Last week I was glued to BBO, watching the US trials to select the two teams who will represent America in the Bermuda Bowl in Bali later this year. All the best players were competing and it was fascinating to see the extraordinary events unfold. USA 1, and outright winners, is the relatively unknown Kranyak
Thessaloniki is said to be named after a half-sister of Alexander the Great. Fidé staged a recent Grand Prix there, with the surprising outcome that it was won by the Cuban grandmaster Lenier Dominguez Perez with 8/11, ahead of such luminaries as Gata Kamsky and Fabiano Caruana on 7½ as well as Hikaru Nakamura, Veselin
In Competition 2801 you were invited to rewrite, in pompous and prolix style, any well-known simple poem. Space is on the tight side so, pausing only to congratulate and commiserate with the longer-than-usual list of those who narrowly missed out — Mae Scanlan, Mary Holtby, Nigel Stuart, George Simmers, Rob Stuart, Ray Kelley, Adrian
The solutions to numbered lights are the words missing from the story. The unclued lights are the names of twenty-two Scottish lochs. However, forty-four names of lochs appear in the story, all of which are hidden or appear in jumbled form in the story. Solvers are not required to list the ‘discarded’ lochs. I
The unclued lights are headwords in Brewer under the SEVEN heading. The title indicates the sum ‘2114 divided by 302 = 7’ and so solvers had to include ‘7’ or ‘seven’ alongside their submitted solution. First prize Frank Maslen, London SW1 Runners-up Andrew James, Winchester; Dolf Mootham, Aldeburgh, Suffolk
Black to play. This position is from Bacrot-Ivanchuk, Thessaloniki Grand Prix 2013. This was the scene of Ivanchuk’s only success. What is the key move? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 18 June or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the first correct answer
