New in chess; is it the best chess magazine?

Fellow posters; I've subcribed to New In Chess (NIC) for the past four years. I think it is an excellent source of chess information.

I'm wondering if other posters subcribe to NIC and is it the best chess magazine out there. What other chess magazines are there to subcribe to?

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

I am a big fan of NIC. Chessbase Magazine is pretty good as well if you are more computer oriented.

NIC is very expensive (£7.95) and does have this cliche feel.

I buy the odd out of date ones for £1.00 each but have rarely
done a cover to cover job on any of them.
Infact I have never done a cover to job on any of them.

New In Chess is an oxymoron as every issue looks and
feels the same.

A few interesting articles and then games where the losers
produce more excuses than a beaten British athlete.
You are not shown 'how' they lost the game, rather 'why' they lost the game.

CHESS is better value for money (£3.95) and does cater for the
home & casual player.

But what can you do?

Here is somethiong writiten by GM's for £7.95. It wont do the home & casual
player any good, but hey! it is written by GM's.

Here is something for £3.95 packed with all sorts of interesting chess things
including articles for under 1600 players and games by u-1600 players.

Now some of the writers in CHESS are not Grandmasters but they can
put an instructive sentence together and they do write with the reader
in mind rather than trying to impress their vey small circle of friends.

The £7.95 thing wins all the time.

It must be better - it's more expensive.
It must be better - the writers have a higher number after their names.

So the sheep stand in line waiting to get fleeced..........again.

My opinion. 🙂

Having said myself and others ripped the latest CHESS to pieces because it
has suddenly adopted these terrible NIC diagrams.
Hopefully this is a one off.

I recently re-subscribed to NIC.I like the annotated games and tournament reports.
Don't know if it's the best since it's the only chessmagazine I've ever read.

Maybe I should've shopped around before re-subscribing

toet.

Currently CHESS are doing deals for time subs.

http://www.ukgamesshop.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=chmache

I am not on their pay roll I get nothing for this.

If I see good deal for us chess bums then I pass it on.
Write to them asking for a sample copy.

Heaven knows there are plenty of people trying to take money out of
our pockets to buy their naff books and DVD's.

Ask them for a free sample copy. (get June 2010) it really is a very good mag.

Originally posted by greenpawn34
Currently CHESS are doing deals for time subs.

http://www.ukgamesshop.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=chmache

I am not on their pay roll I get nothing for this.

If I see good deal for us chess bums then I pass it on.
Write to them asking for a sample copy.

Heaven knows there are plenty of people trying to take money out ...[text shortened]... s and DVD's.

Ask them for a free sample copy. (get June 2010) it really is a very good mag.

When you say 7.95 and 3.95 are you talking about a single issue? Or a subscription.
My guess is a single issue which would put it at 12.64 bucks US and 6.28 US? Sounds pretty expensive if so 151 bucks a year and 75 or so a year?
NIC better have some real moxy for that price!

£7.95 for one copy of NIC. £3.95 for one CHESS.

If NIC was a jazzed version of CHESS with more stuff in it for us
I'd perhaps buy it. But it's not.

Expensive GM games with Fritz analysis, glossy pictures and excuses.

Originally posted by greenpawn34

Expensive GM games with Fritz analysis, glossy pictures and excuses.

Assumptions and hearsay!

I'm pretty sure most use Rybka 😛

toet.

NIC -

Pro's
GM annotations that are more verbal than informator
Photo's etc of tournaments (kinda cool- reminds you that not all chess is played in some dingy basement of a dilapitated hotel.)

Cons-
the cover.. massive head shots of some player.. hard to explain to non chess players why you are toting around a magazine with a 14 year old boy's picture on the front.. yikes!
the annotations - rarely deep enough for a CC player's use.

I think a sub is quarterly and less than 8 usd an issue.

Originally posted by nimzo5
NIC -

Pro's
GM annotations that are more verbal than informator
Photo's etc of tournaments (kinda cool- reminds you that not all chess is played in some dingy basement of a dilapitated hotel.)

Cons-
the cover.. massive head shots of some player.. hard to explain to non chess players why you are toting around a magazine with a 14 year old boy's pict ...[text shortened]... p enough for a CC player's use.

I think a sub is quarterly and less than 8 usd an issue.

If you go to the NIC web site, you'll find that they put out 8 issues per year. There's an introductory subscription for 5 issues for 47 USD to the United States. Also, there's a 1-year subscription to the USA for 94 USD (8 issues). Two or three year subscriptions are only very slightly cheaper per issue.

Originally posted by chesstora
Fellow posters; I've subcribed to New In Chess (NIC) for the past four years. I think it is an excellent source of chess information.

I'm wondering if other posters subcribe to NIC and is it the best chess magazine out there. What other chess magazines are there to subcribe to?

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

I'm confused about Kingpin magazine. Is it still be in business? It seems that the current issue (40) is somewhat out of date. How long has Kingpin been publishing? Is the publication schedule a matter of "We'll put out an issue when we're good and ready." ?

If I had money to burn, I'd consider Kingpin. I can't understand all that GM analysis, but I can understand humor. Well, maybe not always regional British humor. 😉

Originally posted by Mad Rook
If you go to the NIC web site, you'll find that they put out 8 issues per year. There's an introductory subscription for 5 issues for 47 USD to the United States. Also, there's a 1-year subscription to the USA for 94 USD (8 issues). Two or three year subscriptions are only very slightly cheaper per issue.

Prices have gone up it seems.

I took CHESS' reduction offer and subscribed for a year.This morning my first issue,August,arrived.They included a July back issue without me asking for it.Very nice!

I spent all day with the July issue and really enjoyed myself.Something I never had with NiC.

So I'm now in the position to compare and my conclusion is:
NiC is good.
CHESS is better.

I am now subscribed to 2 chess magazines.I better get real good real fast to account for this exuberance 😛

toet.

Originally posted by toeternitoe
I took CHESS' reduction offer and subscribed for a year.This morning my first issue,August,arrived.They included a July back issue without me asking for it.Very nice!

I spent all day with the July issue and really enjoyed myself.Something I never had with NiC.

So I'm now in the position to compare and my conclusion is:
NiC is good.
CHESS is bett ...[text shortened]... 2 chess magazines.I better get real good real fast to account for this exuberance 😛

toet.

If you really enjoyed the magazines, I think you are already more successful.

When I first started playing (a young guy with delusions of grandeur), I had a lot of angst about results, but once I accepted that I was never going to be good enough to challenge for the World Championship, I started to enjoy the game more than the result.

I think that is when I started to enjoy books and magazines more. I began to appreciate every game as a story (or a poem in the case of miniatures!), and the personalities added flavor to the state of the game.

I think my game did get better anyway, but it was more because I started to develop an eye for what was pretty, which made it easier to find at the board.

When you can enjoy a magazine for what it is when you read it, and not by passing judgment 12 months later after learning whether or not your rating went up, then you are probably in a very good place.

Just my opinion, of course, but I enjoyed reading about someone having a positive experience with chess literature. Shared joy does not dilute!

As I recall two events back to back sucked me into chess. First a friend of mine had a copy of NIC down on the trading floor and when he showed it to me I was blown away- I had no idea that chess had serious competitive tournaments ( I thought it was a depression era game that had long since stopped being played)

The second was then talking to another friend and finding out that he was in fact a Grandmaster- I went out and bought chessmaster 5 or whatever it was then and looked up his games.. When I pulled up a bunch of games by Ilya Gurevich and could play through them, I was hooked...

So tldr is I am biased towards NIC.