Review - Chess Informant's 'Chess Is Chess'

Like most people, I get a generous amount of unsolicited email, more
commonly known as spam, usually from people trying to sell something.
Most of it gets a two second look before going straight to the
digital wastebasket. One piece of marketing email I was glad to get
arrived in early June, from 'Chess Informant' and announced 'Subject:
The latest CD'...

'Dear Chess Informant Friend,

'With this letter we would like to inform you about the latest e-
publication of "Chess Informant". It regards CD "Chess is Chess" -
Chess Informant Chess Guide, whose author is the renowned Grandmaster
Aleksandar Matanovic.

'The most attractive segments of the chess game are covered in a
single CD. Rich in content, "Chess is Chess" is designed for all
chess fans, from beginners to professionals.'

...The content seemed interesting, so I followed the given link
(www.sahovski.com) to find a page describing the product...

Chess is Chess - Chess Informant Chess Guide
http://www.sahovski.com/PRODUCTS/CD/chessischess.htm

...I assume that you know something about Chess Informant and their
related products -- like the Encyclopedia of Openings (ECO) -- so I
won't say any more. I've mentioned Chess Informant publications in
past articles, because they represent a valuable record of chess
history starting in the mid-1960s.

I ordered the CD online and, a few weeks later, received a package
from Chess Informant, 11001 Beograd, Yugoslavia, containing one CD in
a standard jewel case. The CD had no instructions that I could find,
so using Windows Explore, I found INSTALL.EXE in the root directory
of the CD and ran it. The program presented me with a Setup screen
with the following menu options:-
- Install CHESS is CHESS
- Run CHESS is CHESS
- Chess Informant Catalogue
- Play chess online
- Install Chess Informant Reader Software,
- Install Chess Informant 1-79, without annotations

I clicked the first choice, 'Install CHESS is CHESS', which gave me
no options and no info other then a small popup window which told me
that it had 'Succesfully installed!' (sic), and then returned to the
same menu. I clicked the second choice, 'Run CHESS is CHESS', which
closed the first program and opened a new program with an
introductory screen full of choices. After looking over the material,
I knew that my money had been well spent and decided that the CD
provided good material for a 'Chess History on the Web' article,
because it covers a great deal of chess history.

To understand the structure of the CD, to make this article easier to
follow, and to justify the 'on the Web' title, I created a half dozen
new Web pages. These show the upper level 'Chess Is Chess' screens
and document the hierarchy of the major functions. These pages can be
found at...

'Chess Is Chess'
http://mark_weeks.tripod.com/chw01h15/chw-1h15.htm

...In case you're wondering, I have no connection with the Chess
Informant company and I have no financial interest in selling their
product.

I'll come back to the other Setup options later in this article.
Let's look first at the main program 'CHESS is CHESS'. It can be
loaded directly by clicking on the ChessIsChess.exe program located
in the CD's 'Chess is Chess' directory.

The program offers four major functions, a few minor functions, and
access to one or two other stand alone programs. The major functions
are called:-
- Chess School
- Chess Games
- Chess History, and
- Chess Gallery.

I'll look at each of these in turn.

---

'Chess School' has three courses:-
- How to play Chess (for those who don't know how to play)
- Initial Course (for beginners)
- Advanced Course (for experienced players)

>'Chess School : How to play chess' has eight oblong buttons -- a
preface, one button for each of the six pieces (Pawn, Knight, etc.),
and a conclusion. These give basic information on the rules of the
game.

The button for 'Preface' explains the setup of the board; the buttons
for the pieces explain the moves of each piece; and 'Conclusion'
explains when a game is won or drawn. The explanations are
interspersed with examples and tests, which interact with (1) a small
board displayed next to the text and (2) a small window beneath the
text.

Looking at the first piece, 'Pawn' has nine examples and five tests.
Clicking on 'Example 1' places the sixteen Pawns, without the other
pieces, in the start position. The first seven half moves of a Caro
Kann 3.e5 variation (which are Pawn moves only) are displayed and can
be navigated in several ways. Clicking on 'Test 1' displays a
question (the legal moves of a single Pawn) related to a position
shown on the board; clicking a 'Solution' button displays the correct
answer.

Four semicircular buttons -- Quotes, History, Principles, and
Interesting -- appear with the three courses and give background
comments appropriate to the level of the course. These comments are
also repeated at various points in the different texts.

>'Chess School : Initial Course' is structured in the same way
as 'How to play chess'. There is an oblong button for a preface and
one button for each of the six pieces. The preface starts with 'What
is Chess Theory?' and explains basic concepts like 'Principle: The
value of a piece depends on its effectiveness'.

The 'Pawn' section has subsections titled 'Pawns in the
opening', 'Pawns in the middlegame', and 'Pawns in the ending'. These
explain Pawn concepts relevant to those distinct phases of the game.
In addition to the examples and tests, the text is interspersed with
illustrative games. The games can be followed on the same board that
is used to explain the moves of the pieces. The tests, which
illustrate the special powers of the various pieces, are not trivial.

The first example game, 'Control of the centre', is the famous game
Bronstein - Ljubojevic, from the 1973 Petropolis Interzonal, where
Bronstein sacrificed a Rook to maintain the strong Pawn center
resulting from an Alekhine's Defence, Four Pawns Attack. Although
some games are annotated, this particular game is not.

>'Chess School : Advanced Course' has six sections -- (1) The key
principles, (2) Elements of a positional game, (3) You have to know,
(4) Combinations, (5) Some special endings, and (6) Openings.

The key principles start with the paragraph, 'Chess game is not
inexhaustible. Neither are chess ideas. Since the sixteenth century,
when the chess rules have been definitely formed, chess players tried
to find the principles ruling over the board. During the nineteenth
century in certain periods of time when the most prominent persons
such as Philidor, Morphy, Steinitz and Lasker dominated, the main
principles have been discovered and fixed. Everything after that was
deepening and polishing'. As with the two other courses, the concepts
are illustrated with specific games from grandmaster practice.

Seven elements are listed under 'Elements of a positional game',
where 'activating your own pieces as effectively as possible' is the
first. What exactly do 'You have to know'?; well, double check,
perpetual check, and things like that. The combinations are grouped
into 15 categories, from Double attack through Persuit (sic).
The 'special endings' include four particularly difficult theoretical
endgames -- B+N vs. bare K, Q vs. R, R+B vs. R, and 2N vs. P.
The 'Openings' section navigates through Kasparov's complete opening
repertoire.

---

'Chess Games' has four sections:-
- Chess Informant best games
- Games
- FIDE laws of chess
- Play chess with Crafty

>'Chess Games : Chess Informant best games' has the ten best games
from each Chess Informant, no. 1 through 78. For each issue of
Informant, a table shows the games judged the 'best', the names of
the judges, and the points per judge per game. Clicking a
small 'Games' button opens a list of the ten games, which are
annotated.

>'Chess Games : Games' shows all 780 best games together, displayed
in the same way as the previous section. Here you can search for
games by your favorite player; there are 106 games by Kasparov.

>'Chess games : FIDE laws of chess' says, 'The FIDE Laws of Chess
cover over-the-board play. The English text is the authentic version
of the Laws of Chess, which was adopted at the 71st FIDE Congress at
Istanbul (Turkey) November 2000, coming into force on 1 July 2001.'
There are five sections -- Preface, Rules of play, Competition rules,
FIDE, and an Appendix.

'Rules of play' cover:-
- The nature and objectives of the game of chess
- The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard
- The moves of the pieces
- The act of moving the pieces
- The completed game

'Competition rules' cover:-
- The chess clock
- Irregularities
- The recording of the moves
- The drawn game
- Quickplay finish
- Scoring
- The conduct of the players
- The role of the arbiter

The FIDE section says only, 'Member federations may ask FIDE to give
an official decision about problems relating to the Laws of Chess',
and nothing more. It looks like an afterthought.

The Appendix covers:-
- Adjourned games
- Rapidplay
- Blitz
- Quickplay finishes where no arbiter is present in the venue
- Algebraic notation

The rules section would be far more useful if it offered the
possibility to reference the rules offline. I saw no way to print
these rules and the copy & paste functions are not active.

>'Chess games : Play chess with Crafty' opens a well known chess
playing program in a new window. It has five levels -- Handicap,
Basic, Normal, Hard, and Time control -- plus functions to start a
new game and to invert the board, so that Crafty play can White. I
played one game at Handicap level, which I won easily, and one game
at Normal level, which was more interesting.

---

'Chess history' is the most comprehensive piece of the CD and is the
main reason that I chose to review the CD. It has six sections:-
- Time line
- World championships
- Great tournaments
- Olympiads
- Players
- FIDE rating lists

>'Chess history : Time line' has thirty pictures arranged in
chronological order. These start with 'Chess was born in India' and
end with 'Chess has conquered the world'. A 'Show' button, which can
also be activated by clicking on a picture, opens a small window with
more explanation about the event.

>'Chess history : World championships' has sections on World title
matches, Candidate competitions, Interzonals and 'PCA, Brain games';
yes, 'Braingames' is written as two words!

The 'World title matches' start with 1886 Steinitz - Zukertort,
continue through 1993 Karpov - Timman, and end with 2000 New
Delhi/Tehran. In each competition, the winner is listed first. An
image, crosstable, and games accompany each event.

Chess Informant is clearly in the FIDE camp. The section is
titled 'World title matches', not 'FIDE world title matches', and
states unequivocally that the 1993 title match was Karpov - Timman,
rather than Kasparov - Short. Many (most?) chess historians disagree
with this view of the 1993 schism.

The Candidate events start with 1950 Budapest and end with the
1994/95 FIDE Candidates matches. The Interzonals cover 1948
Saltsjobaden through 1993 Biel. PCA/Braingames cover 1993 Kasparov -
Short, 1995 Kasparov - Anand, and 2000 Kasparov - Kramnik (unlike all
of the other matches, Kramnik is listed second, although he won), as
well as the PCA qualifying events held 1993-95. The infamous 1998
Shirov - Kramnik match to determine a challenger for Kasparov is not
mentioned. For all of these events, an image accompanies the event,
with buttons to display a crosstable and the games.

>'Chess history : Great tournaments' starts with 1851 London and ends
with the 2000 Shenyang FIDE event. 'Chess history : Olympiads' covers
1927 London through 2000 Istanbul. I'll have more to say about these
tournaments in my next 'Chess History on the Web' article, which will
take a closer look at the game data delivered with the 'Chess Is
Chess' CD.

>'Chess history : Players' has basic data on players from Manuel
Aaron (IM, India, b.1935) through Vladim Zvjaginsev (GM, Russia,
b.1976). It's not stated what criteria were used to select the
players, and I could not find a fast way to count the number of
players listed. Each entry has a photo, date & country of birth,
titles earned, and a list of tournaments. Buttons open a rating graph
and games for each player; there are 885 games listed for Kasparov.

Each player's games are presented using the same screen as in the
Chess Informant best games. This seems to be a standard window and
has a 'Select Group' function with eight choices -- All games, Chess
Informant best games, Interzonals, etc. -- covering the major
categories on the CD.

>'Chess history : FIDE rating lists' has official lists from January
1975 through July 2000. In the 1980s, I played in a few FIDE rated
tournaments and was surprised to find my name in the most recent
rating lists. The July 1990 list, covering the last tournament in
which I played, gives my name, federation, & rating. The July 2000
still lists me, now with an ID number and birthday. Unfortunately, my
official rating dropped 30 points even though I haven't played a
single rated game since July 1990. I can't complain too much; I
probably would have lost more points if I'd played.

---

'Chess Gallery' has four sections:-
- Cartoons
- Chess stamps
- Chess in Art
- Photographs

>'Chess Gallery : Cartoons' has 61 cartoons. The well known Yugoslav
chess cartoonist Jovan Prokopljevic drew 34 of them. The others are
from the World's Cartoon and Portrait Caricature Contest, which was
held with the 29th Chess Olympiad, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, in 1990. The
Prokopljevic selection includes 16 caricatures of the world
champions -- the 13 champions from Steinitz through Kasparov, plus
Khalifman, Kramnik, and Anand.

>'Chess Gallery : Chess stamps' lists 255 series from Bulgaria 1947
through Honduras 1997. 'Chess Gallery : Chess in Art' has 80 images,
most of them in black & white. The background is a portion of 'Chess
Game' by John Singer Sargent, although the full canvas is not among
the images displayed. 'Chess Gallery : Photographs' has 163 photos
from the 1886 Steinitz - Zukertort world championship match through
2000 Wijk aan Zee.

---

The CD setup program also has a copy of the Chess Informant catalogue
in Adobe PDF format, links to play chess online through the
www.sahovski.com site, and a function to install the Chess Informant
Reader. The Reader is version 1.8, which has been superseded on the
Chess Informant site by version 1.9.

In addition to the features I've described above, the 'Chess Is
Chess' program has a Product Tour, a game of the day, and tools to
find games & players. There is also an online bonus; this is, in the
words of CI, 'All the games from the first 79 volumes of "Chess
Informant" make an exceptional collection of 80308 games played from
January 1966 till September 2000. The best and theoretically most
important games from this period are in question'.

I followed the instructions for the bonus, which involved connecting
to the CI site, and received an activation key the same day via
email. The rest of the installation process passed without a single
glitch. I may have more to say about this games database in a future
article.

---

The Chess Informant 'Chess Is Chess' CD is one of the most valuable
collections of digital chess knowledge that I've ever seen assembled
in one place. I'm deeply impressed. I would very much like to know if
someone with no knowledge of chess could learn how to play using the
instructions provided in the 'Chess School : Initial Course'.

In the interest of being objective, I should mention a few nitpicks.
The CD access is somewhat slow, frequently taking up to a minute to
transition to the next screen; this may be a limitation of my laptop.
The navigation of the CD is often unintuitive and, although I didn't
document specific examples, inconsistent; clicking on a navigation
link doesn't always produce the same result from similar points.

Although the language level is generally high for someone who speaks
English as a foreign language, there are many spelling errors,
grammar errors, and inconsistent spelling of some players' names
(both Emanuel and Emmanuel for Dr. Lasker). With all the effort that
went into compiling the CD, I'm surprised that it wasn't proofread by
a native English speaker.

Perhaps most importantly, the CD, like other Chess Informant products
that I've used, is based on a closed architecture. There is no
possibility to copy & paste text into Notepad, and no possibility to
export games to an email program. Not being able to print the rules
is a glaring oversight. While this may have been done intentionally
to protect CI's intellectual property, it decreases the usefulness of
the entire package. There are better ways to protect IP.

Don't misunderstand me, because I don't want to dwell on the
negatives. The positives are so much more compelling. Spending time
with this CD is like spending time with a Grandmaster and getting a
glimpse into the secrets that chess has to offer.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

---

[The bookmarks for the sites reviewed in this newsletter may be found
at...

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http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chesshistory

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