03 February 2023

Wayback to Insidechess.com

The most recent post on my World Championship blog, Hooked on 1994-95 Sanghi Nagar (February 2023), mentioned,

[Ravi Sanghi] was responsible for the creation of an attractive Hindu temple perched dramatically on a nearby hill, and his impressive home could be seen on another distant hill. Mimi [Bill Hook's wife] later interviewed Mr. Sanghi, and her article subsequently appeared in Inside Chess.

The reference to Inside Chess fits in well with my current series on early web sites -- last seen in Hurst's 'Chess on the Web' (January 2023) -- because the site was already on my short list for future posts. The first entry in Archive.org for Insidechess.com is dated end-1998 and returns Welcome to Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack. That must signal the initial setup of the site.

The first entry for a working site is Inside Chess Online (January 1999). It links to the Latest Issue (Volume 12, Issue 2, March 1999), with further links to three (out of a dozen) articles from the issue. One of those articles starts,

Publisher's Message by GM Yasser Seirawan • We ring in the New Year with a mixed bag of messages for this month's issue. I would like to give an overview of the chess world's affairs and make some brave predictions for the year to come. [...]

The 'Latest Issue' also links to Index Inside Chess Covers 1999, which lists four issues (Volume 12, 1 to 4), none of which are available. The index informs.

Inside Chess Magazine started out as a bi-weekly magazine in January 1988 and became a monthly in January 1998. It has established itself as a premier chess periodical with a worldwide circulation and an international content and appeal. Inside Chess Magazine is published in 12 issues each year.

From this we can infer that the earlier Mimi Hook article on Sanghi Nagar does not exist online. Since I had never seen a copy of Inside Chess, I was happy to find Inside Chess Magazine 19 Issues : Yasser Serawan (archive.org). The description starts,

"Inside Chess" was a bi-weekly American chess magazine started in 1988 by GM Yasser Serawan. It ceased publication in 1990 [sic; 2000]. I have 19 of its old issues which I have scanned and I share here. [...]

The full set of issues is available on disk, e.g. Inside Chess 1988 - 2000 (niggemann.com; Schachversand): 'CD/DVD-box, ChessCafe, 1. edition 2013'. For a review see Inside Chess on DVD: you take the good, you take the bad... (chessbookreviews.wordpress.com).

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