Majalah Catur ( Chess Magazine) !

I feel so delighted when i read Mr Yusof article about Majalah Catur (Chess Magazine) in his blog . I have two issue of the Majalah Catur . I have read the remaining issue from my friend collection Mr. Nuruddin . I’m not sure whether Nuruddin or anyone still have the copies but i’m willing to buy it -of course if the price were right:) .

Personally the “over the board” or hard copy magazine was and still have sentimental value for me. I’ve read it from time to time although it have been about 12 years since i bought it. The magazines has survive the climate change and old paper sell for that particular periods - An excellent achievement for a magazine to survive!

Majalah Catur contain local chess issue that is “impossible” to get in those pre-internet age accept chess news from local newspaper with limited space and published once a week. Chess coverage of local tournament involving local players, local annotated chess game and local chess stories (critics/humour) is something that every local chess addicts is dreaming for.

For me personally, another interesting things about the magazine is my photo against one UKM player was publish in one off the issue . The photo was taken at Shah Alam during the inter matriculation team tournament. I was playing for Kolej MARA Kulim and our team achieve 4th placing and I score 100% in 1st board but unfortunately there is no board price for best board. At that time I was so happy to have my photo in a chess magazine circulated all over the country.

Personally even today i would love to have any hard copy chess magazine compare to online magazine or e-magazine/books/blog etc. simply because it’s handy . You can’t bring your PC or laptop!? to toilet and read chess article but it’s possible with a hard copy chess magazine. You can read it anywhere , just name it-bus station, LRT , plane, bed, kitchen, living room, toilet..etc. One more thing is it is not comfortable for your eyes to read long article online. It just not good for your eyes. But don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that hard copy magazine is better then online magazine/blog/website but I think both should exist and have their own advantage an disadvantage. Online chess publication is faster, interactive and flexible to publish compare to hard copy mainly because of his front name, (hard) so it is hard to publish it!

I would support anybody who like to produced a local hard copy chess magazine in the future. I would be the first person to subscribe it -if the price is reasonable, of course :)
But in this online ages i should warn you that hard copy publication is having a challenging time in the future. Even now as Andrew Gilachess has mention in his article, online advertisement has overtake printed advertisement this year and for coming years. Even Chess life the US chess magazine hard copy has a difficult time and are going online .

Anyway for a sentimental persons and i know there’s still plenty of sentimental spices like me, local hard copy chess magazine still something that can be enjoyable to read and I’m looking forward to have it!