As some of you may be aware, Chessbase has been producing an electronic chess magazine for some time. Chessbase Magazine (CBM) comes out six times per year, usually on a single CD (if you get CBM Extra, you will get six additional CDs). CBM contains all the most recent games, along with video and audio coverage of the larger events. Along with this, you get various instructional articles covering all phases of the game, and a set of tactical puzzles. Last but not least, you get all the latest updates to your Chessbase software.
Clearly, there are a variety of sources for this kind of information. Chess Informant provides electronic versions of their publications, as does New In Chess. Chess Assistant provides an e-mail subscription service. However, Chessbase provides the best integrated and most visually attractive package of them all. This is partially because each version of Chessbase magazine comes with a Chessbase Lite, which allows you to view all the data on the CDs. This allows you to access the information on the CD like you would a hypertext web page. I've written about this in the past, and I would recommend you download a copy of Chessbase lite if you are curious.
The most recent CD that I looked at was CBM 76, which included coverage of the Dutch National Championship. If you remember, there was quite a furor over the participation of Fritz 6 in this event. On the CD you will find interviews with Tim Krabbe, Jeroen Piket, and some of the other principals in the tournament. You can watch Sergei Tviakov get a little upset over his draw with Fritz, and see the reaction of Frans Morch (the person that coded the Fritz engine). As an aside, I thought Tviakov played a very attractive game. There is also coverage of Bundesliga 1999/2000, the Petroff memorial, and others. CBM 76 extra adds coverage of the Linares Super Tourney (with Kasparov, Khalifman, Anand, Kramnik, Leko, and Shirov).
It's probably the extras on the CD that can be the most interesting. For instance, Chessbase always likes to provide video coverage of the surrounding area, which tends to give you a feel for the tournament that you do not get from reading about it. Additionally, the video interviews tend to humanize the players to a certain extent. There are usually plenty of videos containing game post mortems. Sometimes these are filmed in poor lighting, and the audio quality is not always the best. But one has to make allowances – the players are not always speaking for the benefit of the camera, and playing halls can be dimly lit at times. However, when Frederic Friedel turns his camera on people and does a direct interview, you will see some interesting things. On this CD, I especially liked the interviews with Tim Krabbe.
Each CD usually contains a selection of commented and uncommented games. CBM extra usually contains a few commented games, while CBM usually contains quite a large number - usually more than a normal person can expect to go through in two months time. There are also tactical tests (around fifty positions in this issue), heavily annotated endgames on specific themes, at least one opening survey (the semi-slav by Lutz), and various other articles. In short, most people will not be able to get through one tenth of what is on each CD. Annotators for this issue included Baburin, King, Luther, Ribli, Huebner, Bangiev, and many others.
Should you shell out the cash for a CBM subscription? Well, it’s not really for me to say. You will know when you are ready for this type of material. If you already have, or are thinking about something like Informant, or NIC, then you will want to take a look at CBM also. If you are a real chess junkie, then CBM is really the only game in town if you want incisive commentary and video coverage.
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