Informant 120: Back on the Upswing
I've been reviewing new issues of the Informant for some years now, and it has been something of a roller coaster. For a while it looked like it was dying, then they started experimenting in what was usually a positive direction, but then in the last issue it looked like much of the progress had been lost. I was very unhappy with Informant 119, but I'm glad to report that the newest issue, the 120th in the series, is very good and a huge step up from its immediate predecessor.
The first thing I was happy to see, ironically, was the (approximate) absence of my least favorite columns. For many issues it seemed there was a bit of nationalistic/regional pandering. I didn't like this at all, even when countries I'm fond of (such the U.S. and Greece) were featured. A significant idea or a beautiful game isn't any better by virtue of having been played within a couple of hundred miles of me or by someone of my ethnicity. (There's still a tiny bit of it, but it's greatly reduced. Please, Informant editors, eliminate it for good!)
The current issue has contributions that make sense. There are opening articles, including a monster piece by Vassilios Kotronias on the 2.c3 Sicilian (this was part two) and shorter but still substantial works on the Slav and the Scotch.
Mihail Marin's generally excellent column remains, and I found the current installment (a pro- and contra- on Botvinnik's steamroller plan in the Nimzo-Indian) especially interesting.
Garry Kasparov's contribution may have ceased a couple of issues ago, but no matter: some other outstanding players have taken up the slack and then some. Alexander Morozevich offered a column demonstrating some fantastically imaginative opening play, taking a close look at the incredible line 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 d4 3.b4 g5!? Also representing high-level chess, erstwhile 2700s Peter Heine Nielsen and Ivan Sokolov write about the 2014 Candidates and attacking play, respectively.
While he may not be as strong as the writers mentioned in the previous paragraph, Karsten Mueller's reputation as an expert on the endgame is extremely high, and it's a real coup for the Informant people to get him on board.
There are other columnists too (have a look here), and as usual there are about 200 games with languageless annotations along with sections for solving combinations, endgame positions and studies. I'm happy once again to be able to recommend the Informant to players 1800 and up.