Puzzles & games

Bridge

Bridge | 27 April 2017

Last week we played round four of the Gold Cup. I had eagerly looked at the email to see who we were up against and for the first time ever we had drawn… Susanna’s team! Her partner was rubber-bridge maven Graham Orsmond, with Brian Ransley and Brian McGuire at the other table. The match was

Chess

Bugged

Polish grandmaster Akiba Rubinstein was one of the strongest players never to win the world title. Up to 1914 he seemed unstoppable, but then the Cuban genius Capablanca burst on to the scene and after the first world war Rubinstein was a changed man. In Chess and Chessmasters (Hardinge Simpole), Gideon Stahlberg wrote: ‘A latent

Competition

Ribaldry

In Competition No. 2995 you were invited to submit ribald limericks as they might have been written by a well-known poet. William Baring-Gould, who wrote a history of the genre, noted that when a limerick appears, sex is not far behind And the writer Norman Douglas considered limericks to be ‘jovial things… a yea-saying to

Crossword

2307: Obit IV

Clockwise round the grid from 16 run the titles of four works (4,4,9,6,1,5,3,5,3,4,6) by a late great 3 (two apostrophes) followed by the 3’s initials. The remaining unclued lights combine to give a further such title (three words in total). Elsewhere, ignore an apostrophe.   Across 9    Middle-Easterner very soon returns (5) 10    Shrew lacks

Crossword solution

to 2304: Hexagon

The HEADWORD (26) ‘bail’ appears six times in CHAMBERS (1D). Its different meanings include CROSSPIECE (1A), BAR (25), FRAME (36), HOOP (40), LADLE (16) and SECURITY (24). BAIL (diagonally from 32) was to be shaded.   First prize Jacqui Sohn, Gorleston, Great Yarmouth Runners-up Alexander Caldin, Houston, Texas; B. Taylor, Little Lever, Bolton

Puzzles

no. 454

Black to play. This position is from Belsitzman-Rubinstein, Warsaw 1917. How did Rubinstein finish off? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 2 May 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 postal address and allow six weeks for