Miscellaneous

Coronavirus is causing chess events to fall like dominoes, with cancellations all over the world. But the Candidates tournament in Yekaterinburg, which selects a challenger for the World Championship, is still standing. The first round took place on Tuesday 17 March. It goes ahead without Teimour Radjabov, from Azerbaijan, whose request to postpone the event was denied by Fide, the governing body. Emil Sutovsky, Fide’s director-general, pointed to the size of the event (just eight players) and a number of sanitary measures that will be instated. (Larger events have been cancelled or postponed). But a photo of a packed auditorium at the opening ceremony looks distinctly at odds with a

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Today The Spectator launches a new website, designed to showcase its world-class journalism, popular podcast channels and 24/7 news coverage and commentary. The website has been designed in advance of our 10,000th issue, as The Spectator – the oldest magazine in the word – becomes the first publication in history to reach this milestone The issue, which goes on sale on 23 April – St George’s Day – will look back on our 192-year history as well as mark the start of a new digital era. The website’s redesign pays tribute to the print magazine, while modernising our look and feel to showcase the variety of what The Spectator produces.

In the 1800s, several chess matches were conducted by telegraph. Modern technology ought to make long-distance matches easier than ever, but in fact competitive international chess is almost always played in person these days. That is partly because it is impossible to police computer-assisted cheating if the players play at home. But equally, the practical barriers to travel are (usually) much fewer in the modern age. But prominent chess players (especially in the days of the USSR) have often had to negotiate political obstacles. Shohreh Bayat, from Iran, was in Shanghai in January for the first leg of the Women’s World Championship, where she was the chief arbiter — one

The German word for pawn, ‘bauer’, can also be translated as peasant, or farmer. There are many spectacular games in which the pawns pick up their pitchforks and overrun the landed gentry. A historic example, played in 1834, is the game McDonnell–de La Bourdonnais, in which the Frenchman playing Black advanced his pawns to d2, e2 and f2, overwhelming White’s rook and queen. A modern example is the game Saric–Suleymanli, which I wrote about in December last year. Aydin Suleymanli, just 14 years old from Azerbaijan, acquitted himself well but eventually succumbed to the advancing horde. Much less gets written about failed uprisings, but in this week’s game Suleymanli found