Chess Informant

Chess Informant, issue #97 (2006)

Chess Informant (Šahovski Informator) is a publishing company from Belgrade (Serbia, former Yugoslavia) that periodically (since 1990, three volumes per year) produces a book of the same name, as well as the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings, Encyclopaedia of Chess Endings, Opening Monographs, other print publications, and software (including electronic editions of most print publications). Aleksandar Matanović and Milivoje Molerović founded the company in 1966 for the purpose of offering the rest of the world the sort of access to chess information enjoyed by Soviet players. The company has sold three million books in 150 countries, according to its website.^[1]

Chess Informant published two issues per year in 1966–1990, and since 1991 has published three issues per year.^[2] Each issue offers several hundred games or fragments of games from master play, many annotated by the players themselves. A board of leading players selects the best games of each issue, and these are republished in the next issue often with more extensive annotations. Each issue since Chess Informant 5 has included a combinations section with problems from recent play. A similar endings section has also become a standard feature.

Previously, the main games were presented in full, showing all the moves played. More recently, many of the main games are in fact game fragments, where the coverage ends around move 20 to 30. Reviewing the Informant for The Chess Cafe, Carsten Hansen viewed this as an improvement, since the sudden death time controls often lead to hasty play at the end of game due to time pressure.^[3] He was more critical of truncating the game after the opening or early middlegame in a 2009 review.^[4]

For two decades prior to the emergence of computer databases, Chess Informant publications were a leading source of games and analysis for serious chess players.^[5] The publication routinely appears in the bibliography of texts on specific chess openings^[6] and other chess texts.^[7]

The Chess Informant system of codes for the classification of chess openings, and its system of symbols have set the international standard^[8] for organizing chess information and communicating this information across language barriers. The system of codes is explained in ten languages on the front of each issue of Informant, the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings, and other publications. Former world champion Garry Kasparov asserted "We are all Children of the Informant,"^[9] and then explained that his own development as a chess player corresponded with the ascendance of Chess Informant's popularity. Other world champions, including Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, and Vishwanathan Anand, attest that Informant is central to their tournament preparation.^[1]

On April 1, 2008, Informant issued its one-hundredth issue.^[10]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Chess Informant website, "About Us" section
2. ^ David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (Oxford UP, 1996), p.251.
3. ^ Hansen, Carsten (October, 2007). "Yearbooks and Serials (Checkpoint)". Chesscafe.com. http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen101.pdf. Retrieved 2009-05-11. 
4. ^ Hansen, Carsten (May 2009). "More Repertoires (Checkpoint)". Chesscafe.com. http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen120.pdf. Retrieved 2009-05-11. 
5. ^ Edward Winter laments them as a "convenient research prop" that fuel ignorance of history. Kings, Commoners, and Knaves, p. 297.
6. ^ John Watson, Play the French, 3d edition, p. 4; Graham Burgess, Winning with the Smith-Morra Gambit, p.4; Glenn Flear, The Ruy Lopez Main Line, p. 4.
7. ^ Garry Kasparov, My Great Predecessors, Part IV, Fischer, p.493.
8. ^ See, for example, Artur Yusupov, The Petroff Defence, Progress in Chess, vol. 1 (Zurich: Edition Olms, 1999); also Bruce Pandolfini, "A Fiery Cauldron of Competition," Chess Life (July 2006), p.45 (referring to the widely understood +− as "Informant speak").
9. ^ The Best of Chess Informant: Garry Kasparov
10. ^ Chess Informant no. 100 : ChessVibes

External links

• Chess Informant