....the mag seems the same, though not quite as thick. The production
value is better - a much slicker publication - but it seems like some
of the old columns are gone. The feature articles are longer, though.

Alex Dunne's correspondence chess column seems absent...is
correspondence chess dead? Rendered impossible due to computers?

I see they still print all the tournament life entries, though I can't
imagine why...I'd dare say that the number of people who play chess
but do not have access to the Internet is vanishingly small.

On Apr 11, 2:19 am, Andrew Fabbro wrote:

...the mag seems the same, though not quite as thick. The production
value is better - a much slicker publication - but it seems like some
of the old columns are gone. The feature articles are longer, though.

Alex Dunne's correspondence chess column seems absent...is
correspondence chess dead? Rendered impossible due to computers?

I see they still print all the tournament life entries, though I can't
imagine why...I'd dare say that the number of people who play chess
but do not have access to the Internet is vanishingly small.


Interestingly, one of the local tournament directors
blamed poor turnout on such things as some error
by the USCF in which his tourney failed to get
listed in Chess Life magazine. (He also has blamed
the local chess association, for conspiring to do his
tourneys in-- go figure.)

Here's the scoop: while a player who is searching
for a chess tournament to play in may very well log
on and use the Web, those who happen to get a
Chess Life magazine in the mail may very well
check the back of the rag, just to see what's
coming up. See the difference? In the one case,
someone is actively searching, while in the other,
he is prodded by the mere perusal of his mail.

I have been a bit disappointed with the quality of
chess analysis lately; now that I play over games
using, say, the Arena interface, I can easily spot
gross errors in a matter of seconds-- and there
are plenty of them. Even those annotators who
make use of some chess engine or other seem
to miss the boat, now and then. For instance, in
one issue they had a game in which Boris Gulko
beat up on a much weaker player, and the idea
was to show how great the old lion's technique
and overall play was; trouble was, he coasted in
the middle-game, and then blundered-- but his
opponent didn't take advantage; the writers just
pretended it didn't happen. In fairness to GM
Gulko, they ought to have selected one of his
many, finer games.

I don't know if correspondence chess is dead,
or if maybe that column was cut for reasons
such as you observed above-- the reduced heft.
Heck, maybe Alex is "done" with chess.


-- help bot

Dunne's column is still available on the web page, though it's a
little hard to find. Lucas wanted more feature articles, so he cut a
number of columns.

"Andrew Fabbro" wrote in message
...
...the mag seems the same, though not quite as thick. The production
value is better - a much slicker publication - but it seems like some
of the old columns are gone. The feature articles are longer, though.

Alex Dunne's correspondence chess column seems absent...is
correspondence chess dead? Rendered impossible due to computers?

I think a lot of corres players simply migrated to on-line correspondance
chess, rather than postcards. Last year USCF postal ratings were 'held up'
for 6 or even 9 months, and that may have determined recent choices of where
to play cc chess. There are many services, and are auto-rated. I seem to
have about 20 games going at any one time, and in two teams somehow, plus a
number of individual games. Many players in these newsgroups play each other
at cc at Chessworld.net - where you get the full wack of services for about
25 bucks a year, but can also play for free for a more limited range. This
cc server is English, but membership is world-wide.

Cordially, Phil Innes

I see they still print all the tournament life entries, though I can't
imagine why...I'd dare say that the number of people who play chess
but do not have access to the Internet is vanishingly small.