The venue for Society meetings has changed and the directions to it given on p. 126 of the July 2017 issue are incorrect. Meetings are held at the Hall of St. Botolph’s Church, Bishopsgate, London EC2M 3TL. The Hall is set in a small garden behind the church, less than 2 minutes’ walk from Liverpool St. mainline and underground stations.
Given the paucity of entertainment which appears to be emerging from the world
championship match in Chennai (an overdose of "Chicken Madras", as former Chess
editor John Saunders characterised it!), I thought it might be a good time to set
something a bit more challenging than usual. So we have a great moremover by a
legendary British composer, the late Norman Macleod. There is an obvious battery on
the long white diagonal, but how to get the WK out of the way?
The try 1.Kd5? (threat 2.Kxc4 mate) fails to 1...c1Q! 2.Nxc1 Qxb2, when Black has the
defence 3.Kxc4+ Qg2. Instead, more subtlety is required: 1.Kf3! (threat 2.Kg4 mate)
Rh4 2.Kg2! (Threat 3.Kf1) dxe2 3.Kf3! (threat 4.Kxe2) c1S But now Black has been
forced to under-promote to a knight on c1, so now we can revert to the original
idea. 4.Ke4 (threat 5.Kf5) Rh5 5.Kd5 (threat 6.Kxc4) Qb4 (Now forced, since the
try-defence of queening on c1 is no longer available) 6.Kc6 (threat 7.Kc7
mate) Qe7 7.Kb5+ Qb7 8.Bxb7#
A superb problem, which netted Norman the maximum 12 points in the relevant FIDE
Album.
Any comments or questions on this problem should be addressed to
Steve Giddins (our Libarian and Archivist) using the 'Contact'
item in the menu on the left.
2013 