Chess Informant Electronic Edition and CIR v 4.0
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Chess Informant Electronic Edition, Chess Informant Reader v4.0
Reviewed on 4/6/03
Those of you that visit this website frequently realize that I generally shy away from reviewing chess periodicals. To date, I have only mentioned the existence of Chessbase Magazine (CBM) and New in Chess (NIC) CDROMs. But there is another source of topical, annotated games, and it is called Chess Informant.
The Informants have been published for a few decades now. Indeed, the company even survived the bombing of Belgrade, and continued its print offerings through that turbulent time period. My first exposure to Chess Informant came in the early 90's, when I chanced upon a copy at a local tournament. I looked at it, and saw reams of variations crammed into page after written page. It was a daunting amount of information. I put it down, and went on to look at the rest of the collection.
Some of you may also have had a similar experience as well. But sometimes first impressions should not be the basis for proper decision-making, and I think I really did the Informants a disservice by not looking at them more closely. The problem is that I generally have too much data. And after a while, all this chess data sits around without being used. So the question begs to be asked - what is the purpose of a collection that contains hundreds of games to examine? How does one get through these games? The key is prioritization of the important material - and this is one thing that the Informants provide.
The Electronic Edition of Chess Informant comes in two parts. One is a zip file containing an issue of the magazine. Another is the application needed to read the Informant data, called the Chess Informant Reader (CIR). Each issue of Informant comes with a small install program that must be run to import the information into your copy of the Informant Reader. Each copy of the reader is individually serialized to the user and user's computer, to prevent rampant duplication of this copyrighted material.
When you install an issue of Informant, two icons are created on the Informant desktop. One is an HTML file containing a text listing of the database contents (plus links). The other is a game collection database. The HTML file contains (in this order): A list of contributors/annotators. The ten best games of the preceding volume, the ten most important theoretical novelties of the preceding volume, the informant code system, a link to the games, links to the games based on ECO code, a printed index, a list of annotators, a set of combinations to solve, a set of instructive endgame positions, links to the games organized by tournament, and a profile of a famous player (called the best of Chess Informant). For the past five issues of Informant, the player profiles have included (Lajos Portisch, Nigel Short, Jan Timman, Boris Spassky and Vladimir Kramnik).
IMO, there are three really good ways to access the information in the Informants. First is the ten best games list. This is really handy if you want to find the most interesting or beautiful games to examine, and can really save you some time. The second way is via the search dialog - usually everyone has their favorite players. In my case, I go straight for the games by Kramnik and Anand. The third way is by ECO code, or using the position search. Of course, those with a special interest in tactical problems or interesting endgames can go to those sections as well. But be warned that the tactical problems are generally quite difficult, and are more suited to very strong players.
As I alluded to earlier, Informant succeeds by prioritizing the most important information for you to look at. There is a certain amount of value to providing things like the ten best players, novelties, and "best of" sections in the magazine. But if you are the sort of person that has the time to go through hundreds of annotated games, then the Informants can accommodate you as well, since every game is annotated (and usually by the player of the white or black pieces in each game). I think there is significant value in this - for instance, one of the first set of games I turned to was the Braingames Kasparov vs. Kramnik match. Both players annotated the games of the match, which I think is invaluable for understanding their thoughts during the game.
More About the Chess Informant Reader
The important thing to realize is that the reader primarily exists to support the retrieval of games from the Informants. Once you find the information you want, it is displayed in a very clear and concise manner. And incidentally, display of the chess game score and board are very configurable, with 21 different piece sets, and good control over board, text and piece colors. Printed output of games looks exactly like you would find in any of their text publications.
The reader is a combination HTML browser and database program. The browser-based part of the program treats all the publications as HTML-files, so the experience is exactly like using Internet explorer (replete with back, forward, and home buttons). The database portion of the reader provides all the basic features, but lacks advanced functions. For example, there is a search dialog box where you can do both header and position-based searches, but not material based ones. The Crafty chess engine is also included, if you find the need for a little analytical help, or if you want to play a quick game against the computer.
One common misconception concerning the reader is that it does not support PGN. Happily, both PGN export and import are provided. The program produces PGN that is readable by any software that supports PGN. My practical experience is that move evaluations, and simple annotations are translated without any trouble. But, some Informant symbols (e.g. things like "with the idea", "weak square", etc) need additional translation before they can be interpreted properly by Chess Assistant or Chessbase. Incidentally, EPD import is also supported. In fact, the program will automatically place any EPD string on the clipboard into the position search dialog box, to facilitate faster location of games.
Another interesting feature I found in the reader was the right-click menu entry called "referent numbers". It brings up the appropriate game from another issue of Informant, when it is referenced in the current game. This is an advantage that the electronic version has over its printed sibling.
I mentioned too that there is a selection of tactical problems that comes with each issue of Informant. When you select one of these, a small chessboard appears, and you need to guess the main line of the combination. While you can get a hint concerning the next move, you cannot analyze positions within the quiz module. If you want to do something like this, you need to open the tactics file from within the reader, as a database.
Conclusion
You'll be happiest with the Informants if you realize that they are electronic books first. The visual appearance and typesetting of the games is excellent. The database functions are not as comprehensive as you'll find in Chessbase or Chess Assistant, so don't expect otherwise. Overall, I think that Informant has succeeded though, since it offers thoroughly annotated games, and provides some real time-saving shortcuts to pull out the most important games in the Chess Informant library.
My feeling is that players that can read informant style annotations (and have a playing strength of at least 1400 could probably benefit from the study of the Informants.
Copy Protection
Each issue of the Informants requires a password. The reader also requires a password and registration. The reader and all informants are available via download from the Informant web site, or on CD ROM.
