I am not trying to corner the market in very boring bridge columns but I am going to give you another hand which is all about suit combinations. My regular reader may recall that I wrote about this very subject a fortnight ago, never expecting another informative hand to come up on a similar theme.
Besides the controversial anticlimax at the World Blitz Championships, in which Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi agreed to share the title, there were several old-fashioned tournament winners to celebrate in New York. China’s Ju Wenjun, the reigning women’s world champion in classical chess, won her first women’s world blitz championship. The women’s world rapid championship, held
White to play. Karthikeyan–Tabatabaei, Qatar Masters 2024. With his next move, Karthikeyaninitiated a winning combination. What did he play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 20 January. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address. Last week’s solution : 1
For Competition 3382 you were invited to write a poem to mark this day, officially the dreariest of the year. (This year, as a few pointed out, it doubles as Inauguration Day. Things can only get better!) Responses ranged from Tracy Davidson’s ‘It’s just a Monday. You’ll be fine’ to Sylvia Fairley’s despairing ‘When will
Clockwise round the grid from 1 run the final words (3,6,4,3,6,3,8,4,3,4,2,6) of a poem. Two unclued lights (one of two words) are also taken from the poem, whose author’s surname appears as a clued light which must be shaded. Across 9 Canon meeting King and Queen? (5) 10 Harrow produces playboy (4) 11
Letters omitted from across answers, read in clue order, give MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM SPECTATOR… the ‘organ’ in the title. The first prize of £100, three prizes of £25 and six further prizes of Adrian Bliss’s The Greatest Nobodies of History: Minor Characters from Major Moments (Century) go to the following.
