An unexamined life is not worth living.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Changes to Chess Publishing in the Past 10 years

10 years ago I was actively involved in writing chess articles for Canadian chess magazine (it was called “En Passant” at the time). As I was going through my old articles I started thinking of what changed in the world of chess publishing in the past 10 years:

  • Computer engines have become much stronger, so most analysis absolutely must be checked with them
  • six piece endgame table bases have been developed, which does have an impact on a lot of my articles – since I focused on endgames
  • Paper books is not the only format in which chess materials are distributed. Many chess materials are published as free and commercial videos and on web sites. Ebooks have really taken off with most chess books published today also being available in digital format. 
  • The way I am creating this blog post is actually by talking into a microphone and then the computer converts my speech into text, even though it does require a lot of correction
  • The magazine for which I wrote is no longer sent out by mail to all members of Canadian chess federation and instead is also available online

10 years ago the amount of information available seemed overwhelming, and this is even more true today. Good information and study materials are still in high demand - quality was important 10 years ago and it is still very important now. Reviewing the analysis and commentary that I created 10 years ago it is easy to spot some mistakes, but we do live in a different world today…

Microphone gooseneck

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