My friend Neil Mendoza and I had a great finish to 2017 when we won the Portland Club’s annual Auction Pairs (which is always a highlight of my year). I can’t pretend we had any real expectation of winning, but a combination of good luck, good play and flawless bidding by Neil meant we scooped
Although it does not have the prestige of the Classical World Championship (to be staged in London in November), the Rapid and Blitz championships recently concluded in Saudi Arabia carried not just worthy titles, but an impressive overall prize fund of $2 million. Viswanathan Anand emerged victorious in the Rapid, while Magnus Carlsen dominated the Blitz.
In Competition No. 3030 you were invited to provide a poem entitled ‘January’. I mentioned William Carlos Williams, R.S. Thomas and Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the brief for this challenge, all of whom wrote poems with ‘January’ as their title. But that most maligned of months also lands a starring role in the opening
The unclued lights (one of two words) are of a kind. Across 1 Confines at convenience stores (5) 4 Prison visitor, not in Rolls Royce, sadly places eggs for fertilization (9) 11 Over half the train to Dover isn’t broad-gauge (6) 14 Range of school note (5) 15 I left seafood dish for
Deployment of a GRABBING CRANE (1D) is required to complete entries at 11, 13, 21 and 23. 1A, 19 and the puzzle’s TITLE (35) are synonyms of GRABBING; 5, 18 and 41 are types of CRANE, which is also the surname of Washington Irving’s character whose first name is ICHABOD (28). First prize John
Black to play. This is from Carlsen-Anand, Riyadh Rapid 2017. The needle clash from the Rapid was Anand’s destruction of Carlsen. What was Black’s key move? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 16 January or via email to victoria@-spectator.co.uk. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a
