Chess Life Magazine

I was just reading a copy of it in the library, it looks really sharp. For 32$ of 3

years subscription off USCF sounds great. Has anyone read it for a long time?

What do you think of it?

I read it regularly and its a great magazine.

It doesn't stand up to "New in Chess", but is still worth buying. I always read the "Chess to Enjoy" section, and do the attached tactics problems. The mag contains some sensible book and/or movie reviews. If you live in the US, the tournament life section is useful. There is a lot of irrelevant stuff too, such as "Chess at Podunk U.", "The Life and Games of Mr. Obscure", "Why Chess Is Better Than Poker", or something similar. These articles are not worth the paper they are written on. What is obviously and painfully missing are sections on opening novelties, coverage of large international chess tournaments (as opposed to covering the under-14 section of an amateur tournament in Hickville), some historical articles about the former WCCs, etc.

{Disclaimer: these opinions are my own.}

 Hey crazyplayer, Do you realize the economy is in a shithole ?  Do you realize New in Chess cost three times as much as chesslife?  I am curious crazyplayer---cite a recent article about "The Life and Games of Mr Obscure". due to your limited knowledge of chess perhaps you dont recognize these players as being prominent. Cite the month and year of the article---I'm going to check you out!

Ya think, I'm bluffing, Raul72? Hahahahahahahahaaaaa! Made my day! Thought I'd take a week to respond? ! Here is your list:

August 2011 - Stephen Ham, four pages.

May 2011 - Elizabeth Shaughnessy, three pages.

December 2010 - Nathan Divinsky, three pages. Wait, this actually rings a bell! Yes, here it is:

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/divinsky.html

October 2010 - Viktor Laznicka, three pages.

I'm not going to list those recently deceased, who never made the pages of Chess Life until they died. That's just sick.

When I first started playing chess in 1996, Chess Life was a very good magazine and helped me a lot. More tenured players than I tell me that it used to be even better than when I started. They used to cover tournaments, world championship matches (my first issue was February 1996, with Kasparov and Anand atop the World Trade Center), and provide lots of games from domestic tournaments, many of them annotated. They also had really good columns by Karpov, Rohde, Benjamin, Mednis, and Soltis, among others. The Soltis column has survived, as has Benko's...Evans' column remained until his recent death, Pandolfini's column I think still remains, but I'm not sure about Alburt's. Silman's column was extremely popular.

Unfortunately, some years back they decided that CL needed more "human interest" stories and other garbage. They tried to make it too much like the typical magazine on the newsstands, but with a little chess sprinkled in. EPIC FAIL.

Now, I don't even bother reading the crap they call Chess Life. There are so many magazines that are much better. I subscribe to New In Chess, which is very much worth its high price. Other excellent magazines are Chess (UK), and Europe Echecs (I have seen the quality, though I don't read French). There are probably others as well.

Here is what is available chess-wise on Warsaw newsstands:

Panorama Szachowa is the most popular, mostly black&white mag. Mat is much higher quality, but at this time published only bimonthly or even quarterly. Chess Life is there, and an occasional Europe Echecs can be found at some newsstands.

I buy them all.

Thanks for the pic, Crazychessplaya!

This is what I'm talking about: notice how Mat and Panorama Szachowa have serious chess photos on their covers (good quality too, apparently), and then compare that with the random crap Chess Life often puts on its cover most months! There's no comparison!

I joined uscf back in 1973 and over the years their magazine has steadily gotten worse, unfortunately.  I left the US in 97 but am returning this year and will rejoin the USCF but the magazine no longer interests me . I will buy the membership without the printed magazine and just use the internet to locate the tournies that I might be interested in attending. US chess is concentrated more and more at scholastic players / events to the detriment of adult players . This is a shame , imo, since many adult players have been supporting US chess for decades and only 1% ( or less ) of scholastic players will continue to play chess after becoming adults. This trend spells disaster for US chess I do believe. 

Andre_Harding, great observation on the Chess Life covers. Here is one of the worst ones to date, IMO:

what were they thinking, replacing the horse with the cow ! sheez.  

I also joined in 1973 and I agree with you completely. I have been a life member since 1994 and about 4 years ago or so took USCF up on their request to not recieve the magazine. I don't miss it much. As someone else said they have tried to make it a "modern" glossy magazine with full page posed pictures of chess players. Doesn't work for me, I miss the old days when they had great articles by Larsen, Gligoric, Kmoch, Szabo, etc.

Some of the stuff printed in Chess Life is so bizarre and off the wall, that it has to be seen to be believed. Take the following "felony statement" from the April 2009 issue:

This guy claims his daughter Shamema was kidnapped, yet the reader never learns what the outcome was. Did Sam Sloan succeed in rescuing her from the kidnappers? Who were the "unrelated to us" kidnappers? Why did they kidnap the girl? Did Sloan have to pay a ransom? He writes he was given "100 words" to explain the court case, so why doesn't he use the 100 words?

So weird... 

I just want a chess magazine to have games, interviews with players, and tournament coverage. I guess I need to be put out to pasture like that cow on the Chess Live cover.

I teach scholastic chess so the magazine is fine for teaching purposes. However, I do agree that its content has has been geared less for the adult player. I just got a box of Chess Life magazines from the the late 1960s - early 1970s and those issues are great. New in Chess is a good option or just investing the money for a subscription for some great chess books.

 If you never heard of Stephen Ham---you're a patzer which is what I suspected.

Elizabeth Shaughnessy---created the Berkely school of chess. Big deal who cares she was mentioned because she is a lady promoting chess in the scholastic section. She got like three lines instead of three pages. You're an idiot!

Nathan Divinsky---you've never heard of this guy?  You're an idiot.

Victor Laznicka---is a 23 yr old Czeck Grandmaster. In 2009 he made it to round four in the world cup beating such players as Morozevich and Bologan.  Crazyplaya---you're an idiot!

Read a book 

CL is an OK beginners mag, if that's what you want. New In Chess magazine is infinitely better - and much more expensive, so I don't recommend it unless you have the time to actually sit down and play through at least some of the games each issue, which is pretty much the equivalent of a decent sized chess book.

The interviews and articles in NIC mag are also of much higher quality than most of their counterparts in CL.

You can get all the chess news you want/need online, so I'd invest the money that CL costs into some decent middlegame and endgame books instead.

I'm a lifetime USCF member and I told them to stop sending me CL, if there's anything worthwhile in it I'll just look at their online version.

 Hey dumbo---Your unbrilliant rejoiner aside, I asked him specifically to cite players he has never heard of and he cited Nathan Divinsky!

Read a book!

 If it had coupons for McDonalds, Red Bull and skateboard shops in it---99% of the people on this site would be subscribing, especially the skate board crowd with small minds and big mouths. 

It stinks.