Raymond Keene

White to play. This position is from Alekhine-Bogolyubov, World Championship (Game 4), Germany 1934. The black king has been driven out into the open. How can White conclude? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 8 October or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the

I am sorry to hear that the Australian master Max Fuller has died in Sydney at the age of 68. For about a decade Max was a fixture on the British chess scene and the high point of his career came when he was within just one move of tying for first prize in the

The recently concluded Fide (World Chess Federation) World Cup held at Tromso in Norway resulted in a triumph for Vladimir Kramnik. The ex-world champion’s form has been variable this year, including shared first place in the London Candidates’ tournament, with Carlsen, but a disastrous last place finish in the Tal Memorial in Moscow. Kramnik missed

It is often said that the great chessboard artist, Polish Grandmaster Akiba Rubinstein, was afflicted during tournament play by an imaginary fly, which he sought in vain to swat away. As is the nature of imaginary beings, a case in point is the A Bao A Qu, the first entry in the bible of such

Nowadays it is standard, when publishing a chess game, to give the names of both players. This was not always the case. In the 19th century it was quite common to reveal the winner’s name while leaving the loser identified solely as ‘anon’ for anonymous. Occasionally this was for the perfectly good reason that the

The great Svetozar Gligoric passed away last week at the age of 89. Gligoric represented Yugoslavia at a time when that nation was second only to the USSR in terms of chess strength. Three times a world title candidate, Gligoric was able to defeat such champions as Fischer, Botvinnik, Tal and Petrosian. Petrosian seemed to

Britain’s top grandmaster Mickey Adams has won clear first prize in the tournament at Dortmund, ahead of former world champion Vladimir Kramnik. The full final scores (out of 9) were as follows: Adams 7; Kramnik 6½; Leko and Naiditsch 4½; Andreikin, Meier, Wang Hao and Caruana 4; Khenkin 3½; Fridman 3.   The last time

David Howell turned in a sparkling performance in the 100th British Chess Championship in Torquay, which finished last week. In 2009 Howell also won at Torquay, so he must be hoping that the English Chess Federation selects the home town of Fawlty Towers as the permanent future venue for the British Championship. Scores at the

England’s leading female player, Jovanka Houska, recently called for a memorial to the late Tony Miles. The timing is fitting. Miles won the British championship in 1982 and the centenary British Championship concludes this weekend in Torquay, the scene of Miles’s victory.   The year after he won the championship, Miles also triumphed in the

Lothar Schmid, chess grandmaster, the world’s greatest collector of chess books and the only arbiter trusted by Bobby Fischer, died earlier this year, and the chess world lost one of its great characters.   Schmid (born 1928) officiated as arbiter at three of Fischer’s matches, including the 1972 Match of the Century, where Fischer wrested