Pierre Zimmermann, Monaco’s uber-sponsor, has put another unmissable, thrilling tournament in the calendar. The first European Winter Games gave those who entered the kind of event we no longer get with the World or European Championships. One week of bridge, 60 boards a day, with a BAM (board a match) side event that was terrific.
The 14th Tradewise tournament at Gibraltar ended in a triumph for the American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. Naka, as he is affectionately known, tied on points with the leading French representative, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, but in the obligatory playoff, the American nosed ahead to take the £20,000 first prize. Gibraltar, under the auspices of chess-loving hotelier Brian
In Competition No. 2935 you were invited to submit a Valentine’s triolet. A famous example of the triolet is Frances Cornford’s catty ‘To a Fat Lady seen from the Train’ (‘O fat white woman whom nobody loves/ Why do you walk through the field in gloves’), but it was that ace trioleteer Wendy Cope’s rather
In the clues, the 9 stars represent omitted words (one of which is a dialect variant of another). Those 9 words, along with 12 others which form a set, must be used to complete the 11 unclued entries, which include four two-word phrases and four hyphened words, and are all in Chambers. Across
Corrections of misprints give A GRECIAN URN. The POET (23) reporting its message (perimeter + 4 30) is KEATS (42). First prize M. Threasher, Winscombe, Somerset Runners-up Philip Dacre, York; Frances Whitehead, Harrogate, N. Yorks
White to play. This position is from Anna Muzychuk-Salem, Gibraltar Masters 2016. How did White conjure up a decisive material gain? Answers to The Spectator by Tuesday 23 February 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
