Thomas Charlsen and Boye Brogeland continue to delight the teams they invite to their World Bridge Tour (WBT). First-class playing conditions, impeccably run and with huge cash prizes; this time it was held in Bodo, northern Norway, and I had a new (to me) pair playing for my team, Dutch champions Simon de Wijs and
The top Emirati grandmaster Salem Saleh is an imaginative, dynamic player whose games are a treat to watch. But his win at the recent Sharjah Masters against Vladimir Fedoseev (formerly Russian, but now representing Slovenia) was surely the artistic highlight of his career. The combination which ends the game is dazzling, but both players deserve credit
Black to play. Elisabeth Paehtz-Michael Adams, Salamanca Masters, May 2024. With his next move, Adams induced immediate resignation. What did he play? Email answers to chess@-spectator.co.uk by Monday 3 June. 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
In Competition 3351 you were asked to send in an election manifesto in verse (lucky timing). The entries threw up plenty of bold ideas for strategists to pick over, though a degree of cynicism was in evidence – the general mood captured by Basil Ransome–Davies’s ‘Opportunist party’: ‘If you favour easy answers,/ Vote for us, the
Unclued lights, including one of two words (all in Chambers) display nine items of a kind in the grid, appropriately positioned in relation to each other. All nine must be highlighted. Across 1 Bear dire deed to resolve neurosis (7) 7 Indian city cleric lacking force (7) 13 Running into water ebbing for ages (5)
The twelve symmetrically placed unclued entries NATURAL, MAIL, MONASTIC, STANDING, PECK, LOGICAL, BATTING, APPLE-PIE, OPEN, EVICTION, BANKERS and SIDE can precede the word ORDER, and the title alluded to an ‘A to Z’. Thus unclued entries had to be entered in alphabetical order. First prize Seonaid Chapman, Brampton, Cumberland Runners-up Peter Lawrence, Durham; Julie Sanders,
