Luke McShane

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.

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.

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.

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.

The science-fiction writer Douglas Adams ridiculed our primitive species for considering digital watches to be ‘a pretty neat idea’. Digital chess clocks really are pretty neat, because they enable modern competitive games to be played with an ‘increment’. For each move played, you earn extra seconds to make the next one, a simple innovation which allows all games to reach a natural conclusion. (By contrast, analogue clocks allot a tranche of thinking time for a series of moves). A lack of increment on the clock occasionally makes for excrement on the board; bashing out 20 moves in five remaining seconds may be physically impossible, but that never stops people trying. Pieces topple like bowling pins and the clock gets thumped like a broken television.

Three consecutive losses in a tournament is dryly termed ‘castling queenside’, in reference to the chess notation for that move (0-0-0). Carissa Yip went one worse, starting with four demoralising zeros at the Cairns Cup in St Louis this month. The 16-year-old American was the lowest ranked player in the elite women’s all-play-all tournament, so it wasn’t about to get any easier, and her experienced opponents were surely looking to capitalise. In the fifth round, she bounced back in style with a win over seven-time US women’s champion Irina Krush. ‘Someone told me that I should just fake it till I make it,’ Yip explained after the game. Those were wise words, not just teenage insouciance.

Black to play, Kateryna Lagno–Ju Wenjun, February 2020. Material is approximately balanced, but White’s king is in serious danger. What was Ju’s next move, which prompted immediate resignation? Answers should be sent to ‘Chess’ at The Spectator by Tuesday 25 February 2020 or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer that is pulled out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Ra5! (idea 1...Nxa5 2 Rc8+). Black tried 1...

The Dutch artist Theo Jansen has a unique speciality. His ‘Strandbeest’ (beach animals) are kinetic sculptures, which he likes to set free upon a windswept beach. Fashioned from plastic tubes, bottles and the like, these imposing skeletons appear to ‘walk’ along the seafront with a gait at once laboured and graceful: a compelling synthesis of engineering and art.  When I first watched this magnificent spectacle on YouTube, I was immediately reminded of the cold, gusty walks along the beach at Wijk aan Zee, the town in Holland where the annual Tata Steel tournament is held. (Curiously, Jansen hails from Scheveningen, a seaside resort which lends its name to a variation of the Sicilian defence and to a format of team chess).

Cars, computers and cadavers: taking them apart is normally reserved for experts and the pathologically curious. In his new book, The Moves that Matter, Jonathan Rowson takes a scalpel to the game of chess itself, and finds abundant meaning in its cultural, psychological and metaphorical aspects. Or as he puts it: ‘Chess is just a game in the way that the heart is just a muscle.’ It’s ambitious stuff, but we’re in good hands. Dr Rowson is a three-time British champion (2004-2006), writer, philosopher and co-founder of Perspectiva, a research institute that examines the relationship between complex global challenges and the inner lives of human beings.   The Moves that Matter is unusual in that Rowson has written a chess book with a general audience in mind.

Sanguineti–Najdorf, Mar del Plata 1956. White to move. White played 1 Kd8?, to threaten 2 Qe7#. Black resigned, overlooking 1…Rxg4 to prepare Ke6-f5. White should have chosen a queen check instead. Which one? Answers by Tuesday 21 January to ‘Chess’ at The Spectator or 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 Rxh7+! Kxh7 2 Qh5+ Kg8 3 Ne7 mate.