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Chessville
Advertise to Single insert:
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4 DVD set, http://stores.ebay.com/Toby-ChessReviewed by Rick Kennedy
Long ago, in a place not at all far from our own,
Also called the Chess Life & Review 4 Disc Set Amazing Chess Combo #4, it consists of two packages:
Chess Life and Chess Review Complete Collection 1933-1955,
Chess Life 1956-1969 & Chess Life & Review 1973-1975
Put together, that covers the full run of Chess Review (1933-1969),
Chess Life (1946-1969) and the early years of their combined
publication, Chess Life & Review (1969-1975).
Another way of grasping the enormity of this project is to realize that these are not videos – the DVDs are used for their increased storage capacity. A DVD holds what, the equivalent of 30 CDs? That would mean that Chess Review & Chess Life Complete Collection 1933-1975 has the equivalent of 120 CDs of images… That’s a whole lot of reading! Let me play a gnat, taking a drink where elephants may bathe…
More, including an enthusiastic reflection on the times:
Chess Life, newspaper format, “Official Publication of the United States Chess Federation” Volume I, Number I, Thursday September 5, 1946. News and Photos. “Steiner Wins Pittsburgh Open”. Only four pages, every other week, although it would double in size by, say, Thursday, January 20, 1955, when I pluck the following names (among others) from the first couple of pages: Bisguier, Chauvenet, Curdo, D. Byrne, Euwe, Evans, Fine, Helms, Keres, Koltanowski, Korn, Ed. Lasker, Reshevsky, Smyslov and Ulvestad.
Chess Life & Review, January 1973. “Interviews: Fischer,
Spassky, Thorarinsson.” “Keres Annotates Two Karpov Wins.” “Polanica Zdroj,
by Bernard Zuckerman” “Game of the Month, by Svetozar Gligoric.” “The Match:
Tough to the End, by Robert Byrne.” “Games from Recent Events, by Hans Kmoch.”
“Larry Evans on Chess.” “FIDE Congress report, by Fred Cramer.” “Benko’s
Bafflers, by Pal Benko.” “The Practical Endgame, by Edmar Medinis.” Photos.
And more. When people today say that the magazine was better in the
1970s – they have a very strong argument. As the commercial says, it’s in there, in the collection. The people who made up American chess from the pre-WWII era through the Age of Fischer. (Bobby-philes will savor the issues for the coverage of his rise and fall.) Thousands of games. Opening analysis, some of it showcasing how our modern openings developed from the “hypermodern era” through the “Soviet School of Chess” to the pragmatic play of today, much of which has been forgotten or bypassed by current theory. Hunting for an opening surprise? It’s in there. As someone who has spent years researching the dodo of the chess world, the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+), I’ve spent many days staring at microfilm, reading century old newspapers (not to mention travel time and the occasional overnight stay). Now, for the price of the gas and parking it would take me for one trip to the Cleveland Public Library’s White Collection (the largest public-accessible chess collection in the world; props to Jeff Martin and other CPL staffers, who are the greatest!) I can sit and stare at PDFs on my own computer in my family room (steps from the kitchen and bathroom – not inconsiderable benefits when I’m caught up hunting games and analysis) for what looks like it will be weeks on end. (Well, work will interfere, but you get the idea.) The 4 DVDs list for $39 plus $5 shipping and handling – less than the cost of a couple of books, maybe the cost of an inexpensive games database. To be fair, there are a few shortcomings that need to be mentioned, only one of which might dissuade the reader from giving the Chess Review & Chess Life Complete Collection 1933-1975 very serious consideration. First, to view the PDF files you will need to have access to a computer that has a DVD drive. A pretty straightforward requirement, and most newer computers have DVD drives, but a standard CD drive won’t do. (Time to upgrade your computer? You decide.) Second, what is available on the DVDs is a scan of the original magazine or newspaper. Anyone who has worked with microfilm readers knows that as a result of the scanning process there is degradation in reading quality – which may increase with the age or deteriorating condition of the original document. I found everything that I looked at in the Chess Review & Chess Life Complete Collection 1933-1975, to be readable, but the 1930 and 1940s especially had places where the type was light, and I couldn’t just breeze my way through. (Disclosure: I’m 55 with bifocals. A hint: I found that if I clicked on the page that I was reading, it became highlighted in pale blue, which improved readability quite a bit.) The worst instances were still better than the poor microfilms I’ve dealt with, however. To be sure, the 1950s, because the originals that were scanned were in better shape, were easier to read. The 1960s and 1970s, as expected, were incrementally better. Third, the “search” function in the Adobe Reader, a nifty feature for lazy people like me, did not work with the Chess Life, Chess Review, and Chess Life & Review files. In the case of Chess Review and Chess Life & Review I was able to turn to each annual index and look things up; but Chess Life, being in newspaper format for its first three decades, did not have an index. In 1962 Chess Life went from newspaper to magazine format, but I didn’t find any annual indexes until 1963, meaning only seven years are indexed. Of course, there’s the old strategy you would have to use if you had a physical copy of Chess Life in front of you and you were looking for something - page through it. Speaking of “physical copies” of these periodicals, would you like to make a comparison between Chess Review & Chess Life Complete Collection 1933-1975 and the originals? I ran across another Ebay site where someone is willing to sell you 17 years of real live copies of Chess Review for a mere $2,500 (free shipping) - I’ll pass on that offer.
But don’t tell yourself “It’s just old chess games by dead pawnpushers.” Modern masters often dig into the past to find ideas to modernize.
Then there
are heroes and teachers from “back then” who have lots to show us. In
chess, as in my own field, it’s true that the past isn’t dead, it isn’t
even past.
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