Luke McShane is chess columnist for The Spectator.
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Aronian–Vidit, Online Nations Cup, May 2020. Vidit has just captured axb3 en passant. Aronian’s next move revealed a powerful concept. What was it? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 18 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…b5! 2 Qd3 (2 Qc6 Qe4+) Qb7! White resigned in view of 3 Rc5 Re5! winning the rook.
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‘I haven’t felt this kind of tension in a long while. This was real!’ Those were Magnus Carlsen’s words, after barely scraping through his semi-final match with Ding Liren at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, which concluded last weekend. The event was hosted on the chess24 website and boasted a $250,000 prize fund. (Carlsen’s company, Play Magnus, merged with chess24 last year). The world champion assembled a formidable line-up, including five players from the recently postponed World Championship Candidates tournament. It is clear that Carlsen finds Ding to be a troublesome opponent. China’s top player has notched up several victories in speed chess, including a memorable triumph in the playoff of last year’s Sinquefield Cup.
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Black to play. Ding–Nakamura, Magnus -Carlsen Invitational, April 2020. The position appears sterile, but Nakamura spotted a clever winning move. What was it? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 11 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 Rg4+! Kf3 2 Rf4+! Ke3 3 Rf3+ Kxf3 is a draw by stalemate. Black can only avoid this by giving up his knight.
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‘I am extraordinarily patient — provided I get my own way in the end’. That’s a disposition fit for a chess player, even if it was Margaret Thatcher who said it. Learning when, and how, to mark time is an essential practical skill, so the classic text Endgame Strategy by Shereshevsky dedicates a whole chapter to the motto ‘Do not hurry’. When I won a 163-move, 7.5-hour game against Nigel Short in 2009, I did feel I had got the hang of it. But it’s so much easier to exercise patience when you have plenty of time, like I did. (Thatcher had it easy too — she was locked in some glacial negotiation with the EEC.) How much harder it is to restrain the impulses amid the hurly-burly of a blitz game.
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Nepomniachtchi (lachesisQ)–Andriasian (Zaven_ChessMood), Abu Dhabi Super Blitz, April 2020. White is in danger here. Which move did he play to put the draw beyond doubt? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 4 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…Rxe5! 2 dxe5 Qg3 and mate follows on g2. Or 2 Nxe5 Qg5! threatens mate and …Nxh3+ to win the Qd2.
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‘I’m just completely collapsing in these games… unbelievable.’ World Champion Magnus Carlsen didn’t hide his anguish after losing a game against Alireza Firouzja, the 16-year-old who went on to defeat him 8.5-7.5 in an online blitz match last week. It was a dream final for the Chess24 website’s ‘Banter Blitz’ knockout tournament. Carlsen is the reigning World Blitz champion in over-the-board play. Firouzja, originally from Iran but now living in France, is an exceptional talent, and a serious candidate to succeed him in the future. He is still inexperienced in elite classical tournaments, and was convincingly beaten by Carlsen at the Tata Steel tournament in January. But in online speed chess, he is already among the world’s best.
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Black to play. Sjugirov–Carlsen, Chess24 Banter Blitz Semi Final. In this wild position, Carlsen’s next move put the result beyond doubt. What did he play? Answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 27 April. 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…Qg3+! 2 Rxg3 hxg3+ 3 Kg2 (3 Kxg3 Rxg5#) Rh2+ 4 Kxg3 (4 Kf1 g2+) Bf4+ 5 Kg4 Rxg5 mate.
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‘Old wine in new bottles’ must be the most protean idiom in the English language. I encountered it a few years ago, as a title to an article by the Romanian grandmaster Mihail Marin, who likes to lean upon his deep knowledge of the chess classics to elucidate games played in the modern era. (Recently he published a book of the same name, which grew out of a series of such articles.) That such vintage wisdom might still find favour with contemporary palates is, for Marin, something to celebrate. So I was perplexed to learn that the phrase also refers to the practice of sprucing up something tired and unappetising.
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Black to play. Andrew Stone–Martin Jogstad, 4NCL Online, April 2020. The queen is trapped on f4, so 1…Rxg5 looks worth a try, as after 2 Rxf4 Bxf4 threatens Rg5-g3+. But in the diagram, Black found a far stronger move. Which one? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 20 April. 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 Ne8+! Qxe8 2 Qxe8 Nxe8 3 d7 wins.
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If there were regulatory oversight of chess openings, some would come with a litany of disclaimers. ‘You may lose more than your initial gambit.’ ‘Possible side effects may include dizziness and nausea.’ ‘Use at your own risk.’ Nonetheless, such openings as the King’s Gambit, the Dragon Sicilian, or the Botvinnik Semi-Slav often enjoy a cult following. Their devotees tend to be audacious types, who won’t let a few slings and arrows obscure the prospect of a glorious victory. These openings are exciting to play, and not necessarily bad, but they demand a special energy to handle well. In general, grandmasters prefer more conservative, rugged openings, particularly when they are Black.
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A position adapted from Vojtech Plat–Ravi Haria, Hull GM tournament, 2019. The d6-pawn is crucial here, but White needs a clever move to sweep aside the blockade. What is it? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 13 April. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Qh2! threatens 2 Qb8+ Qg8 3 Qd6! with a winning attack. (But not 1 Qg3? Qc1+!, or 1 Qe3? Qf7!
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A variation from the game above. Although White is a pawn down, he can rustle up decisive counterplay with one accurate move. Which one? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 6 April. 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 Qg1! Mate follows with Qg7/Qh2/Qa1/f4 depending on Black’s response.
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Would you slice a book in two? I learned of this peculiar practice in January, and I can’t fault its brutal pragmatism. Undeniably, half of War and Peace is more portable than the whole thing, and perhaps even less intimidating. When you finish the first chunk, you just swap it for the second. Books want to be read, not fetishised. For all that, I recoil from the idea, and I’m not alone. The Candidates tournament in Yekaterinburg, a 14-round epic, was put on hold after just seven, but not due to illness among the players.
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I could list all manner of things I don’t try, because I know I won’t like them, like skydiving and revolting cocktails. But there’s another list of things I don’t try, knowing I might like them just a bit too much. ‘Puzzle Rush’ was, for some time, in the second category. Chess.com is one of the websites where people go seeking out internet games, and their release of ‘Puzzle Rush’ in late 2018 was an instant hit. The challenge is to solve as many chess puzzles as you can in five minutes. The puzzles get gradually harder, and after three strikes, you’re out. It goes to show that even games can be gamified, and many found this virtual chess whack-a-mole ludicrously addictive. Eventually curiosity got the better of me.
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A puzzle used in the solving championship, composed by Vittorio de Barbieri in 1918. White must give mate in two moves, against any defence. It is tempting to use the long diagonal directly, but the solution is more subtle: look for a move without a direct threat. Answers (first move only) to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 30 March. 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 Rhf3! breaks the pin. 1… exf3 2 Rxe7 Bxe7 3 Qe6 and White won.
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Coronavirus is causing chess events to fall like dominoes, with cancellations all over the world. But the Candidates tournament in Yekaterinburg, which selects a challenger for the World Championship, is still standing. The first round took place on Tuesday 17 March. It goes ahead without Teimour Radjabov, from Azerbaijan, whose request to postpone the event was denied by Fide, the governing body. Emil Sutovsky, Fide’s director-general, pointed to the size of the event (just eight players) and a number of sanitary measures that will be instated. (Larger events have been cancelled or postponed). But a photo of a packed auditorium at the opening ceremony looks distinctly at odds with a safety-first approach.
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White to play. Shirov–Yuffa, Nutcracker Battle of the Generations, Moscow 2020. The rook on f7 is pinned, and 1 Rxf8+ Qxf8+ costs White the rook on h3. How did Shirov turn the tables? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Tuesday 24 March. 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…Rd7! 2 Nd6 Rxd6! 3 exd6 Qe1#. Instead 1…Qxb7? 2 Rc7, provoked resignation as Rxf7 and Qxh7 mate will follow.
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In the 1800s, several chess matches were conducted by telegraph. Modern technology ought to make long-distance matches easier than ever, but in fact competitive international chess is almost always played in person these days. That is partly because it is impossible to police computer-assisted cheating if the players play at home. But equally, the practical barriers to travel are (usually) much fewer in the modern age. But prominent chess players (especially in the days of the USSR) have often had to negotiate political obstacles. Shohreh Bayat, from Iran, was in Shanghai in January for the first leg of the Women’s World Championship, where she was the chief arbiter — one of very few women in the world qualified to perform that role.
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Black to play. Tomashevsky–Lomasov, Nutcracker Battle of the Generations, Moscow 2020. A position with a surprising twist. Tomashevsky has just captured a bishop on b7. What is Black’s best response? Answers to ‘Chess’ at The Spectator by Tuesday 17 March 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 prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1…Rxf1+! 2 Kxf1 Bh3+ 3 Kg1 Nd4! 4 Qxc3 Ne2+ 5 Kh1 Bg2 mate.
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The German word for pawn, ‘bauer’, can also be translated as peasant, or farmer. There are many spectacular games in which the pawns pick up their pitchforks and overrun the landed gentry. A historic example, played in 1834, is the game McDonnell–de La Bourdonnais, in which the Frenchman playing Black advanced his pawns to d2, e2 and f2, overwhelming White’s rook and queen. A modern example is the game Saric–Suleymanli, which I wrote about in December last year. Aydin Suleymanli, just 14 years old from Azerbaijan, acquitted himself well but eventually succumbed to the advancing horde. Much less gets written about failed uprisings, but in this week’s game Suleymanli found himself yet again facing down an angry mob.
