For Christmas this year I am giving you a double-dummy problem. Too generous, I hear you cry — but better than another pair of socks. DD problems are usually found in books: specially constructed deals where you get to see all the cards, and then have to work out how to make your contract against
Besides the Grand Chess Tour final, an abundance of chess was played at this year’s London Chess Classic. More than 2,000 children visited the festival, which was organised by the charity Chess in Schools and Communities. Fittingly, two talented youngsters shared first place in the Fide Open event — 14-year-old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa from India and
In Competition No. 3129 you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘’Twas the Night Before Brexit’. That seasonal classic ‘A Visit From St Nicholas’, more usually known as ‘The Night Before Christmas’, was published anonymously in 1823 and written by Clement Clarke Moore — or at least he claimed it was. The family of
A quotation (in ODQ), starting on the appropriate side of the grid, runs clockwise around the perimeter. The other unclued entries (one of two words, one of three words), will show solvers the event being described, interrupted by some disposals. The original author of the quotation, found in anagrams in symmetrical answers, must be highlighted,
The unclued lights are all words derived from names in the work of Charles Dickens. First prize David Brewis, Windsor, Berks Runners-up F.A. Scott, Enfield, Middlesex; John Murray, Compton Chamberlayne, Wilts
Black to play. Ilfeld & Vachier-Lagrave–Picot & McShane. Pro-Biz Cup, London 2019. My move. White threatens checkmate with Qc4-g8, so I exchanged rooks on f1 to divert the queen. We won in the end, but what would have been a stronger move? Answers to ‘Chess’ at The Spectator by Tuesday 7 January or via email
They said it In 2019, who said: 1. ‘You have stolen my dreams and my childhood.’ 2. ‘I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at.’ 3. ‘Ninety per cent of giraffes are gay.’ 4.
