BFCC: Chess Informant 98

Chess Informant 98

Publisher: Chess Informant
Author: Chess Informant
Pages: 334
Price: £18 Book, £18 Electronic, £20.50 CD, £27 CD + Book

Every volume of Chess Informant offers a selection of the best games played by the world's greatest chess players. Over 90% of the games are annotated by the players who played them. The classification code system facilitates the search by openings and variations, and the system of annotation signs and symbols is perfectly understandable to everyone. There are also the most interesting endings, combinations, studies, the ten best games and the ten most important theoretical novelties from the previous volume, tournament crosstables and thorough indexes of players and annotators.

Chess Informant 98 contains 432 annotated games and 490 variations.
More information about this particular edition is shown in the tables below.

events held between	September 1st, 2006 and December 31st, 2006
events covered	Lausanne, Kramnik - V. Topalov (m), Barcelona, Hoogeveen, Cap d'Agde (rapid), Moscow, La Habana, Kramnik - Deep Fritz (m), Russia (ch), V. Topalov - Ju. Polgar (m-blindfold), Merida, Pamplona, etc.
contributors	V. Anand, Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Leko, Morozevich, B. Gelfand, Svidler, Ju. Polgar, R. Ponomariov, Navara, Grischuk, Shirov, Sasikiran, N. Short, Nisipeanu, Van Wely, Kasimdzhanov, Sergey Karjakin, L. Dominguez, Rublevsky, Inarkiev, V. Milov, A. Naiditsch, Bologan, Smirin, Iv. Sokolov, Krasenkow, Motylev, Fressinet, A. Volokitin, Bareev, M. Kobalia, A. Beliavsky, M. Gurevich, Sutovsky, Alex. Fedorov, Bruzon, Illescas Cordoba, Ar. Jussupow, Ribli, Xie Yun, Christiansen, J. Timman, J. Benjamin, Mikhalchishin, Speelman, and many others.
trademark sections	The voting for the ten best games and the ten most important theoretical novelties from Chess Informant 97, theoretical survey in ECO format, the most interesting recent combinations, endings and studies, tournament standings and crosstables, and the best of Boris Gelfand’s creative output.

free supplement with CD

Chess Informant 97 in PGN format
(games without annotations)

Verdict:
Chess Informant is an excellent resource to have and remains the most reliable source of high quality games and annotations. The book editions are a joy to hold although I strongly recommend the option of book + cd which represents tremendous value for money.

Chess Informant 98

Highly Recommended

side notes