Norway triumphed at the 56th European Team Championships held in Herning, Denmark at the end of June, hoovering up the gold medals in both the Open and the Women’s categories. But if you weren’t going to come in the medals, you still had everything to play for: the top eight teams out of 30 qualified
Garry Kasparov endorsed the slower time control which was used at the Superbet Chess Classic. That event, which concluded this month in Bucharest, was the latest leg of the Grand Chess Tour, the annual series of events for elite players which comprises a mix of faster and slower formats. In the words of the former
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Philip Hamilton Williams, The Chess Amateur, 1914. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 15 July. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution
In Competition 3357 you were invited to submit a passage or poem including the phrase ‘The sukebind is late this year’, or similar. In Stella Gibbons’s comic novel Cold Comfort Farm the sukebind is a mysterious vine that flowers in midsummer, driving people into a frenzy which often leads to mollocking. Hence the heightened tone of
Seven unclued lights are connected by an eighth. Elsewhere, ignore one acute accent and one apostrophe. Across 1 British bishop packing pickles in hampers (7) 6 Creep made dull mates all shed clothes (7) 11 Jack and John, married and flourishing (6) 12 Brings out daywear oddly shunned by male models (7) 14
Each of the six unclued pairs comprises words differing by a single change of ‘a-to-m’. First prize Patrick Holland, Shrewsbury Runners-up R.J. Green, Llangynidr, Crickhowell; Janet Hill, Eastbourne, E. Sussex
