If you like extremely high-level Pairs tournaments you would love Pierre Zimmermann’s Cavendish Monaco. Sixty pairs are auctioned off and battle it out over three days against some of the best players in the world. The scoring is IMPs across the field and competition is fierce. The winners this year were Ireland’s Adam Mesbur and
Hou Yifan has won what must be considered one of the strongest, if not the strongest, all-women chess tournaments ever held. Staged in the opulent surroundings of the Casino in Monte Carlo, the organisers succeeded in arranging a line-up which could have been improved upon only if Judit Polgar had agreed to participate. Judit, after
In Competition No. 2921 you were invited to write a clerihew about a fictional character. The clerihew is a comic four-line (AABB) biographical poem characterised by metrical irregularity and awkward rhyme. The first line is often the subject’s name. Or, to put it another way: E.C. Bentley Quite accidently Invented this form of wit, And
1/44 (eight words in total) is part of a question (in ODQ) minus a word exemplified by the other unclued lights (one hyphened). The title suggests a further example (eight letters) which will appear diagonally in the grid and must be shaded. Across 11 Very good not quite excellent dish (4) 13 Awful prig with
The thematic phrase is ‘The Waves’, shown in a wave pattern in the grid. It is the title of a novel by 29A/33; 8, 30 and 36 are types of ocean waves; 14, 16 and 32 are other types of waves. First prize Bob Wightman, Harpenden, Herts Runners-up Tony Dew, London SW13; Frank Upton, Solihull,
White to play. This position is from Koneru-Zhukova, Monaco 2015. How did White quickly exploit the constricted position of the black king? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 3 November or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the first correct answer out of a
