There is an audible buzz in the international bridge world and it centres around a few Scandinavian juniors. The youngest is Norway’s Nicolai Heiberg-Evenstad (obvs known as the Kid), who is 16 now but started playing with his father, Stian Evenstad, aged about seven and was quickly noticed as an outstanding talent. When two or
Chess, to state the obvious, is different from painting, or dance, or poetry. There is artistry in it, and yet the game stands apart. When we admire a sequence of moves, they only make sense viewed through the filter of an imagined adversarial contest. Sacrifices and combinations sparkle according to the obstacles that are overcome.
White to play and mate in two moves. One of the conventional problems from the same Winton British Chess Solving Championship, composed by Huibrecht van Beek, 1899. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 25 March. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address
In Competition No. 3341 you were invited to submit a poem about a great work of art – a challenge prompted by George Steiner’s observation that ‘the best readings of art are art’. The writer Geoff Dyer has cited W.H. Auden’s 1938 ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ – about Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s ‘Landscape with the Fall
The unclued lights (two of two words) comprise two celebrity pairs which are represented by a singleton, two pairs (one ‘In memoriam’) and a trio of lights . Across 1 Slices top of sausage in front of dogs (5) 4 Traffic police with amphetamine found by small wood, reportedly (5,4) 9 City’s main Mr Big
The chain of words is ITS (7A), SITE (35), INSET (37), STRINE (20), ENTRIES (5), RESIDENT (24), DESERTING (21D), DENIGRATES (1D), NEAR-SIGHTED (41). First prize Angela Hales, Callow End, Worcester Runners-up A Weir, Broughty Ferry, Dundee; Major Gen A.I. Ramsay, Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hampshire
