Luke McShane

Black to play. Daggupati–Mishra, Charlotte 2020. 1…Rf1+ 2 Kg2 is a dead end, as White’s queen covers the f2 square. Mishra found the only way to draw; his subtle move combined a threat of perpetual check with a stalemate motif. Which move did he play? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 12 July. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address. Last week’s solution 1 Rc8! deflects the Black rook.

White to play. So–Vachier-Lagrave, Paris, June 2021. The queen on e7 can be taken, but Black’s last move was …Rd8, counterattacking White’s queen. Which move did White play to expose the flaw in this idea? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 5 July. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address. Last week’s solution 1 Nfd7+! Rxd7 2 Nxe6+ wins the Black queen, or, 1…Kg7 2 Qxf7+ Kh6 3 Rf6 wins.

Millions of people would see losing to Anand as a privilege rather than a disgrace. So it is simply astonishing that one lucky opponent, facing the Indian star in an online simultaneous display, squandered the opportunity by cheating. ‘Checkmate Covid, celebrity edition’, hosted earlier this month by Chess.com, was supposed to be a lighthearted event, with a handful of Indian celebrities taking on the former world champion to raise funds to tackle the pandemic in India. Billed as India’s youngest billionaire, Nikhil Kamath is the co-founder and CIO of Zerodha, an Indian brokerage company, but his claim to have been a chess champion in his youth looked doubtful when he blundered a pawn on the very first move.

January normally brings cheerful photos from the Gibraltar Chess Festival, where visiting chess-players get an impromptu snap with the Barbary macaques which inhabit the island. Alas, the 2021 festival was off, while the Fide Women’s Grand Prix, a 12-player all-play-all which forms part of the Women’s World Championship cycle, was planned for January and then postponed. Gibraltar vaccinated most of its adults by March, and by mid-May the government announced that there were no active cases among residents or visitors. That was good timing for the Fide Women’s Grand Prix, which had been rescheduled for later in May, and offered a refreshing glimpse of over-the-board chess. Zhansaya Abdumalik, 21, from Kazakhstan, won the event convincingly. With a magnificent 8.

Black to play. Vodopyanov–Kantsyn, 1974. Two bishops up, White appears to have everything covered. Which move allows Black to force a quick win? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 14 June. 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…g3! 2 Kxg3 Rb3. White resigned in view of 3 Kg2 Rxe3 4 Bxe3 Kxe3 5 Kf1 Kd2.

Chess was played by cable in the 19th century because… well, why not? And because everything old is new again, 2021 has brought us ‘Hybrid chess’, in which players play online, but congregate in hubs shared with other players under the supervision of an arbiter. This time, put it down to human frailty and our need to visit the loo. In a time when a smartphone will suggest moves to beat the world champion, competitive online chess relies on the watchful eye of a webcam to deter casual cheating when people play from home. For that reason, online games are overwhelmingly played at rapid and blitz time controls, because when games last less than 40 minutes, it is reasonable to require that players remain at their desk throughout.

The fifth match game between Potter and Zukertort, played in London in 1875, saw a dogged struggle. The final position is shown in the diagram below, where the players agreed to a draw after 91 Kb5-c4. William Norwood Potter, an English master, must have reasoned as follows: the protected passed pawn on d4 obliges the White king to stand guard. The passed a- and b-pawns cannot overcome Black’s king on their own, and so a draw is inevitable. But Potter missed a splendid winning idea, in which the White king makes a heroic charge up the board. An illustrative variation: 91…Kc6 92 b5+ Kb7 93 b6 Ka6 94 Kb4 Kb7 95 Kb5! d3 96 a6+ Kb8 97 Kc6 d2 98 a7+ Ka8 99 Kc7 d1=Q 100 b7+ Kxa7 101 b8=Q+ Kxa6 102 Qb6 mate! There is no room for error in this kind of operation.

Modern chess includes a panoply of ‘Indian’ openings, which share a common root in the starting moves 1 d4 Nf6 and include the King’s Indian, Nimzo-Indian, Queen’s Indian, Bogo-Indian, and Old Indian. But before 1900, the prevailing wisdom held that it was advisable for Black to contest the centre with a pawn advance. So the ‘Indian defence’, whose main characteristic was the fianchetto of the king’s bishop to g7, was a rarity — at least in games whose records survive. It was championed, with considerable flair, in a remarkable series of games played in Calcutta. John Cochrane was a Scottish barrister who practised in India for much of his career.

The rule of thumb for weighing up piece exchanges says that pawns are worth one, knights and bishops three, rooks five and queens nine. It is such a useful guideline that one can go a long way without ever questioning it, but strong players have a feeling for the limitations. The first diagram shows a critical moment from the final of the New in Chess Classic, the latest online event in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, which was won by Magnus Carlsen. He didn’t hesitate to sacrifice rook for knight and pawn, because the resulting position looks so cosy for Black. The knights on f6 and h5 are secure and ready to jump into e4 and g3. White’s pawn on f5 is an impediment to his own pieces, so the bishop and rooks are bystanders, while the pawn on e3 is permanently weak.

White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Revd Ernest Clement Mortimer, The Problemist, 1942. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 10 May. 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 Bd1! Kd3 2 Qd5 mate, or 1…Kc4 2 Qe4 mate.