October 2012 Cover_Layout 1 01/10/2012 08:38 Page 1

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ContentsChessChess Magazine is published monthly.Founding Editor: B.H. Wood, OBE. M.Sc †Acting Editor: Matt Read (editor@chess.co.uk)Executive Editor: Malcolm PeinAssociate Editor: John SaundersContent Editor: Matthew Lunn

Subscriptions Manager: Paul Harrington

Twitter: @CHESS_MagazineTwitter: @TelegraphChess - Malcolm PeinTwitter: @johnchess - John Saunders

Website: www.chess.co.uk

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Views expressed in this publication are notnecessarily those of the Editor. Contributions to themagazine will be published at the Editor’s discretionand may be shortened if space is limited.

No parts of this publication may be reproducedwithout the prior express permission of the publishers.

All rights reserved. © 2012

Chess Magazine (ISSN 0964-6221) is published by:Chess & Bridge Ltd, 44 Baker St, London, W1U 7RTTel: 020 7388 2404 Fax: 020 7388 2407Email: info@chess.co.ukWebsite: www.chess.co.uk

FRONT COVER:Cover Design: Matt Read

US & Canadian Readers – You can contact us viaour American branch – Chess4Less based inWest Palm Beach, FL. Call us toll-free on 1-87789CHESS (24377). You can even order SubscriberSpecial Offers online via www.chess4less.com

EditorialMalcolm Pein on the latest developments

Readers LettersBH Wood and chess-playing families

The 2012 Istanbul OlympiadGM Daniel Gormally gives his views on England’s performance andanalyses the best and worst games from the biannual event

The Next GenerationJoshua Altman and Alex Golding - the future stars of UK chess?

Love it or Loathe it?James Coleman offers an introductory guide to Isolated QueenPawn positions

DISR-E-S-P-E-C-TPeter Lalic observes how even your highest rated opponents will make catastrophic blunders

Learning to Love the EndgameNick Ivell teaches the Vancura position

Polgar on the Endgame A fascinating extract from Judit’s recent book How I Beat Fischer’sRecord - Judit Polgar Teaches Chess

25 Years of SolitudeRaj Bhopal discusses his return to competitive chess after a quarter of a century.

StudiesBrian Stephenson presents a study by Sergey Didukh, one of theWorld’s most successful study composers

Obituary: Svetozar GligoricRemembering Yugoslavia’s greatest ever player

How Good is Your Chess?GM Danny King features a little-known gem featuring the late Svetozar Gligoric

Find The Winning MovesThree pages of tactical teasers from recent tournament games andbrilliancies by Svetozar Gligoric

Chess in the 1980sJohn Saunders recalls the English GM who might have been: Ian Wells

If you join them, you can beat them...IM Angus Dunnington looks at the psychology behind playinghigher-rated opponents

Overseas NewsA round-up of what’s been happening abroad

Home NewsA round-up of British chess news

Books Under The SpotlightSean Marsh reviews works by Boris Alterman and John Watson

New Books In BriefAll the latest books, DVDs and software

SolutionsAll the answers to the Find The Winning Moves and PositionalExercise features

Petrosian: Alive in SpiritJohn Saunders explores Armenia’s extraordinary success in team events

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4 October 2012

NEW EDITORYou wait more than twenty years for achange of editor and then three comealong before you can say Dr Who. Mythanks to Chess & Bridge GeneralManager Matthew Read for standing in forthis issue after John Saunders’ move toAssociate Editor. I am delighted toannounce that the editorship willhenceforth be a double act. Long timecontributor IM Richard Palliser and IMByron Jacobs, the brains behindEveryman Chess, will be taking the helmfrom the November issue. I know they willarrive with fresh ideas and will take themagazine forward into the digital age. Iwould like to reiterate how pleased I amthat John Saunders will continue tocontribute his historical and opinionpieces. In 2013, if not before, subscriberswill also be able to access a value addedonline edition of the magazine.

Preparations for the London ChessClassic continue apace. Please checkthe website for information on theschools’ activities which take place onDecember 3,4,6,7 and 10. Kids comefree to the London Chess Classic andNigel Short is now confirmed for twosimultaneous displays on Monday 3 andFriday 7 December. For further detailssee www.londonchessclassic.com

The FIDE Open runs across twoweekends so only requires a week offwork with multiple byes available.

Please go to the London Chess ClassicFacebook page and ‘like’ us for lots ofchess stories around the event and someexclusive offers. If you do dabble inFacebook, ‘like’ the London ChessCentre at the same time!

Tickets are now on sale online atLondonchessclassic com and you canorder the programme at the same time.

ARMENIA: THE CLEVEREST NATION ON EARTH

So runs the title of a BBC documentary.For the third time in four Olympiads,Armenia took the gold medals and kepttheir nerve in the last round better thananyone else. How do they do it ?

Levon Aronian again led from the frontand scored some big wins, even if he lostwhat looked like a crucial battle withVladimir Kramnik. Aronian took the prizefor the best TPR on board one and hiswins over Anish Giri and Vasily Ivanchukwere outstanding. Armenia’s lowestscorer was Sergei Movsesian, but it washe who saved a 2-2 draw against Russiaand who scored the crucial last round winagainst Hungary that secured gold afterthe leaders China imploded.

Speaking before the final day’s play,Garry Kasparov said that if China were tobe denied, then Ivanchuk must show hisgenius. This he did, in spectacular style(see Danny Gormally’s report). Howeverthings did not turn out well enough forRussia who were hampered by a poor tiebreak score. Sonneborn-Berger wascalculated by multiplying the number ofpoints a team scored against their

opponents by the match points of theseopponents at the end of the tournament.The lowest performing team waseliminated. Russia’s failure to dominateall the weaker teams cost them. It seemslike a ridiculous system to me. For onething, the spectators have no way offollowing it. The Tweetosphere becamethe Twitosphere as nobody had a clue.

John Nunn also pointed out a flaw; whentwo of a team’s opponents scored thesame number of match points, which onegets eliminated? Using board points orthe result of an individual match followedby board points is much simpler. It’sworth pointing out that Armenia scoredmore board points than Russia so theywould have won anyway.

Armenia deserve their success, theyhave support at the highest level. ThePresident of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, isalso Chairman of the Armenian ChessFederation. Here is an excerpt from hiswelcome speech at the PresidentialPalace: “Today, we are glorifying ourheroes. They serve as an example notonly to the young people but for all. In away, they symbolise our country, the roadour country and our people went down inthe past and will go down in the future.

Follow me on Twitter: @TelegraphChess

The winning Armenian team: (from l to r) Tigran Petrosian, Gabriel Sargissian,Vladimir Akopian(obscured), Sergei Movsesian, Levon Aronian, Arshak Petrosian (trainer)

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When we state that humans are thegreatest resource for our development,we mean human qualities just like theseones – strong, competitive in theinternational field, and patriotic. Greatresults through small means – that’s whatwe do, and they prove it for the thirdtime, leaving giants to trail behind.

I once again congratulate us all on theoccasion of this brilliant victory. This ismuch more precious for me than just avictory in sports. This victory is apowerful message sent by our chessplayers to our society and the entireArmenian nation that we are able ofaccomplishing a lot. This is a messageabout our strong and, if you will, weakpoints too. This is a message to us all,on how one should work, on what oneshould do and especially on what oneshouldn’t do ”

Well, hard to imagine David Cameronsummoning up that kind of oratory ifMickey, Nigel and the lads pulled off anunlikely triumph at Tromsø. I wonder ifCameron might like to take some time offrunning the country (which can’t be somuch fun) and have a go at beingPresident of the English ChessFederation? Bringing some sanity to theEC Forum can’t be any harder thansaving the economy and recently, thepost of President became vacant whenCJ De Mooi resigned. Despite devoting agreat deal of time and energy to the job,CJ became a divisive figure in 2011when there was that awful and totallyunnecessary publicity at the closingceremony of the British Championships.This was a shame, as CJ was doing agood job in many areas.

Some readers may be aware that theECF have an odd article in theconstitution which enables the ECFCouncil to elect ‘no candidate’ to a post. Istood a while back for Non ExecutiveDirector, and I was handsomely defeatedby the non-existent opponent. Thesecouncil members are a canny bunch. Iwould urge the Council to act again andgo for no candidate in the election for anew president. As I write, the onlycandidate is Roger Edwards and whilehe is a perfectly decent chap, I think hehas few qualifications for the job. Havingseen his manifesto, which hints atunravelling the Direct Membershipscheme, I am going to put the LCC votesinto the void. The Direct Membershipscheme, while far from perfect, is a greatachievement and vital to the ECF’ssolvency going forward. Outgoing ChiefExecutive Andrew Farthing must becongratulated for getting it this far. It’s ashame Andrew is leaving his post but hehas done a fine job.

Our contributor SteveGiddins’ blog issomewhat acerbic attimes, but he did asplendid piece ofinvestigation into RogerEdwards’ manifestowhich mentioned thathe was on the Wikipage of his alma materHarrogate GS. WhenGiddins looked intothis, he found, thanksto the open accessfeature of Wikipedia,that the entry had beenamended only veryrecently by someonewith an internet subscription from Sky inStoke on Trent when Mr Edwards lives.As they say in Private Eye, ‘I think weshould be told’

FOREIGN BODIES

As one post which should be contested isnot being so, another which should notbe contested is. Nigel Short is England’sFIDE delegate and, as our best knownplayer and a man who has visited andplayed chess in 100 countries, he has allthe credentials and experience. He ispassionately committed to the cause ofBritish chess and of developing the gamearound the world. He is also committedto the aim of removing KirsanIlyumzhinov. The next election is at theTromsø Olympiad in 2014. The antiIlyumzhinov camp consists mainly ofwestern democracies. Nigel has beenworking through the Kasparov ChessFoundation, a charity, to develop chessprojects in Africa and South America inorder to demonstrate that there is analternative to 'alienation'.

It is for all these reasons I am committedto opposing White Rose’s 4NCL teamcaptain Rupert Jones, who has puthimself forward. Rupert could not be amore unsuitable candidate. How canRupert possibly look after the interests ofthe English Chess Federation? He hasbeen formerly the FIDE delegate forBotswana and at the last Olympiad wasplaying for Papua New Guinea! Ruperthas been in FIDE a very long time,working his way up the greasy pole.Specifically, he is the current Secretary ofFIDE’s “Development Commission” whichcan hand out chess sets and clocks tocooperative federations. Although he willnot state this explicitly, he is clearly, inmy opinion the candidate for theIlyumzhinov camp. As Giddins also pointsout, Rupert would face a huge conflict ofinterest if he were the English delegate,unless the English Chess Federationdecides on a volte face and supportsIlyumzhinov and his cronies.

I think the choice for the ECF Council isclear; either we decide to support a manwho has done incalculable damage tothe reputation of the game, has a veryquestionable human rights record in hisown country, gives succour to suchdespots as Saddam Hussein (1990),Colonel Gaddafi (2011) and latterlyBashar al-Assad (2012) who is on recordas saying aliens brought the game ofchess to earth. Or we continue to fight tomake FIDE a better place.

FROM YEREVAN TO ALSO RAN

Russia looked a shoe in for gold afterbeating nearly all their rivals but cameunstuck against the USA. You could havegot long odds before the match on HikaruNakamura defeating Kramnik, who hadnever lost at an Olympiad before(!) andGata Kamsky overcoming AlexanderGrischuk with black. Dmitry Jakovenko,who won his individual board prizedefeated the prodigy Ray Robson but itwasn’t enough.

I’ll be damned if I vote for him: Roger Edwards (top-left) andinventor of the bouncing bomb, Sir Barnes Wallis (top-right) areboth alumni of Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham Boys’ School

Nigel Short is as passionate about British chessas he is about removing Kirsan from power

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6 October 2012

As the Armenians lorded it on thePresidential jet and flew back to Yerevan,the Russians reflected on being an alsoran. The picture of them receiving thesilver medals says it all. This was the fifthsuccessive time Russia has failed to win.The last time they took gold was Bled2002. The inquest was swift and one pointthat emerged was that the team mighthave benefitted from a doctor. InOlympiads past, the English teamenjoyed the comfort of having Dr JanaBellin in the delegation. This time, I aminformed, the Cuban team doctor cameto the rescue of our team.

DEMOTION AND PROMOTION

England performed very well, although theteam finished slightly below their seeding.Even in the absence of Luke McShane,England looked like medal contendersearly on as Nigel Short ran riot, enjoyingthe relative comfort of board three. MickeyAdams was super solid on top board andDavid Howell made light of starting withthree successive blacks. Disaster struck inthe match against the Philippines as theveteran Eugenio Torre defended superblyagainst Nigel Short and then pounced ona blunder just after the time control. Torrewas playing his twenty-first Olympiad andbroke Lajos Portisch’s all time record.Asia’s first ever GM and first ever WCCCandidate had a brilliant time and alsoupset the Hungarian GM Ferenc Berkesrated 2685. Not bad for a man rated 2469.At sixty years old, Torre was one of theoldest competitors.

As Short enjoyed demotion, GawainJones suffered a little with his promotionto board two. However Gawain receivedsome distressing news about his wifeSue Maroroa’s immigration status duringthe tournament and it couldn’t have beeneasy for him. The other home nationsdid not fare particularly well, althoughColin McNab scored a fine 5/9 on topboard for Scotland.

ISTANBULLY

Ali Nihat Yahici is making a name forhimself as the mad attack dog of FIDE. Hisproposals to remove several federationsfrom FIDE did not gain any traction at theassembly. Yet he continues his vendettaagainst GM Suat Atalik who criticised himpublicly; he was rewarded with a ban that‘Comical Ali’ has tried to extend to otherfederations with only limited success, I ampleased to say. Ali’s commitment to freespeech was further enhanced when hebanned Russian journalist Evgeny Surovfrom the Olympiad completely even thoughhe is the editor of www.chess-news.ru asuperb bi-lingual website and a source ofmuch original content. Surov was not evenallowed to attend as a spectator. Thisappears to be an act of revenge for an articlehe wrote which detailed some complaintsfrom participants at the 2011 Women’s TeamChampionship held in Turkey.

The man in charge of Turkish Chess dida decent job of organising the Olympiad.The website had its now traditional two-day wobble with chaos in the live games

but after that it was superb. You couldwatch 560 games at the same time if youwere so inclined. There were complaintsabout siting the venue near an airportand the prices generally in what shouldbe a relatively low-cost country inwestern terms. Still, if anyone wasworried about the prices in Istanbul theyare in for a shock when they get toNorway in two years time!

Increasingly, it looks like chess events areopen season to gouge the impoverishedchess community. Journalists had to pay a€100 fee ( about $130) to cover theevent. I think that must be a first even forFIDE. Yet another money making wheezewas the Official Olympiad book which cost€28. Ostensibly by Hayri Özbilen and M.Sabri Koçak, as Daim Shabbaz of the TheChess Drum (www.thechessdrum.net)pointed out, large chunks of it were simplycopied and pasted from the siteolimpbase.org. Olimpbase is a labour oflove by Wojiech Bartelski of Poland and awonderful resource for all with an interestin Olympiad statistics. It’s scandalous thathis work can be exploited commercially inthis way. As Daim writes, the classicplagiarism test is whether the mistakeshave been reproduced as well and yes,they have been.

BORIS BASKS IN THE BRONZE

The Summer Games are not quite over.One more medal winner got the chanceto shake Mayor of London BorisJohnson’s hand. Eight year-old JoshuaAltman, England’s youngest teammember, top scorer and sole medalist inthe 2012 European Youth ChessChampionships took hold vigorously. AndBoris, while offering his right hand and acrisp “Well done!” to young MasterAltman, reached toward a hidden shelfwith his left hand, revealing a beautifully

Smile for the Camera! The Russian team looking a tad dejected after being awarded silver.

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carved chess set - a gift to him from theRussian Chess Federation, andchallenged Joshua to a “friendly” game.Only 10 uproarious moves later, Borisdeclared “I resign!” Joshua gave a subtlenod and maintained a steady grin.

A CHESS MUM SPEAKS

The junior directorate of the ECF hasbeen revitalised this past year and I willbe putting my votes behind theincumbent Phil Ehr at the forthcomingelection. Our juniors are now betterprepared for international competitionand there is a concerted effort toorganise coaching not only for our elitejuniors, but for all those aspiring torepresent England. Prior to that theECF sent a squad to the World Juniorin Athens, an operation organised bythe outgoing Director of InternationalChess Lawrence Cooper, who will begreatly missed.

Below is a short extract from the report bythe mother of Ravi Haria and I bring it toyour attention because of her remarksabout school. It’s worth reflecting thatmost chess parents, unlike your editor,come into the chess world with no priorknowledge and experience. We shouldset our targets ambitiously but bear inmind that in these competitions, ourplayers are up against some state-sponsored opposition that have hugeresources behind them

Sonal Haria writes:The World Junior Chess Championship2012 took place between 2nd to 15th

August, in Athens, Greece. Thisinternational trip was organised and madepossible by Lawrence Cooper with bothLawrence and Mark Hebden coachingsome of the players (Lawrence coachedWilliam, Henrik, Lateefah and Megan andMark coached Yang-Fan, Callum and Ravi).

It was really impressive to see playersfrom England, Scotland, Wales andIreland celebrating successes and helpingeach other through the tough 13 roundtournament, which was attended by manyfull time junior chess professionals fromcountries whose leaders prioritise chessabove many other pursuits includingschool. The top under 20 Girl is fromChina and the top under 20 Boy fromTurkey. Our group all played close to orjust below their rating, but this is toostrong a tournament to expect to gainmuch in the way of rating points!

40 YEARS AGO

I revisited the twenty-first and final gameof the Match of the Century at Reykjavikwhich ended just over 40 years ago andlearnt more about just how deep BobbyFischer’s opening preparation was.

In those days, games were adjourned afterfive hours play. One player sealed a movein an envelope and that move wasrevealed the following day. Spassky sealed41 ¥d7 but realised the position was lostand resigned by phone. Nevertheless,Fischer turned up for the resumption ofplay the next morning just in case!

7...d5! must have been a huge shock toSpassky as it hadn’t been played for

95 years. What I found absolutelyfascinating was that after this sequencein the Scotch.

1 e4 e5 2 ¤f3 ¤c6 3 d4 exd4 4 ¤xd4 ¤f65 ¤c3 ¥b4 6 ¤xc6 bxc6 7 ¥d3 d5 8 exd5cxd5 9 ¥g5 0–0 10 0–0 c6 11 £f3 ¥d612 ¥xf6 £xf6 13 £xf6 gxf6 14 ¦fe1 c5

We reach this position:

And after Black’s 15th in the game belowwe reach this

Black has the extra moves ¥e6 and a6.a6 is not great but ¥e6 is just a tempo.

B.Spassky - R.FischerWorld Ch. (Game 21),Reykjavik 19721 e4 c5 2 ¤f3 e6 3 d4 cxd4 4 ¤xd4 a65 ¤c3 ¤c6 6 ¥e3 ¤f6 7 ¥d3 d5!Astonishing! Played only once before inGoering-Anderssen, 1877

8 exd5 exd5 9 0–0 ¥d6 10 ¤xc6 10 h3!?10...bxc6 11 ¥d4 0–0 12 £f3 ¥e613 ¦fe1 13 ¤a4 £a5 14 ¥xf6 £xa415 b3 £g4 is equal 13...c5 14 ¥xf6 £xf615 £xf6 gxf6 In comparison with one ofthe main lines of the Scotch Black has

Joshua Altman takes on the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, using a set Boris was given by the Russian Chess Federation. Judging from the position in the photograph he’s not

as bad as you’d imagine and obviously knows a bit about openings

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the extra moves ¥e6 and a7-a6 16 ¦ad1¦fd8 17 ¥e2 ¦ab8 Black is better as hisdoubled pawns are not on open files18 b3 c4! Spassky sacrifices theexchange as ¥d6-b4 would be annoying

19 ¤xd5 ¥xd5 20 ¦xd5

20...¥xh2+ 21 ¢xh2 ¦xd5 22 ¥xc4 ¦d223 ¥xa6 ¦xc2 24 ¦e2 ¦xe2 25 ¥xe2¦d8 26 a4 ¦d2 27 ¥c4 ¦a2 (Or 27...¦xf228 a5 ¢f8 29 a6 ¦b2) 28 ¢g3 ¢f829 ¢f3 ¢e7 30 g4 (30 ¢e3 f5 31 g3f4+!) 30...f5 Creating a passed ‘h’ pawn

31 gxf5 f6 32 ¥g8 h6 33 ¢g3 ¢d634 ¢f3 ¦a1 35 ¢g2 ¢e5 36 ¥e6 ¢f437 ¥d7 ¦b1 38 ¥e6 ¦b2 39 ¥c4 ¦a240 ¥e6 h5 41 ¥d7 0-1

Spassky resigned by phone although Fischerturned up for the resumption just in case!

41 ¥d7 h4 42 ¥e6 ¢g4 followed by h3+;41 ¥d5 ¢xf5 42 ¢g3 ¢g5 43 ¥e6 h4+44 ¢g2 ¢f4 45 ¥c8 f5 46 ¥b7 ¦b2 47 ¥d5¢e5 48 ¥c4 ¦a2 49 ¥b5 f4 50 ¥c4 ¢e4

DON’T SPECTATE, PARTICIPATE

A new kind of event comes to London onSunday October 14. The Spectator areorganising a festival of chess featuringlectures, tournaments and simuls to beheld at the Royal Geographic Society.Please see chess.spectator.co.uk or theadvert in this issue.

8 October 2012

Lily Cole showed brains as well as beauty at the launch party for the London Grand Prix whichwas held at Somerset House. Cole took on Veselin Topalov and although she was beaten easilyshe played a remarkably sound game as can be evidenced by the above picture. Cole said

she’d played little chess of late. “I’ve got a chess table but I burnt a hole in it.”A full report of the London Grand Prix will appear in the November issue

STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS!

Download the latest index to

CHESS MagazineThe index for volume 76 (April 2011 -

March 2012) is now available for download, completely

free of charge, from our website.

Visit the Downloads section at:www.chess.co.uk/index76.DOC

Editorial MP_Chess mag - 21_6_10 01/10/2012 08:46 Page 8

ED. WOOD

Your stint of 13 years as editor is verycommendable and the magazine has beenin excellent shape under your reign so youdeserve a vote of thanks. B.H.Wood wasof course a bit of a super human and acomplete chess fanatic; playing a lot ofchess right through until the end of his life.

An example of this was his participation inthe old style British Championship whichstated off with an all-play-all county stage.These were played usually on Autumnevenings from which a player or two(depending on the strength of entrants)progressed to the zonal stage. B.H. and Itied for a place in the zonal stage at theend of 1977 and were required to playtwo games to decide who went through.Peter Gibbs notified us of this during thetime that B.H. was at Hastings. Since thedeadline given was 24 January and wecould not start before 19 January wearranged to play them on the 19 and 24of January. Each game would be playedto a finish. The first game started at 7pmat the home of B.H.Wood and heresigned on move 99 just after 4.30am!Game 2 was shorter (58 moves) and Iresigned at about 1 a.m. Peter Gibbs waskeen for us to toss for the right to goforward but we insisted on doing thingsproperly so extra time was granted. Game 3 on the 1 February resulted in adraw after 45 moves at about 11.30pm.Game 4 on the 7 of February saw triumphfor me (at last) in 47 moves at about 1am.The stamina he had was amazing, at 68he was 30 years older than me, was stillrunning his business and, having lost hiswife, was fending for himself at home andsuffering from diabetes. Towards the endof his life he had to be assisted to chessmatches for his club. A few days beforehis death in hospital, he successfullyconcluded an adjourned game with aplayer from my club graded about 170.

I have CHESS magazine going back toissue No.1 because my father was astrong chess player and took the magazinefrom its inception. Father was doingresearch chemistry at BirminghamUniversity in the same laboratory as B.H.so this is not surprising. B.H. had a greatsense of humour and my father was sent arenewal reminder in late 1939, upon whichwas written “born (date given) a daughterMargaret Wood 1-0!” Father sent his sub inmid January with “born 9/1/1940 KeithIngram 1-1!” This went on until my fatherfinished things off at 4-4. Would I havehad more siblings if B.H. had continued?

Keith Ingram, Birmingham

CHESS’ FIRST FAMILY?

It surprised me that John Saunderschose this magazine (August, page 27)to declare the (aptly named) LittleWoodsas number one British chess family. BH Wood, his four children and his son-in-law Peter Clarke totalled about 1200BCF grading points in our heyday. Whatwe lacked in quality, we made up inquantity! (My niece Sally Clarke alsoonce beat Michael Adams). Perhaps thesurviving pensioners could still beat anyBritish family in a 4 or 5 board match? Inour age group, perhaps we could beatany family in the world?

Chris Wood, Germany

John's opinion that the Littlewoods would bethe first family of British chess was just anopinion and we're glad it provoked somedebate. Though his assertion that had allthree been in their prime today there wouldbe three grandmasters from the same familywould indeed be a record. In terms ofcontemporary chess I'd plump for theLedgers as the strongest family but one ofmy colleagues reckon that over 4 or even 5boards the Haslingers have a good claim.Other contenders would be the Houskas(especially now that Jovanka is married). Ifyou include in-laws we'd have to give the titleto Ray Keene, who is reinforced by IM DavidGoodman (brother of his wife), IM DavidLevy and (almost IM in strength) RichardEales (married at different times to Ray's oneand only sister!). If we went by marriage thenthe title surely goes to Jana Malypetrova anda team of her three ex-husbands - Hartston,Miles, Bellin - and one significant other -Plaskett - which adds up to no fewer thanfour ex-British Champions!

I have just read the article; An Interviewwith Andrew Paulson. The writers say inthe text 'I was hearing in my head agorgeous amalgam of the Sceptr'd islespeech from Henry V'. This speech isfrom Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1 spokenby the dying John of Gaunt. How HowardStaunton must be laughing.

Simon Bartlett, Cornwall

Thanks to Simon for pointing out the error. I'mfrom the video-game generation and firmlyblame my lack of a comprehensive educationon the fact that I had a comprehensiveeducation. John, on the other hand, studiedClassics at Cambridge so has no excuse.

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Readers' Letters

Letters for the editor should be sent toeditor@chess.co.uk or by post to

Chess Magazine, 44 Baker St, London W1U 7RT

Taverner1 £b5 ¤ any 2 £d3# but 1...¤e4 2 £d7#and, most importantly, 1...¤c4 2 £b1#where a black piece can be unpinned bythe mating agent because a line of fireof the former has been cut by an ally,i.e., 2...¦c2 is now impossible. Thistheme bears the name of (Frederick)Gamage but he did not show the ideauntil 1911 (Tidskrift för Schack). Othervariations are bountiful: 1...¢e4 2 £d3#,1...f6 2 ¤d6#, 1...¦xb5 2 ¦xb5#, 1...¦d5,e52 £x¦# and 1...f¦ any 2 ¦xf7#

Malmström1 ¢g4 (threat also after 1...¢xd5 2 f4#)1...¦xd5 2 £h2#. Or 1...¤xd5 2 ¤d3#. Or 1...exd5 2 £e1#. A trio of differentiatedmates follow the unwelcome arrival ofthree black men in turn on the samepotential escape square of their monarch.This sequence represents “Stocchiblocks” named after a composer born sixyears after Malmström’s (pioneer)problem appeared! In addition, 1...¥h5+2 £xh5#, 1...¦c5/1...¦xb6 2 £h8# and1...¦c4+ 2 ¤xc4#

Nemo1 ¤g7 threatening 2 ¤c6, 2 ¤e6+ and 2 b6+ with mate to follow each time. If 1...¢d6 2 ¤ef5+ ¢c7 3 ¤e6#.Otherwise, we have 1...e4 or 1...¢d8 2 ¤c6(+) and 3 ¤e8#/1...¥a7 or 1...c4 2 ¤e6+ ¢b8 (2...¢d6 3 ¤f5#) 3 ¤c6#/1...d4 2 b6+ ¢d6 (2...¢d8 3 ¤c6#) 3 ¤gf5#. Each of the threethreatened mating processes hassurvived on its own (“threat separation”).The sequence bears the name of theHungarian composer Fleck who was notyet alive when Nemo’s problemappeared. For further examples of theFleck see September 2010 issue, p27.

Solutions to Problem Album (from page 33)

1 c7! ¦c81...¥b62 dxe7 ¥xc73 ¤e6 ¦g84 e8£+¦xe85 ¤xc7+¢b6 6 ¤xe81-0 2 d7¦xc7 2...¦g8

3 c8£ ¦xg5 4 ¥e2+ ¢a4 5 £c6+ ¢a36 £f3+ ¥e3 7 £xe3+ ¢a2 8 ¥c4+ ¢a19 £d4. 3 d8£ ¥b6+! 3...¥d6+ 4 ¢d1¦c5 5 ¤e4 ¦d5+ 6 ¢c2 ¦d4 7 ¢c3¦c4+ 8 ¢d3 ¦xe4 9 ¥e8+ ¢b4 10 ¢xe41-0 4 ¢d3! 4 ¢b3? a4+! 5 ¢b2 ¦c2+6 ¢xc2 = 4...¦c3+ 5 ¢xc3 ¥xd8 6 ¤e6¥b6 7 ¥e8. Winner of the £25 voucherwas C.Duffy, Dunfermline

Solution to May’s Study for Solving

Non_corrupt-Letters_Chess mag - 21_6_10 01/10/2012 08:49 Page 9