Playing by the Book

Among the attractive features in correspondence chess is the research element. In ancient times, serious correspondence players with the means and the space built up huge libraries of chess books and periodicals. When Chess Informant come into existence with its innovative opening classification system, this publication became the standard. Not everyone had equal access to information, naturally.

One game that I played in the late 1990s became memorable because my research took me to one specific game in Chess Informant 64. My game had the same position as the reference game for a single move, but studying Chess Informant suggested an idea that carried me through to victory. Of course, notes in the printed copy of this volume, and in the margins of my printed ECO confirm that I looked at a great many games with similar ECO codes. In addition to CI and ECO, I had a copy of Zoltan Ribli and Gabor Kallai, Winning with the English (1992). The Informant reference game was a win by Ribli in the 1995 Hungarian Championship.

These two games are replayable here, but I offer more detailed commentary at my Chess Skills blog.