Luke McShane is chess columnist for The Spectator.
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Lionel Penrose, Chess Life 1956. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 6 November. 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 1…Ba5! threatens
Bodhana Sivanandan won the gold medal in the World Girls U8 Championship in Sharm El Sheikh earlier this month, making her the first English world youth champion since 1998, when Nicholas Pert won the U18 event and Ruth Sheldon won the Girls U18. I witnessed Sivanandan’s enormous talent when we played a casual game of speed chess at ChessFest
Black to play. Bertholdt-J. Penrose, Olympiad Final, Munich 1958. White has just played Bh3-c8, so that the Rc8 is imprisoned in case of the obvious capture on c3. Penrose found a much stronger response. What was it? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 30 October. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct
The Jonathan Penrose Memorial Chess Challenge, held at Colchester Town Hall on 7 October, was a felicitous tribute to the ten-time British champion, who died in 2021, and would have turned 90 on that very day. Before it was razed by Boudicca, Colchester was one of the earliest Roman settlements on these isles. More recently, it
Black to play. Dubov-Anand, Levitov Chess 2023. Dubov has just grabbed a pawn on b7. Which response gave Anand a decisive advantage? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 23 October. 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
Magnus Carlsen was, as he said, ‘completely crushed’ in the second round of the Qatar Masters earlier this month. His opponent, 23-year-old Alisher Suleymenov from Kazakhstan, is a grandmaster, but on paper nowhere near to the level of the world elite. He played the game of his life, but his achievement was undermined by Carlsen’s
Black to play. Dardha-Mamedyarov, European Club Cup, 2023. A knight down, which move enabled Black to break the kingside defence? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 16 October. 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.
‘Chess, an ancient game of strategy…’ – that’s what they write on the packaging in department stores. But in real life, playing a game of chess feels more like fighting fires, half of which you kindled yourself. Whatever grand ambitions you have, right now your queen is under attack and the next priority is your
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Andrii Sergiienko, Fide Youth Composing Championship 2023. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 9 October. 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
A queen and king can force mate against a lone king – that is as fundamental as it gets. Almost all regular players know that to be true, and they also know how to execute it. But players are regularly confronted by the distinction between ‘knowing that’, and ‘knowing how’. Many know that king, bishop
Silman-McFarland, Reno 1991. White is clearly in control. Which move did he play to decide the game? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 30 September. 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
Novice chess players can seem spellbound by the power of their own queen, zigzagging hither and thither in desperate search of bounty. You soon learn that on the chessboard strength is weakness and weakness is strength; the queen must flee from any attack while a pawn is, well, only a pawn in your game. Experienced
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by C.G.S. Narayanan, K. Seetharaman, 2017. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 25 September. 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
The former world champion Vishy Anand has described the current crop of young Indian talents as a golden generation. At last month’s Fide World Cup, four of the quarter-finalists were Indian. Most eminent was 17-year-old Gukesh, who recently entered the world top ten, narrowly overtaking Anand himself. Praggnanandhaa, 18 years old, went as far as
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Philip Hamilton Williams, 1894. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 18 September. 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 1…Qd7! deflects the
Hans Niemann is back. The American grandmaster drew worldwide attention last year when he was alleged to have cheated by Magnus Carlsen. Niemann responded with a $100 million defamation lawsuit against various parties. That was dismissed by a federal judge in June, though Niemann could still have pursued some of his claims in a state court.
Black to play. Wall-Raczek, Northumbria Masters 2023. Black’s next move brought the game to a swift close. What did he play? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 11 September. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks
‘How do you become a grandmaster?’ ‘You must climb the mountain, and defeat the opponent at the top.’ Alas, the answer is not nearly so succinct, and when I get asked the question, I remind myself to spare the finer details. The gist is that you must outperform an ‘average’ grandmaster over the course
White to play. Liu-Adhiban, Abu Dhabi Masters2023. White’s next move secured a decisive advantage. What did he play? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 4 September. 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.
A fortnight ago, I wrote about Magnus Carlsen’s narrow escape against the German teenager Vincent Keymer at the Fide World Cup in Baku. That brush with mortality seemed to galvanise the world no. 1, who coasted to the final with convincing victories in his next three matches, against Ivanchuk, Gukesh and Abasov. His next opponent was