Luke McShane is chess columnist for The Spectator.
Generative artificial intelligence is a modern marvel. Should you wish to see an octopus juggling dinner plates in the desert, it is now just a few keystrokes away. Images, videos, poetry, music – everything is possible. But have you ever scrutinised an AI-generated picture of people playing chess? Inevitably, the position will be incoherent. Look closer, and
White to play. A nice example from the ‘Generating Chess Puzzles’ paper mentioned above. Which move allows White to force checkmate on the kingside? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 1 December. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six
The biennial Fide World Cup underway in Goa is a feast for chess fans. Lasting nearly a month, more than 200 participants are whittled down to a single winner through a series of knockout matches, starting with two games of classical chess, followed by rapid and blitz tiebreaks if necessary. Stakes are high, with a
Donchenko-Liem, Fide World Cup, Goa 2025. Donchenko’s next move forced a decisive material gain. What did he play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 24 November. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for
The world’s top players prepare their openings in astonishing detail. Powerful chess computers, accessed via the cloud and thus available to everyone, make the process of analysis vastly more efficient than it used to be. Positions which once would have taken days to analyse ‘by hand’ can be explored exhaustively in an hour or two.
Wei Yi-Kacper Piorun, Fide World Cup, Goa 2025. Which surprising move enabled Wei to gain a decisive material advantage? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 17 November. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks
Magnus Carlsen headed the field at the Clutch Chess Champions Showdown, a quadrangular rapid tournament held at the St Louis Chess Club last month. The Norwegian, who became a father in September, always seems motivated playing at fast time limits and his opposition in St Louis was of the highest calibre – Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Sam Loyd, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1858 Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 10 November. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize
Tributes have poured in for Daniel Naroditsky, the American grandmaster who has died suddenly at the age of 29. Those who knew him best told of his kindness and humility. He once noted that his favourite saying about chess was this: ‘At the end of the game, both the king and the pawn go into
Black to play. Wonderful time-Daniel Naroditsky, Chess.com, 2021. Le Tuan Minh, the Vietnamese grandmaster playing White, faces a fierce attack. Naroditsky’s next move won him the game. What was it? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 3 November. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of
I felt a flush of optimism as England began our final game at the European Team Championships, held in Batumi earlier in October. The previous evening, my teammate Gawain Maroroa Jones had escaped with a draw in a marathon six-hour game, tying the match against a strong Dutch team. That left us paired against the
A variation from Kourkoulos-Arditis-Maroroa Jones. The Greek grandmaster playing White went wrong and lost the game, but could have aimed for this position, where White has a brilliant winning move. Which one? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 27 October. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer
Thirty years have passed since the 1995 world championship match at the World Trade Center in which Garry Kasparov defeated his challenger Viswanathan Anand 10.5-7.5. Anand went on to become the undisputed world champion in 2007, and defeated Kramnik, Topalov and Gelfand in match play, before losing the title to Carlsen in 2013. ‘Clutch Chess:
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Theodore Morris Brown, American Chess-Nuts, 1868. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 20 October. 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 prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1
The momentum augured badly for Fabiano Caruana in the final match of the Grand Chess Tour, held in Sao Paulo earlier this month. In the first classical game against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave he blew a chance to take a commanding lead in the match, since wins in those slow games were weighted more than the subsequent
White to play. Cmiel – Leitner, European Senior (50+) Championship, October 2025. The situation looks hopeless, but White found a brilliant counterattack. Which move did he play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 13 October. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address
The boy they call the ‘Messi of Chess’ achieved a milestone result at the ‘Legends and Prodigies’ tournament, held in Madrid last month. Eleven-year-old Faustino Oro, from Argentina, won the tournament with 7.5/9, thereby achieving his first grandmaster-level performance. The requirement is for three such results before the title is awarded. But in Madrid he
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Franz Dittrich, Ceske Listy Sachove, 1897. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 6 October. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery.
‘When you play professional chess… you have to always believe in miracles. Especially if you are a player like me who’s not really good.’ A couple of rounds before the end of the Fide Grand Swiss, held in Samarkand in early September, Anish Giri gave a typically modest assessment of his chances of taking one
White to play. Anish Giri-Viktor Laznicka, France 2010. Black’s king is in obvious peril, and Giri found the only move which wins by force. What did he play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 29 September. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal