To be a killer bridge player, you need to be aggressive. Many of us are hampered by timidity, especially when it comes to making penalty doubles. All too often, we ignore our instinct to reach for the red card: we dwell on how foolish we’ll look if we’re wrong, and how cross our partner will
As I write this, the Fide World Cup is underway in Sochi, the Black Sea resort in Russia which hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics. It’s a thrilling event for spectators, who get to watch high-stakes chess in all its forms — fast, slow, wonderful and blunderful. The main knockout event began with a field of
White to play. Adhiban–Delgado Ramirez, Sochi 2021. White has more than one good move, but Adhiban found a spectacular way to force mate in four. What did he play?Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 9 August. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include
In Competition No. 3210, you were invited to provide a poem or a piece of prose containing words from the phonetic alphabet. The brief didn’t stipulate that you incorporate all 26 words, but hats off to those who shoehorned them in. In a whopping, wide-ranging entry, with echoes of Keats and MacNeice, and ‘Papa’ Hemingway
11 Across (three words) is a phrase suggested by the puzzle’s title explaining how to arrive at the other unclued lights, which are anagrams of words of a kind, all confirmed in Chambers (including two less common spellings). Across 1 Beaten up coin is showing heraldic beast (8) 8 Some stuff is crammed in purse
The name was Margaret, whose various versions are suggested by THE SPECTATOR (1: Mag), BARN OWL (10/36: Madge), LEAD HAMMER (14/34: Madge), MAGPIE (19A: Madge or Maggie), CRICKET STUMP (48: Peg), HALFPENNY (2: Mag or Meg), TURTLE HARPOON (9: Peg), PIN (16: Peg) and TEASE (Mag). MARGARET (22/23) was to be shaded. Title: cf. pearl,
