Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Chess Informant

I have a few old issues of Chess Informant that I got off Amazon.com for like $1+shipping. They're old, but my intended use for them is two-fold: games to play over quickly to get a feel for grandmaster chess and positions to try myself against (the combinations and endings sections in the back). They're fairly awesome: I highly recommend trolling around Amazon.com or some other used books service every once in a while to see if you can find old issues floating around for a couple bucks (be sure to search for both "Informant" and "Informator"). One thing I didn't count on was the historical factor. I have the issue containing the Fischer-Spassky match. I have the issue where Karpov was declared world champion. I have the issue with the '86 K-K match and the issue with the '90 K-K match. I think that is fairly cool. I might try to get the Informants containing all the K-K matches. I also have the issue containing games from when I was born. Also of interest are the notes previous owners may have made in them.

NOTE: you may want to check the combinations against computer analysis, since the issue will likely be pre-computer if you purchase with this method.

LATER ASIDE: Speaking of which, Korchnoi and Smyslov are fairly impressive for their ability to perform at high levels, even contending for the world championship title, well into "old age". Interesting interview with Smyslov: http://www.gmsquare.com/interviews/smyslov.html

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