Luke McShane

White to play. A variation from L’Ami–Caruana, Bundesliga 2020. Caruana avoided this position, where White can force a quick mate. White should begin with a check, but which one? 1 h8=Q+, 1 Ne6+, or 1 Ne4+? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 5 October. 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 Qc6! deflects Black’s queen: 1…Qxc6 2 Rf8+ Rxf8 3 Rxf8 mate. Or 2…Qd8 3 Qxe8+! Qxe8 Rf8+ etc.

Send in haste, repent at leisure. It is a cruel certainty that you will sooner or later text your intimate thoughts to the wrong person, or hit ‘reply all’ by accident. The second you spot this, your heart will leap into your mouth. That sensation is much like how a mouse slip feels during an online game of chess, when you move a piece and release it on the wrong square. If the universe is merciful, it hardly matters and the game goes on. In the worst case, you’re done for: it’s time to resign. Internet chess provides another way to shoot yourself in the foot. To make a ‘pre-move’, you draw an arrow on the board to indicate a move before it’s your turn. As long as your move is legal, it will be played regardless of what your opponent does.

Nothing courts us so nimbly as technology. Perhaps the chess computers have already won you over — I am dazzled by the riches they have revealed. For a jaw-dropping sense of wonder, try playing over a forced mate in 549 moves. Still, many yearn for a simpler time. A time when the mysteries of chess were plentiful, but studying the game ‘by hand’ yielded steady nourishment. A time when chess engines had not yet tempted us with their very own tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These days, that tangle of variations and verdicts is irresistible, but who can look at their own play without a sense of shame? Meanwhile, professional players must work harder than ever to harvest fresh ideas.

It was as baffling to me as quantum entanglement. Every time the Algerian player on the Zoom call shared his screen, my own screen share would stop working. That we were playing in separate matches was beside the point — this was online chess under something like exam conditions, and the software glitch left me briefly in breach of the rules. For 20 years, I have treated online chess as a delightful form of escapism, where wine is welcome, clothes are optional, and my queen can be freely sacrificed in the pursuit of glory. So it was a strange experience, representing England in the Online Olympiad last month. Suddenly there were cameras and protocols and responsibility. All this feels normal in the tournament hall, but not when seated in front of my laptop.

Man plans, God laughs. Fide, the international federation, organised an Online Olympiad, with 163 teams taking part. We got a global internet outage during the final. The disruption hit the Indian players at a critical stage, in the second of two matches against Russia. (The first was tied 3-3). India were soon to be trailing 2.5-1.5, but had realistic hopes to even the score on the two remaining boards. But when those two players lost their connection to the website where the games were played, their time elapsed and they lost. The Indians lodged an appeal, but the appeals committee couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. It fell to Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich to settle the matter. Dvorkovich is Russian, so an impartial ruling was impossible.

Facing Magnus Carlsen, you have two problems. The first is obvious — he’s the best player in the world. The second lies in your awareness of the first. Countless players have seemed bewitched by the world champion, drained of the confidence needed to push for a win. In a single game, a strong grandmaster may well hunker down and steer the game towards a draw, but that’s a doubtful strategy in a long match, where critical mistakes will inevitably occur. I didn’t credit Hikaru Nakamura with much of a chance against Carlsen in the finals of the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour, the series of elite online events held over recent months. On paper, he is a strong contender. Online rapid chess plays to Nakamura strengths, and he is even more dangerous in blitz playoffs.

Last week, snooker ace Ronnie O’Sullivan won his sixth World Championship at the age of 44, a full 19 years on from his first title. A few days earlier, he had taken a pop at the younger generation: ‘They’re not that good really… I’ve probably got to lose an arm and a leg to fall outside the top 50!’ You wouldn’t expect the same blunt turn of phrase from Vishy Anand, but in terms of longevity, he’s the obvious counterpart in chess. Almost 25 years have passed since he first challenged Kasparov for the world title. Anand turned 50 last year, and just three years ago added another World Rapid Championship to his collection.

Does Bear Grylls play chess? If he does, I’m sure he would favour the King’s Gambit. As chess openings go, it is primitive and hazardous. Playing it well demands a kind of reckless, wholehearted optimism that few can muster. Ostensibly, you sacrifice just a pawn (1 e4 e5 2 f4), but really, you’re already in deeper, since the aspiring gambiteer mustn’t flinch from chucking a piece or more on the bonfire. Most players find it more agreeable to watch others sacrifice their pieces. Indeed, sacrificial classics such as the ‘Immortal Game’ (Anderssen–Kieseritzky, London 1851) have a timeless appeal. But for those with the requisite swagger, nothing stokes the imagination like playing the opening.

‘Cabin crew, ten minutes to landing!’ Are there any more exhilarating words? Soon, for a few precious minutes, one can fix one’s gaze on the approaching landscape. The patchwork fields, the lines of terraced houses and shuffling cars — all woven together in an intricate fractal. From a certain point of view, these simple things are the crowning achievements of civilisation. Photographers at large chess tournaments often choose to capture an aerial view of the playing hall. To my eyes, it makes for a similarly uplifting sight. Hundreds of chess boards aligned in an arena, their occupants riveted with dedication — what better evidence of human society in rude cultural health?

I am sure I have posed more questions to the chess engine Stockfish than to any living being. I love the instant gratification: you give it a chess position and it gives you an answer: the best move and an evaluation measured in hundredths of a pawn, like +1 24. Leave it alone, it will delve deeper; move a piece, it will respond anew. In human terms, ‘Ooh, a smidgen better for White’ gives way to ‘Go there, and your rook gets blown away’. The chess engine is, by turns, a spirit level and a hurricane forecast. The basic design of a traditional chess engine like Stockfish is simple: check all the moves, back and forth, for both sides, and tot up the value of the pieces in each scenario. Then choose a move accordingly.

‘Had I not become a composer, I would have wanted to be a chess player, but a high-level one, someone competing for the world title.’ So said Ennio Morricone, who died earlier this month at the age of 91. Looking back on a lifetime of work, you don’t doubt that he could have done it. The Italian ‘maestro’ was best known for his transcendent film scores; the coyote howl theme from Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, came to symbolise the Italian Western genre. Less well-known is that Morricone composed ‘Inno degli scacchisti’ (‘Chess players’ anthem’) for the Turin Olympiad in 2006.