with a survey of some other reactions to the great Cuban's success.

Similarly based on a round number, Anna Burtasova's "Women and Chess" article profiles former womens' world champion Maia Chiburdanidze on the occasion of her 50th birthday. The piece primarily records her notable successes and battles for the world's crown, but has some more personal touches as well.

One complaint I've had about the Informant in recent years, especially in comparison to its salad days in the 1980s and 1990s, is that many games were annotated by staffers (some of whom do a very good job, but still) and very few by the players themselves - especially elite players. This has been changing. For instance, just sticking to players I notice there who are or have been rated over 2700, Anand annotates four of his games, F. Berkes 3, Bologan 3, Kasimdzhanov 3, J. Polgar 2, Sasikiran 1, So (bound to hit 2700 soon) 4, Ivan Sokolov 3, Tiviakov 2 and Volokitin 1. Other noteworthy annotators include Christiansen (1), openings maverick Gajewski (4), Marin (5 - and his frequent analysis partner Stoica has 8), Roiz (9) and Sargissian (2). U.S. fans will note that American juniors Naroditsky and Shankland have also each contributed annotations to three games apiece.

So kudos to the Informant team for improving their product, which I can recommend to players 1900-2000 and up and to serious correspondence players. For ordering info, check out the Informant site, or in the U.S. this is the easiest place to order from.