Informant 114, reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.
It's not your father's Informant. In fact, the staff has made so many changes the last few years it's not even your older brother's Informant. The meat of this periodical is a collection of recent games annotated with non-text symbols; that has remained consistent over the publication's 46 year history. And the other traditional features remain in place too: a summary of the FIDE-rated events played during the period covered, a summary of the best game and best novelty voting from the previous issue, and sections on combinations and endgames.
There have also been plenty of additions over the years, the oldest being what I've called a mini-Informant dedicated to some top player, and in this issue it's Gata Kamsky. Other additions of varying age are sections on “excellent moves” (i.e. tactics not involving an immediate sacrifice), and endgame studies and problems. These are all language-less, but there are also many new sections in English: short theoretical articles somewhat similar to those in the New in Chess Yearbooks (there are eight in this issue); “Top 5”, which presents annotated games by five 2700-rated players; “Rising Stars” (this time featuring American Samuel Shankland); and the big novelty from last time, “Garry's Choice”, a short essay by Garry Kasparov featuring whatever game or games have caught his eye.
Now let's turn to the new material. The best new section is Mihail Marin's “Old Wine in New Bottles”. The idea is to show some theme – in this issue, the idea of exchanging off the opponent's doubled pawns to obtain some benefit – as demonstrated not just (or not so much) in contemporary games but in the classics. There's a little article on the World Championship (which brings to mind another “novelty” about the new Informant: it's up-to-date!), with games 8 and 14 annotated (in English) by GM Kidambi Sundararajan. Another new feature is “One Country”, which presents annotated games by four different players from the “one country” - in this case Sweden. Finally, there's “Guest Column”, in this case an annotated game from British Chess Magazine by IM Andrew Martin. About these, I think Marin's column is very good and I hope it survives, but the latter two seem to me unmotivated and dispensable (not that they're badly done).
The overall quality is very high, and the blend of traditional material (the basic symbolically annotated games section still runs 162 pages and includes 208 games and [very few] game fragments) with the new (more than 110 pages of English-language annotated material, and we're not even counting the combinations, endgames, mini-Informant and the rest) has brought this fine old periodical back to relevance.
Highly recommended for stronger club players (1800-1900 and up).
More information here; U.S. ordering info here.