Puzzles & games

Bridge

Bridge | 2 December 2023

Both TGRs and Young Chelsea run highly successful League matches on alternate Wednesday evenings. Organised impeccably by Gitte Hecht-Johansen, you play 24 boards against the seven other teams in your division, the two teams coming last getting relegated. It is wonderful practice for players who want to test their bidding skills and declarer play in

Chess

Montenegro’s revenge

Before the seventh round of the European Team Championship in Montenegro, I woke with a peculiar malaise I could not explain. Answer soon came, in an alarming salvo of diarrhoea. My hopes for an easy ride in my game against the German grandmaster Alexander Donchenko did not last long, and I landed in a tenable

Chess puzzle

No. 780

White to play. Lan Yao-Pia Cramling, Women’s European Team Ch, Budva 2023. Black has just made a serious error in grabbing the pawn on f3. How did White force a decisive gain of material? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 4 December. There is a prize of £20 for the firstcorrect answer out of a

Competition

Spectator competition winners: Mrs Malaprop’s Julius Caesar

In Competition No. 3327 you were invited to submit a rough resumé of the plot of a Shakespeare play such as might have been attemptedby a well-known fictional character of your choice. Literary sleuths featured prominently in the entry, with Poirot, Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes all making eye-catching appearances. A commendation to George Simmers

Crossword

2633: Highly critical

The unclued entries (two of one word, two of two words, two of three words) combine to form a quotation. Elsewhere, ignore two accents.         Across    1    Promotions to fix in commercial vehicles (12) 10    Eager pupil’s plea for online phenomenon (4) 12    Cockney dish rose, having turned end (3,1,4,2) 14    Remark further problem

Crossword solution

2630: Souvenir – solution

The puzzle appeared on 11 November 2023. The unclued lights reveal ‘The CENOTAPH and POPPY evoke REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY, once ARMISTICE DAY, the ARMISTICE being SIGNED at the ELEVENTH HOUR, ELEVENTH DAY and ELEVENTH MONTH’. First prize Victoria Estcourt, Tisbury, Wilts Runners-up John Harley, Norton, Stockton on Tees; M.D. Conway, Grimsby