Bridge players never get bored of each other’s company for one simple reason: interesting hands are like juicy bits of gossip, and there is an endless supply to discuss and mull over. The things other people do! The things we ourselves have done! Here’s an extraordinary deal that has had everyone chattering from Warsaw to
The elite tournament at Zurich, which finished last week, has adopted a system for determining the ultimate trophy winner which seems to me virtually impenetrable. Zurich consisted of three separate events, a blitz, a rapidplay and a classical tournament, all of them involving the elite group of Nakamura, Anand, Kramnik, Aronian, Karjakin and Caruana. For
In Competition No. 2886 you were invited to submit a Pepys’-eye view of modern life. Pepys’s candid and minutely observed diary entries hum with a seemingly inexhaustible lust for life and your attempts to capture this spirit were impressive. His perpetual randiness, in particular, loomed large in the entry (as one of Pepys’s biographers Richard
The unclued lights are some of the words highlighted in Chambers 2011 which were unfortunately omitted from the 2014 edition of the dictionary owing to a printing misunderstanding. First prize Simon Fletcher, Twickenham, Middlesex Runners-up Chris Butler, Borough Green, Kent; Rowan Priestman, Burpham, Surrey
White to play. This position is from Nakamura-Karjakin, Zurich classic 2015. White’s knight seems trapped but he can rescue it with a fine tactical idea. Can you see how? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 3 March or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be
