1...cxb1, 2. Rd1
1...Kg1, 2. Be3
1...Ke1, 2. Bd2>

Yep, the trick is figuring out what to do about Black's Ke1. It's clear you have to either stop it or threaten mate if Black should play it, and the former doesn't get much of anywhere. I also noticed that 1.Rd1+ (surely a thematic try) would be mate next move if not for 1....cxd1=N. But this move remains central to the play after the true key.

Here's another one. More lightweight, but not as hard. It has a neat trick.

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--- Lodewijk Prins

Try googling "give away chess." This is the variant where the winner is the one who loses all his pieces or gets mated first. You would see some very strange strings of captures in this form of chess.

The new Russia remains a strange and dangerous place.

<ALLOW HIM to lead you through the chambers of his Moscow office, the entire floor of a six-story building he owns, and Shabtai von Kalmanovic—international businessman, former Soviet spy, lifelong basketball Bennie—will impress upon you one additional entry on his r�sum�. "I am a collector," he says between gestures toward his private acquisitions. Here are rooms full of menorahs and mezuzahs, part of a collection of Judaica so impressive, he says, that rabbis come from around the world to inspect it. Here too are Faberg� eggs and Russian folk paintings and Soviet curiosities such as a limited-edition chess set (Red Bolsheviks vs. White Russians) commissioned by Stalin himself.

And then there are Kalmanovic's women. More precisely, there are his female basketball players, the three gemstones of which reside on the southern edge of Moscow, in a gated villa replete with sauna, indoor pool and on-call cook, and are showcased on his Spartak Moscow Region Vidnoe team, the defending Russian and Euroleague champions. A discerning collector would be sure to acquire only the finest specimens, and so Kalmanovic has. This season Spartak features seven Olympic medalists, including the players he regards as the world's best at their positions: guards Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi and center Lauren Jackson.

These three wintering WNBA stars call their mullet-haired benefactor Papa, and he in turn calls Bird "my Jewish daughter," Taurasi "my Italian daughter" and Jackson "my Australian daughter." Free of WNBA payroll restrictions, Shabtai's Angels earn up to 10 times more during a Russian season—around $500,000 for Taurasi, for example—than during a U.S. summer. After big Euroleague wins, Spartak players collect cash bonuses of $5,000 and diamond jewelry. On trips to play club teams in provincial cities in France and Italy they make Kalmanovic-arranged shopping stopovers in Paris and Venice. "We don't do it backpack-style," Jackson says. "We do it seven-star-hotel-, chauffeur-style."

I found a couple of neat traps I was able to use several times, but only one of which I can remember now:

<1.b3 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.bxc4 Qxd2+ 4.Qxd2??>

Any other capture on d2 is better, but you'd be surprised at the number of people who made this blunder.

<4...b5 5.cxb5 Nc6 6.bxc6 Bb7 7.cxb7>

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[White "MonstruoAntediluviano"]
[Black "glory"]
[Event "InstantChess"]
[BlackElo "1734"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ICCause "0"]
[ICEcause "2"]