Puzzles & games

Bridge

Bridge | 18 October 2018

I’ve just come back from ten days in Orlando, but don’t ask me what it’s like — I haven’t a clue: I never made it out of the World Center Marriott, where the Bridge World Series was taking place. Such is the bridge life: you travel the world, and see none of it.   I

Chess

Ship ahoy

The Evans Gambit was invented by a British naval officer of the early part of the 19th century, Captain W.D. Evans, who invented a form of ship’s lighting which was given an award by the Tsar of Russia. Captain Evans’s gambit is highly suitable at club and county level and in the 19th century it captured the

Competition

Mary, Mary…

In Competition No. 3070 you were invited to provide a poem with the title ‘When I Grow Up I Want to Be [insert name here]’.   Performance poet Megan Beech was so incensed by the abuse heaped by Twitter trolls on her idol Mary Beard that she wrote a poem called ‘When I Grow Up

Crossword

2381: Step changes

1 Across and 45 Across form a phrase, and the other unclued entries form a word ladder linking them, by changing one letter at a time, always forming real words. Elsewhere, ignore an accent.   Across 11    Weary junkie’s eaten mollusc (10) 13    Everything taken into account, at last, endlessly (5, two words) 14    Holiday

Crossword solution

to 2378: Boundary

LIMES (22), a term for a boundary of the ROMAN EMPIRE (7 30), is a DEFINITION (19) of five items reading clockwise in the perimeter.   First prize Geoff Telfer, Shipley, W. Yorks Runners-up R.B. Briercliffe, Onchan, Isle of Man; John Light, Applestone, Surrey

Puzzles

no. 528

White to play. This position is from Khmelniker-Harari, Isle of Man 2017. How did White make the most of his passed c-pawn? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 23 October or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a