It’s that time of year again — summer and its attendant holidays. No bridge for me for a month, unless you count the odd tournament online or playing my favourite computer programme, Bridge Baron. I love the Baron, not only for the squillions of hands it throws up but also because you can play a
The recent successful revival of the musical Chess, by Sir Tim Rice and the men of Abba, featured some genuine extracts from play in the staged re-enactments of decisive games. One of the most impressive — and most easy to identify even from a distance without opera glasses — was Bobby Fischer’s infamous and very loud
In Competition No. 3059 you were invited to supply a poem inspired by the periodic table. The writer and chemist Primo Levi saw poetry in Mendeleev’s system for classifying the chemical elements, describing it as ‘poetry, loftier and more solemn than all the poetry we had swallowed down in liceo; and come to think of
Fans of classic 12 will know that where ‘Q’ = ‘the number of’: Q26 x Q1D x (Q34 + [Q36D/5A x Q15D]) x Q14/20 = Q the puzzle. 14/20 is four words in total. Across 1 Red vestment eastern compère retains (6) 10 Seeds of casaba once processed (10, two words) 11 Ruth
The quotation ‘NEVER (1A), NEVER (35), NEVER (41), NEVER (7), NEVER (32)!’ is from King Lear (V.iii.310). Lear was the FATHER (18) of GONERIL (19), REGAN (15A) and CORDELIA (23). LEAR (in the ninth row) was to be shaded. First prize R.J. Green, Llangynidr, Crickhowell Runners-up Brenda Widger, Altrincham, Cheshire; Alexander Caldin, Houston, Texas
Black to play. This position is from the classic game Réti-Alekhine, Baden Baden 1925. What was Black’s next move? It does not win at once but it successfully fuels the flames of Black’s initiative. It also forms a thematic pendant to this week’s trio of three thunderous rook incursions. Can you find it? Answers to
