ROUND 1 – RECOGNIZE THE POSITIONS

Each of the following is the final position in a game won by a world champion. Name the champion in each case. 1 point for the champion, and one bonus point if you can name his opponent.

Position 1

Position 2

Position 3

Position 4

Position 5

Position 6

Position 7

Position 8

Position 9

Position 10

ROUND 2 – ANAGRAMS

The following are all anagrams of players, who are playing in this year’s Masters. One point for each.   

1. Me dank herb

2. A sacred birth

3. Tucson squatter

4. I’ll ram any lodge

5. Bald gal icon

6. Clarinet shop

7. We rent a dreg

8. Grave diddle

9. I’ll miss aim now

10. Sober? Sir Chic! 

ROUND 3 – CHAMPIONS ALL  

1. Who holds the record for winning the British Championship most times?

2. What was unique about Fischer’s victory in the 1963-4 US Championship?

3. Who is the reigning British Ladies Champion?

4. Who recently became the first African player to win a world title?

5. How many world championship matches did Botvinnik play?

6. Who won the Soviet Championship three times between 1963-67?

7. Who finally ended Max Euwe’s 30+ year reign as Dutch champion in 1954?

8. Which veteran IM, still playing chess today, was British Champion in 1970?

9. In 1978, the USSR failed to win the Olympiad for the first time ever. Who beat them into second place?

10. Who was the first Soviet player to win the World Junior Championship? 
    

ROUND 4 – QUOTE UNQUOTE

1. Who wrote that the 1965 Dutch champion, Lodewijk Prins, “can’t tell a bishop from a knight”?

2. Who claimed that “Chess is the art of analysis”?

3. Which master said “I detest the endgame. A properly-played game should be decided in the middlegame”

4. Who described chess as “the greatest waste of intellect that you will find, anywhere outside an advertising agency”?

5. Which world champion claimed that he could give odds of a knight to any woman alive?

6. Who wrote that “as one by one I mowed them down, my superiority became evident”?

7. Tony Miles once said that he only played the Czech Benoni once every five years? Why?

8. Who once described a certain opening line as “dubious, therefore playable”?

9. Who wrote that “Of my 57 years, I have devoted at least 30 to forgetting most of what I have learned or read, and since I succeeded in this, I have acquired a certain ease and cheer which I should never again like to be without”?

10. Who said that “an enemy passed pawn is a dangerous criminal, who should be kept under lock and key”?

ROUND 5 – RELATIVITY THEORY

1. Which world champion has had wives called Masha, Julia and Dasha?

2. Which world champion had a chess-playing brother called Berthold?

3. What do the wives of Mikhail Botvinnik, Ray Keene and Viorel Bologan have in common?

4. Which of the three Polgar sisters is the oldest?

5. Which world champion explained the failure of his first marriage by saying that “My wife and I were like a pair of opposite-coloured bishops”?

6. What is the Christian name of Vladimir Kramnik’s wife?

7. What do Bill Hartston, Tony Miles and Robert Bellin have in common?

8. Which WGM is married to Alexander Grischuk?

9. What do Nick Pert, Alisa Maric and David Eggleston all have in common?

10. Which grandmaster’s daughter was married to David Bronstein?

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