Luke McShane is chess columnist for The Spectator.
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Dmitry Vasilevich Klark, La Stratégie, 1868. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 9 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
Polishing an opening repertoire is essential for top chess players, who must have variations prepared to meet all the standard openings. Those may be selected on grounds of stylistic appeal or rarity, hoping to catch an opponent off-guard. There are standard responses in turn, and a well-prepared player will have counter-ideas locked and loaded. Vast
Earlier this month, at the Kingston Invitational, Peter Lalic won a game against 12-year-old Billy Fellowes in 272 moves. Published in full, it would take up most of this article and resemble a cryptographic message more than a game of chess. But it earns a place in the record books as the longest over-the-board game
White to play. Caruana-Firouzja, Sinquefield Cup, 2024. Caruana exchanged rooks, but soon ran out of checks and resigned before the b2 pawn could promote. Which move would have secured a draw here? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 2 September. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat.
For the irrepressible Hans Niemann, August is no time to chill. The 21-year-old American grandmaster began the month by defeating his compatriot Wesley So by 13-10 in the quarter-final of the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship. He gave a vitriolic interview after the match, railing against the ‘chess establishment’ and those he perceives as trying to ruin
White to play. Maghsoodloo-Nepomniachtchi, Fide World Rapid Team Championship, 2024. Maghsoodloo found a beautiful winning sequence here. What was his first move? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 26 August. 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
Amina Abakarova, a 40-year-old chess player from Russia, supposedly tried to poison a younger rival at the Dagestan Chess Championship this month. Camera footage seems to show her furtively applying a substance to one side of a chess board before the start of the game. Her opponent later became unwell and a Russian news agency
The British Championships, which concluded in Hull earlier this month, saw a notable achievement for 15-year-old Shreyas Royal, whose stellar performance was his third and final qualifying result to earn him the grandmaster title. He becomes the youngest British player to reach that milestone, beating David Howell’s record which had held since 2007 (and before
Black to play. Vidit-Al-Mudahka, Fide World Rapid Team Championship, 2024. The Qatari grandmaster landed a decisive blow here. What did he play? Email answers tochess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 19 August. 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
The stench of burning rubber hung in the air as I trudged back to my hotel in Hull city centre last Saturday evening. A wheelie bin lay in the street, with a fire flickering out next to it. Everywhere there were tired-looking policemen, obviously relieved the yobs had dispersed. I too was spent, and a little
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by C.W.M. Feist, Hampshire Magazine, 1884. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 12 August. 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…Rxh4+! 2
All eyes are on the Games in Paris, where an estimated 10,000 athletes from more than 200 nations will compete. This comes 100 years after the Paris Olympics of 1924, a milestone event when the number of competing nations jumped from 29 to 44. That same year, Fide, the international governing body of chess, (Federation
Black to play. Sokolovsky-Chopra, Biel Masters, 2024. Another game played on 20 July 2024. Black is in control, but which move struck the decisive blow? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 5 August. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address. Last week’s
I have a pet theory, based not on hard data but on insights from postmortem chitchat. My theory says that novices and experts, when facing evenly matched opponents, make roughly the same number of screw-ups in a game. The difference is that the novice’s oversights will be far more significant. The novice walks into checkmate,
White to play. This is a variation from Mirkovic-Gluzman, Belgrade 1991. Which move allows White to gain a decisive material advantage? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 29 July. 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
If you visit the English Chess Federation’s website hoping to become a member, you will be confronted with a comprehension test. You will scroll past walls of text before appraising your membership options. Would you like to be a Supporter, Bronze, Gold, or Platinum member? Perhaps you are eligible for Junior Bronze, Free Junior Bronze,
White has just played Kf3-e3. Which response showed this to be a decisive mistake? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 22 July. 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 Bd3! e.g.
Garry Kasparov endorsed the slower time control which was used at the Superbet Chess Classic. That event, which concluded this month in Bucharest, was the latest leg of the Grand Chess Tour, the annual series of events for elite players which comprises a mix of faster and slower formats. In the words of the former
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Philip Hamilton Williams, The Chess Amateur, 1914. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 15 July. 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
There is a sublime satisfaction in a good detective thriller. We will, of course, have accessed the same facts as our sharp-witted sleuth. The fleck of yellow paint on the raincoat meant little to us, as did the creaking door and the page missing from the notebook. But at last the alibi is dismantled, and
