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

Steinitz-van Bardeleben, Hastings 1895

Position 2

Bernstein-Capablanca, Moscow 1914

Position 3

Alekhine-Nimzowitsch, San Remo 1930

Position 4

Bovinnik-Capablanca, AVRO 1938

Position 5

Petrosian-Spassky, World Championhip 1966

Position 6

D Byrne-Fischer, Rosenwald tourney 1956

Position 7

Karpov-Unzicker, Milan 1975

Position 8

Karpov-Kasparov, Linares 1993

Position 9

Larsen-Spassky, Belgrade 1970

Position 10

Kramnik-Leko, Brissago 2004

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    (Mark Hebden)

2. A sacred birth    (Richard Bates)

3. Tucson squatter    (Stuart Conquest)

4. I’ll ram any lodge    (Danny Gormally)

5. Bald gal icon    (Bogdan Lalic)

6. Clarinet shop    (Nicholas Pert)

7. We rent a dreg    (Andrew Greet)

8. Grave diddle    (David Ledger)

9. I’ll miss aim now    (Simon Williams)

10. Sober? Sir Chic!    (Chris Briscoe)

ROUND 3 – CHAMPIONS ALL  

1. Who holds the record for winning the British Championship most times?   (Jonathan Penrose)

2. What was unique about Fischer’s victory in the 1963-4 US Championship?   (He won all 11 games)

3. Who is the reigning British Ladies Champion?   (Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant)

4. Who recently became the first African player to win a world title?   (Ahmed Adly of Egypt)

5. How many world championship matches did Botvinnik play?   (Seven)

6. Who won the Soviet Championship three times between 1963-67?   (Leonid Stein)

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

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

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

10. Who was the first Soviet player to win the World Junior Championship?    (Spassky, in 1955)
    

ROUND 4 – QUOTE UNQUOTE

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. Tony Miles once said that he only played the Czech Benoni once every five years? Why?   (“Because it takes me that long to forget how bad it is!”)

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

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”?   (Lasker)

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

ROUND 5 – RELATIVITY THEORY

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

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

3. What do the wives of Mikhail Botvinnik, Ray Keene and Viorel Bologan have in common?   (They were all ballet dancers)

4. Which of the three Polgar sisters is the oldest?   (Susan)

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”?   (Spassky)

6. What is the Christian name of Vladimir Kramnik’s wife?   (Marie Laure)

7. What do Bill Hartston, Tony Miles and Robert Bellin have in common?   (They were all married to Jana)

8. Which WGM is married to Alexander Grischuk?   Natalia Zhukova)

9. What do Nick Pert, Alisa Maric and David Eggleston all have in common?   (They are all twins)

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