The Times - UK (2022-04-09)

the times | Saturday April 9 2022 saturday review 53

Nakamura is known as an on-

line blitz expert. From his vast ex-

perience in that domain, he has

mastered the art of measured

provocation. Rather than main-

tain Black’s solidity with 16...Nc7,

he tempts the opponent into a

committal decision. 17 Nxc6 Ob-

jectively this appears strong, al-

though White’s position becomes

difficult to handle. 17...bxc6 18

Bxc6 Bf5 19 e4 Bg6 20 f3 20

e5! is more energetic. 20...Ng4

Already the momentum shifts in

Black’s favour. Extensive blitz has

also helped Nakamura to hone

his instincts in endgames and po-

sitions with material imbalances.

21 Bc1 Bc5+ 22 Kg2 Ne3+ 23 Bxe3

Bxe3 24 Nh3 Nb4 25 Bxe8 Rxe8

26 Nf4 Nxa2 27 Nd5 Bc5 28 Ra1

Nb4 29 Nxb4 Mamedyarov ne-

glects to improve the other rook:

29 Rfc1 Nd3 30 Rd1. 29...Bxb4 30

Rxa7 f5! Nakamura cracks open

the position for his powerful

bishops. 31 exf5 Re2+ 32 Kh1

Bxf5 33 Rb7? A losing blunder. 33

g4 was essential, blocking the

bishop’s route towards the white

king. 33...Bh3 34 Rc1 Bc5! White

resigns. The bishops win the day.

35...Bg2 mate is the deadly threat,

and if 35 Rxc5 Re1 mate.

Winning Move

White to Play. Varation from

Ding-Xu, Hangzhou 2022. The

Chinese chess federation has

been spurred into action upon

discovering that the door has

opened for Ding Liren to make it

to the Candidates. A four-player

double round-robin was hastily

arranged to ensure that Ding —

who had not competed at the

board for more than a year —

would reach the required number

of games to be classed as an “ac-

tive” player on Fide’s rating list.

Somewhat incredibly, Ding

scored 10.5 points out of 12.

Meanwhile the three remaining

participants played only draws

between each other. Can you spot

how Ding could have finished off

one of his early games in spectac-

ular style?

The first correct entry drawn on

Thursday will receive a copy of

Collins English Dictionary and

Thesaurus. The two runners-up

will receive a book prize. Answers

on a postcard to: The Times Win-

ning Move, PO Box 2164, Col-

chester, Essex CO2 8LJ, or email

to: [email protected].

Open to 18+, UK and ROI resi-

dents only. The answer will be

published next Saturday.

Solution to last week’s puzzle: 1

Nxa5+! wins: 1...bxa5 (1...Qxa5 2

b4 traps the black queen) 2 Rb3.

Black loses the queen for insuffi-

cient material.

               

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If a problem area on the board is

not nullified immediately, it can

become a major concern for the

remainder of the game. Consider

the board extract below. Can

you find the two 85-point plays?

Which one would you play when

faced with a 27-point deficit?

(Both NY (J1a) and TUI (L3d)

can be end-hooked with S.)

BEIQSSU

This was a position deliberated

over at length by former

US national champion Will

Anderson against Matthew

Tunnicliffe in a game from the

2022 Canadian Scrabble Classic.

The bonus word option in

column 3 is a strong choice as it

eliminates Tunnicliffe’s chances

of responding with a bonus word

ending with the common -S or -E

suffixes at J3. The only drawback

is that, unlike the other option,

row O would be left open for a

potentially huge-scoring bonus

word using an -S hook on TUI.

However, all four S’s have already

been played, meaning that

pluralising TUI is only possible

with one of the two blank tiles. In

addition, Tunnicliffe would need

to find a bonus word beginning

with S, considerably less likely

than finding one ending in S.

Anderson chose the option

in column 3 en route to victory,

and row O was ultimately not

utilised, but the area undoubtedly

represented a concern for

Anderson for the remainder of

the game.

In such situations, securing a

seven-letter word beginning with

a blank declared as S is unlikely

but possible. Unfortunately, in

a similar scenario, an opponent

of mine managed this feat in

the final game of a major UK

tournament. Can you find the

bonus word on the main board

below using the following rack?

ADEFRT

Definitions

1< DYDULDQWRI1,*+ZKLFK

 PD\EHXVHGDVDYHUE

 PHDQLQJ³WRDSSURDFK ́

78, D1HZ=HDODQG

 KRQH\HDWHUELUG

Collins Official Scrabble Words is the word authority used.

Word positions use the grid reference plus (a)cross or (d)own.

/ double letter square (dl) /triple letter

square (tl)

:double word square (dw) :triple word square (tw)

Letter

values

SRLQW

aeiou

lnrst

SRLQWV

dg

SRLQWV

bcmp

SRLQWV

fhvwy

k 

jx 

qz 

SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark of J. W. Spear & Sons Ltd ©Mattel 2022

Chess David Howell

Solution to Cryptic

Jumbo 1547

The winner is

Mr Robin Parker

of Holt, Norfolk

DASHBOARD AGA I NS T SA I NT

IHECILMOOUNH

SEALANT COMFORT P I PETTE

PKS I TAN I MRER

ELECTROMAGNET I CWAVE RAM

RLNTAHESMDA

SORD I D PONCHO ACTUAR I AL

EONER FB CC

SUPERV I SOR SOL I PS I ST I C

ATSAH I UERS U

FLIES CRINGING DISTRACT

RN UPHDMG L L

EXEMPLAR STEAMI NG SOUSE

SATEHYRITMT

HYPOTHERM I A SAT I SFY I NG

AR EN HHLUP

PERSIMMON DIEOFF FIESTA

ETAADECUHS N

RAT R I CHARDTHE L I ONHEART

UICBTNENONMH

GUMSHOE I CE F LOE PREC I SE

I EATOSOS L SGO

APR I L HANDSON SWANSDOWN

Solution to times2

Jumbo 1547

The winner is

Ms Jane Merrick

of London SE22

Correction

In the solution to

times2 Jumbo No

1546, the answers

at 25 Across

and 26 Down

should have read

STILL HUNT

and TAROT

respectively. We

apologise for the

errors.

Cell Blocks 4440

Suko 3459

Mindset

1 MIND SET. Songs are: Just

Like Starting Over (John

Lennon); We All Stand

Together (Paul McCartney); It

Don’t Come Easy (Ringo

Starr); Got My (Mind Set) on

Yo u (George Harrison).

2 There are three senior

Tradition judges, one senior

Reform judge, one senior

Green judge, three junior

Tradition judges, and four

junior Reform judges.

3 Red, the colours of the

letters in the Google logo.

Word Watch: Noup (b) An

overhang (Collins).

Underfong (a) To overcome

(Chambers). Humlie (c) A

hornless cow (OED).

Recalcitrate (c) To kick out

at (Collins).

Polygon corsetry, cosy, cryer,

cyst, eyot, oyes, oyster,

rectory, retry, rorty, rosy, ryot,

Polygon Roger Phillips

Using the given letters no more than

once, make as many words as possible of

four or more letters, always including

the central letter. Capitalised words,

plurals, conjugated verbs (past tense

etc), adverbs ending in LY, comparatives

and superlatives are disallowed.

How you rate: 12 words average;

17, good; 25, very good; 33, excellent.

Answers to Friday’s Polygon are to the

left. Today’s answers are printed in

MindGames on Monday

Cell Blocks 4441

Divide the grid into square

or rectangular blocks, each

containing one digit only. Every

block must contain the number

of cells indicated by the digit

inside it.

Yesterday’s solution, left

© PUZZLER MEDIA

The winner is John Morgan of

Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambs

scry, scryer, secretory,

sorcery, sorry, storey, story,

stye, syce, terry, toey, trey,

troy, tyre, tyro, yore.

Scrabble

BISQUES (D3d), SQUIBS

(O3a); STRAFED (A10d) —

76 points.

Literary quiz 1 Middlemarch

by George Eliot. 2 Fahrenheit

451 by Ray Bradbury.

3 The Remains of the Day by

Kazuo Ishiguro. 4 Saturday

Night & Sunday Morning by

Alan Sillitoe.

Cryptic Quintagram 1 Newt

2 Lathe 3 Nepal 4 The Shard

5 Madagascan.

6285'28*+ 0,1,&$% )2&86

/ 5 2 1 2 2 2 5 8 / 5 ,

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Scrabble® Paul Gallen

AAAAAAAC

DDEEEEGH

HHL LMNNN

PRSSTTTW

1 Went out to get amphibian (4)

2 Delayed pinching husband’s tool
(5)

3 Country needs some jalapenos
returning (5)

4 Somehow thrashed London’s tallest
building (3,5)

5 Crazy to get a petrol container
from Africa (10)

Solve all five cryptic clues using
each letter underneath once only

---

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---

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Cryptic Quintagram® Word Watch

David Parfitt

Noup

a. A firm denial

b. An overhang

c. A downhill path

Underfong

a. To overcome

b. To score less than par

c. Dense low foliage

Humlie

a. An all-terrain vehicle

b. Excessively modest

c. A hornless cow

Recalcitrate

a. To become immoveable

b. Chalky

c. To kick out at

Solve Cryptic Quintagram every weekday online

Go to thetimes.co.uk

Answers below Answers below

Candidates, assemble!

The line-up for this summer’s

Candidates Tournament is al-

most complete. Controversy and

uncertainty have, however,

marred the process of finding the

next challenger for Magnus Carl-

sen. With only two months until

the first game is played in Madrid,

let us examine the qualification

paths of the eight prospective

players.

Chronologically, Teimour

Radjabov was the first name on

the 2022 Candidates list. He was

granted a wildcard by Fide after

withdrawing from the previous

cycle in protest over Covid-19

regulations. Jan-Krzysztof Duda

and Sergei Karjakin secured their

spots as finalists of the 2021

World Cup. Next, Alireza Firouz-

ja and Fabiano Caruana were

confirmed after finishing in the

top two at the Grand Swiss. Ian

Nepomniachtchi automatically

received a place in the Candi-

dates as the runner-up in the pre-

vious world championship

match. Despite the current ban

on Russian players competing in-

ternationally, he will likely be al-

lowed to play under a neutral flag.

Hikaru Nakamura and Richard

Rapport filled the seventh and

eighth spots last week after their

performances in the Grand Prix

series.

One lingering question re-

mains. Sergei Karjakin was

handed a six-month ban by the

Fide ethics committee after

several outbursts on Twitter sup-

porting Russia’s invasion of

Ukraine. Pending an appeal, it

seems probable Karjakin will be

replaced by Ding Liren — the

highest-ranked player who is not

already qualified for the Candi-

dates Tournament.

White: Shakhriyar Mamedyar-

ov

Black: Hikaru Nakamura

Fide Grand Prix, Berlin 2022

English Opening

1 c4 Nf6 2 g3 e5 3 Bg2 c6 4 d4

exd4 5 Qxd4 Na6 Hikaru Naka-

mura’s victory in the Grand Prix

was remarkable given that he

now focuses on his streaming

career. Indeed, he had not played

over-the-board classical chess in

two-and-a-half years prior to his

successful campaigns in Berlin.

Here he adopts a strategy from

the Alapin Sicilian, but with col-

ours reversed. 6 Nc3 Bc5 7 Qd1

0-0 8 Nf3 d6 9 0-0 Be6 10 b3 d5

11 cxd5 Nxd5 12 Ne4 Be7 13 Bb2

Nf6 14 Neg5 Qxd1 15 Raxd1 Bc8

A sad retreat, though a bishop-

for-knight trade cannot be toler-

ated with the centre open. 16 Nd4

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