‘I haven’t seen this before,’ began a recent email from my friend and frequent contributor Nick Sandqvist. That meant it would be a bit special, and it certainly was. Double game swings are not as rare as you may think: 4♥ making one way and 4♠ the other – usually with a double attached –
‘Chess is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe.’ I’m fond of that adage, which speaks to the depth of the game in a way that numbers cannot. But how many possible games of chess are there? The mathematician Claude Shannon wrote a paper in 1949: ‘Progamming a Computer
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by M. Lokker, Shakhmatnaya Moskva, 1967 Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 26 February. 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 No. 3337 you were invited to submit a soliloquy composed by Giovanni Fontana’s marble statue of Shakespeare, which has graced Leicester Square since 1874. Bill Greenwell, Alan Millard, Sylvia Fairley and Paul A. Freeman were star performers, but a standing ovation and £20 go to the winners below. Here stand I, with Lord
The unclued lights (including one of three words, one of two words, two hyphened and one pair) have nothing in common. Across 11 Get sober people welcoming sober person home (6) 12 Litotes newspaper plugs seem so funny (7) 15 Poser’s strain (6) 18 Distributed case for delicate key (5) 19 Engineers, mature but not
Prospero said ‘I’ll drown my book’ (The Tempest 5.1.56), illustrated by three volumes at the bottom of lake. First prize Eleanor Morrall, Coseley, West Midlands Runners-up Peter Marginson, Wilmslow, Cheshire; Roger Sherman, Richmond, Surrey
