Chess improvement
The juicy prospect of improvement constantly dangles above a chess player. Those morsels of knowledge one has acquired whet the…
No. 633
White to play. A position taken from Chess Improvement (perhaps from Luchowski–Gridnew, Moscow 1992.) Black’s menacing pieces make the situation…
Forbidden pairings
Put yourself in the shoes of Aryan Gholami, the teenage master from Iran who was paired with an Israeli opponent…
No. 632
White to play and win. E. Pogosjants, Shakhmaty v SSSR 1976. Promoting the a-pawn allows Black a perpetual check. Which…
No. 631
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Sam Loyd, 1857. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by…
Speed freaks
Writing in January, I described internet bullet chess, where the players have one minute for all their moves, as ‘popular,…
The Brick
I own a few chess books that could serve as a murder weapon, but none so hefty as Chess: 5334…
No. 630
White to play. Mista–Kloza, Poland 1955 (supposedly). Which move does White play to force a quick checkmate? Answers should be…
The Queen’s Gambit – Accepted
‘It’s chess. We’re all prima donnas.’ You can hear it spoken with a wink in the Netflix miniseries The Queen’s…
No. 629
White to play and mate in 3. A puzzle featured in The Queen’s Gambit, apparently composed by W. Atkinson in…
Collapsing barricades
Geometry shmometry. The pirouette of a knight may be pleasing to the eye, but sometimes what I really crave is…
No. 628
White to play. Wade–Korchnoi, Buenos Aires, 1960. Bob Wade’s next move prepared a surprising and decisive breakthrough. What did he…
Sweet surrender
It’s over. Magnus Carlsen’s undefeated streak in classical chess has finally come to an end, after 125 games. It is…
No. 627
Black to play. Sjugirov–Paravyan, Russian Higher League, October 2020. A piece for a pawn down, Black’s follow up was subtle…
Chess players on ice
We are what we do. Alas, in its zeal to suppress the virus, this government would have many people doing…
No. 626
Rapport–Sprenger, Bundesliga, September 2020. The game continued 1 Bxc4 Rxc4 2 Bxe5+ f6 3 Bf4 Rxe4+ 4 Kf3 and was…
No. 625
Black to play. Khodashneli — Willow, European Online Youth Championship U18, September 2020. White has just advanced 40 g3-g4, and…
A trout in the milk?
I can’t tell you why the Armenian grandmaster Tigran Petrosian was found guilty of cheating last month, because I don’t…
Real live chess
It is nigh on seven months since I sat opposite a flesh and blood opponent, so I expected to feel…
No. 624
White to play. A variation from L’Ami–Caruana, Bundesliga 2020. Caruana avoided this position, where White can force a quick mate.…
No. 623
White to play. Areshchenko–Koch, Bundesliga 2020. White has won rook for bishop, but the queen is offside and his Rf2…
When Garry met Fabi
Send in haste, repent at leisure. It is a cruel certainty that you will sooner or later text your intimate…
Changing the rules
Nothing courts us so nimbly as technology. Perhaps the chess computers have already won you over — I am dazzled…
No. 622
Black to play. Jones–McShane, London Chess Classic 2019. Last year I played two games of no-castling chess with Gawain Jones,…
No. 621
Black to play. Rios–Adams, Online Olympiad, August 2020. The White king is running short of squares. Which move did Adams…
