The American Chess Magazine, Issue 2

The second issue of the best chess magazine in the United States, and probably one of the best chess magazines in the world, is in print. Weighing in at 152 large pages on glossy paper, with full color photographs, the publication is a physical pleasure for those of us who still appreciate non-pixilated productions. But content is king; how does the American Chess Magazine (ACM) fare?

Very well. First of all, there's plenty of chess material: 153 games and game fragments, and the vast majority are complete games. Most of the chess material is well-annotated, and generally by GMs. Vassily Ivanchuk annotates one game, but other very strong GMs contribute more: Leinier Dominguez (3 games), Ernesto Inarkiev (6), Baadur Jobava (2), Hou Yifan (1), Ivan Sokolov (7), Jeffery Xiong (3), Alex Lenderman (2); and there are plenty of other GM contributions as well.

There's a fair amount of "talk" in the issue: it's not all games and variations. The analyses are a mix of words and moves, and there's plenty of material apart from the games. For instance, there is a short interview with Wesley So, and three GMs offer their thoughts on his rise. There are several pages of sidebars in which chess fans offer their thoughts on So's rise as well, which is an interesting and unusual feature. Mihail Marin offers "An Anecdotal Review of the World Title Matches", which includes eight pages of reflections and almost no actual chess whatsoever. Joel Benjamin offers his musings on rapid play in the context of the PRO Chess League, and there's much more besides. I'll note that there are three columns that are advice-based: Swedish GM Pontus Carlsson and American GM Yasser Seirawan both offer some tips for improving one's chess, while GM Nikola Mitkov offers "Five Key Elements of Norm-Hunting".

Most of the talk is in the context of reviewing events, and the centerpiece of this issue is the world championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin. (Spoiler alert: Carlsen won in a rapid tiebreak.) This rightly receives a nice chunk of the magazine: 16 pages, with the key games annotated by the 2700+ rated Inarkiev. Wijk aan Zee gets even more attention, and Gibraltar enjoys some coverage as well.

There are tactical puzzles, and endgame column (GM Alex Fishbein has a nice piece called "Queen Endings Demystified"), book reviews, and one last feature that I appreciate is a section near the end offering a brief digest of U.S. events. There are about 13 pages summarizing the tournament results and including interesting games.

This is not a complete list of what's in the magazine, but it's enough to give a taste of what's there. For more on the publication, have a look here.

Recommended? Yes - for strong club players (at least 1800, or those rapidly heading there) and up, and/or for those interested in U.S. chess and U.S. chess players.