I was 14 and I was hopelessly and utterly in love. The other boys in the class couldn't see it, but I knew that she was special. She was slim, raven-haired and green-eyed. But it was the way that she held herself that captivated you. She had an easy elegance. Where the other girls were sassy and brassy, she was a class above. Catherine Deneuve or Joanna Lumley to their Barbara Windsor or Raquel Welch.

For the other girls, the height of sophistication was to drink Pernod and black, and to have most of their tattoos spelt correctly. For them, no skirt was too short, no blouse too tight and no cleavage too vertiginous. But she was elegant beyond words.

It took me weeks to gather the courage to ask for a date. I can't remember how I asked, but I can certainly remember her reply.

"No," she said, with a little hint of a soft laugh in her voice.

And in that gentle half-laugh, she was saying "Not you, not with me, not ever." She was an uptown girl, but I was no Billy Joel.

She was also saying that she was expecting me to ask her out, was wondering when I would get around to it, had noticed my feelings for her. But for her, everything was under control. Even in rejection she was classy, elegant, sophisticated.

The pleasantness in her voice was a way of saying: "It's okay to ask - I'm used to it. And there's nothing wrong with having dreams above your station."

Weeks later, I found out that she was secretly dating another boy in her class, whose father played golf with her father. And with a gallic shrug you can say "it figures".

In today's puzzle, white's 13. Nxf7 is an impudent chat up-line. But black plays it cool. And with 14...Qd5, one little move achieves a great deal:

1. It protects the Bb5 from capture.

2. It seals off the diagonal to the black king.

3. It offers an exchange of queens, which white (now a whole piece down) cannot accept.

4. It threatens a back rank mate if white plays 15. exd5

5. It shows white that black had seen all this from way before Nxf7. It was all calculated, expected, under control.

But most of all, black is making a statement about knowing your station in life. 14. Qd5 also says: "And that is what it means to be ELO 2532."

I am at the airport, and had just a couple of minutes to solve this.

I play through these positions with my pegged travel chess board. Like most others here, it was just a second before I spotted ♘xf7 followed by ♕b3+. When thinking about the only resource Black had to block the check and save the bishop, because moving the king was obviously winning for White, the only possibility was ♕d5.

Obviously, that put the queen en prise, and I considered whether White could make ♙exd5 work. ♖xe1+ would be Black's response, but White had the knight on d2. So does that save White's game? No, because — irony of ironies — the very bishop White wants to capture is covering the f1 square, so 16. ♘f1▢ ♖xf1#. Thus, the sacrificial line is a bust.

13.Nxf7 was a blunder, -2.36.
Alternatives were:- (none really flash)

Analysis by Rybka 3 1-cpu:

1. (-1.21): 13.Ng4 Bc6 14.Nxf6+ Qxf6 15.Qc2 Qd4 16.a4 Rad8 17.h3

2. (-1.28): 13.a4 Rxe5 14.axb5 Nxe4 15.Nxe4 Qxd1 16.Rxd1 Rxe4 17.h3 h5 18.g3 Rb4 19.Rd5 Bxb2 20.Bxb2 Rxb2 21.Rc5 a5 22.bxa6 Rxa6 23.Rxa6 bxa6 24.Kg2 Rb7

3. (-1.36): 13.f4 Qd4+ 14.Kh1[] Rad8 15.Qf3 Nh5 16.Nb3 Qb4 17.Be3 b6 18.Rac1 f6 19.Ng4 Qxe4 20.Qxe4 Rxe4 21.Nf2 Ra4 22.Rxc7 Bf8 23.f5

4. (-1.48): 13.Nef3 Nxe4 14.Nxe4[] Qxd1[] 15.Rxd1 Rxe4 16.Rb1 Rae8 17.Be3 b6 18.b3 c5 19.Rd6 R4e6 20.Rbd1 h6

This puzzle was hilarious.