Puzzles & games

Bridge

Bridge | 7 March 2013

Terry Hewett’s annual charity bonanza, Night of the Stars, has become THE charity event of the year and has made Terry the true star. This year she auctioned off 43 bridge stars, raising well over £40,000 for four charities, and gave us all a fabulous evening to boot! This year’s tournament was won by Jeremy

Chess

Witschcraft | 7 March 2013

There are two new books about Aron Nimzowitsch, chess strategist and author of My System. Aron Nimzowitsch on the Road to Chess Mastery 1886-1924 by Per Skjoldager and Jorn Erik Nielsen is published by McFarland, while Aron Nimzowitsch 1928-1935 by Rudolf Reinhardt (on which the notes to today’s game are based) is shortly to be

Competition

Ghostwritten

In Competition No. 2787 you were invited to submit a Shakespearean soliloquy delivered by the ghost of Richard III reflecting on the discovery of his bones in a Leicester car park. The last Plantagenet king is, it seems, even further from the psychopath conjured up by Shakespeare’s pen than previously thought. Psychologists who have spent

Crossword

2103: Rime

Unclued entries are words or phrases whose meanings are not connected, but they are determined by the appearance in the grid of the last two lines of a poem, one word to each row. The first two lines of the poem appear in fourteen clues, whose answers do not touch the quotation in the grid,

Crossword solution

2100: Mask | 7 March 2013

Corrections of misprints in clues give PAPER OVER THE CRACKS, indicating the position of 12 in relation to the other unclued lights. First prize Kenneth M. Robb, Linlithgow Runners-up Alexander Caldin, Salford, Oxfordshire; Ben Stephenson, London SW12

Puzzles

no. 256

White to play. This position is from Nimzowitsch-Alapin, Vilnius 1912. How did White swiftly conclude his sacrificial attack? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 12 March or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the first correct answer out of a hat, and each week