Puzzles & games

Bridge

Bridge | 31 March 2016

Tom Townsend, my esteemed teammate and the Telegraph’s bridge correspondent, did the double last weekend at the London Easter Festival of Bridge. First he won the Championship Pairs playing with Mark Teltscher and then he won the teams playing with … me! Well — on my team anyway. Tom and Mark have had considerable success

Chess

Bellum sociorum

The internecine but friendly annual rivalry between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, generously hosted last month by the Chess Circle of the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, resulted in an overwhelming 6-2 victory for the light blues. Cambridge now leads the longest-running chess series in the world with 59 wins. Oxford has 53 wins,

Competition

Short story | 31 March 2016

In Competition No. 2941 you were invited to supply a short story entitled ‘Diary of a Superfluous Man’. Turgenev’s Tchulkaturin; Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin; Goncharov’s Oblomov: these ‘superfluous men’ are not simply literary types, says the critic David Patterson, but represent a ‘paradigm of a person who has lost a point, a place, a presence in

Crossword

2254: Ecofriendly

Answers to clues in italics must become 15 (hyphened) to create grid entries. Definitions of these entries are supplied by unclued lights, one of which consists of two words. Elsewhere ignore two accents.   Across   1    Convince court without question, wearing dark blue (8) 11    Endless praise in resort prepared for sharks

Crossword solution

To 2251: Animal track

WILD HORSES, the title of a track on STICKY FINGERS (1D) by the ROLLING STONES (12), defines the other unclued lights. First prize C.G. Millin, Ramleaze, Wilts Runners-up John Angel, Woodbridge, Suffolk; J. Anson, London SE5

Puzzles

No. 402

Black to play. This is from Pichot-Khismatullin, Moscow 2016. What was Black’s killing blow? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 5 April or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal