Raymond Keene

My grandmaster colleague James Plaskett has two passions, the pursuit of the mythical giant octopus (ongoing) and a fascination with coincidence. Is the latter just a concatenation of unrelated circumstances, or does it have some deeper meaning, signifying something in the air at a particular time? How, for example, does one explain the virtually simultaneous,

Black to play. This position is a variation from So-Nakamura, St Louis 2015. How can Black conclude the attack with a brilliant coup? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 22 September or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the first correct answer out of

The Sinquefield Cup in St Louis, one of the strongest tournaments of all time, has been convincingly won by the Armenian grandmaster and triple Olympiad gold medallist, Levon Aronian. Unusually for such a high-level tournament, a number of games ended in vicious attacks which resulted either in checkmate or decisive material gain. To start with,

England’s top grandmaster, Michael Adams, exerts a powerful influence over the elite player David Navara. In rating terms Navara and Adams are about equal, but in practice Adams has a 4-0 record against his Czech opponent.   Navara-Adams: Biel 2015; Queen’s Gambit Declined   1 c4 e6 2 Nc3 d5 3 d4 Nf6 4 cxd5

I have never met David Smerdon, the Australian grandmaster and author of Smerdon’s Scandinavian (Everyman Chess). Last week I gave a ringing endorsement of his new book and I must say that in my mind’s eye I visualise him as some swashbuckling buccaneer of the chessboard, complete with eyepatch, wooden leg, tricorn hat and probably

The Australian grandmaster David Smerdon has written a truly exciting book about some of the byways in the Centre Counter or Scandinavian Defence. The old main lines started 1 e4 d5 exd5 Qxd5 3 Nc3 and generally condemned Black to a long defence. The apparent activity of the black queen tended to be outweighed by White’s

Jonathan Hawkins has emerged as the winner of this year’s British Championship, which finished last week at the University of Warwick in Coventry. Several players were in contention for the laurels as they entered the final round, but Hawkins’s rivals could only draw, and his win clinched the title. In the past there was a

David Howell is on a roll. At the halfway stage of the British Championship he looks set to retain his title, and he has shot to no. 2 in the British rankings, behind Michael Adams. His recent successes include a share of first prize in the Dubai Open and a stunning outright first in the tournament

Alexander Petroff (1794-1867) is often remembered as the first great Russian chess master. He became the strongest player in Russia at the age of 15 and produced the first chess book in Russian. His main legacy, however, is the Petroff Defence (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6), an opening which has been seen consistently at

Sadly, Michael Adams, for many years Britain’s leading grandmaster, will not be playing in the British Championship, which starts next week. Michael is often referred to as ‘Spidey’ because of the way he spins a web to ensnare his opponents. The most spidery player ever was Anatoly Karpov, world champion from 1975, when he beat