2010 PRESENT HUNT PRIZES SPONSORED BY:

See previous contests:
The 2007 Present Hunt | The 2008 Present Hunt | The 2009 Present Hunt | The 2010 Present Hunt
The 2011 Present Hunt | The 2012 Present Hunt | The 2013 Present Hunt | The 2014 Present Hunt
The 2015 Present Hunt | The 2016 Present Hunt

RULES FOR THE 2010 HOLIDAY PRESENT HUNT: Each clue below refers to a chess game in our database, and these games contain a banner that you can click on to claim a present. Be the first to find the game and click the banner to claim your prize. We will be adding more clues to this page at random intervals until December 25th, 2010. See our Official Rules to view the prizes and for other important information.

NOTE: You are not currently signed into Chessgames.com. In order to claim a prize, you must have an account. Registration is easy, free, and confidential. If you don't have an account already, visit our Registration Page page to get a free account now! If you do have an account, sign-in so you can claim prizes.

The 2010 Holiday Present Hunt is over. Congratulations to all the winners, and have a wonderful holiday! The Chessgames Staff     Sorry, there are no unsolved clues right now. We will post several clues each day, so keep using Chessgames and you're bound to see one when it goes live.

THESE CLUES HAVE BEEN SOLVED: [click here for short list]

clue #1: prize claimed by Frank Castle! VA vs PJ SOLUTION:  Anand vs J Polgar, 2010 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  An easy warm-up--just the initials of the players (surname first). Get ready for must more cryptic clues, and good luck! clue #2: prize claimed by druid! Petrosian's early notes give some more example endgames to study. SOLUTION:  Z Peng vs Smeets, 2004 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Read the first letter of each word to get P-E-N-G-S-M-E-E-T-S. clue #3: prize claimed by Simonkaser! SOLUTION:  A Bach vs B Badea, 2008 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The photo is a still from the movie Arthur, in which Dudley Moore (center) plays the role of millionaire playboy Arthur Bach. The scene depicts Arthur bribing a hospital worker to bring gourmet food to his butler and chess aficionado, Hobson. clue #4: prize claimed by hms123! 1 2 3 4 5 1  ❒ ❒ ❒ ❒ ❒ 2  ❒ ❒ ❒ ❒ ❒ 3  ❒ ❒ ❒ ❒ ❒ 4  ❒ ❒ ❒ ❒ ❒ 5  ❒ ❒ ❒ ❒ ❒            Across: Cartoon dog Player with the black pieces Military flight test It can be hard Latvian javelin girl    Down: Old computers Player with the white pieces A knight for a bishop, e.g. Swindles Orate out of order SOLUTION:  S Safin vs D Barua, 2000 PRIZE:  Chessgames T-Shirt COMMENT:  The solution to the acrostic is: A S T R O B A R U A A F A S T C I D E R I N E S E clue #5: prize claimed by Oliveira! SOLUTION:  Sliwa vs C H Alexander, 1958 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  This is game 1278318 and the symbols above the man's head can be produced if you hold the shift-key on your keyboard and press 1278318. clue #6: prize claimed by shrdlu! The Fourth of July Center of an ellipse Norwegian leader SOLUTION:  The World vs H Yin, 2000 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The name YIN is spelled out: The 4th letter of July is "y", the central letter of "ellipse" is "i", and the word "Norwegian" leads with "n". clue #7: prize claimed by child in time! SOLUTION:  P Ascic vs D Stojanovski, 2003 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Sign-language for ASCIC. clue #8: prize claimed by crawfb5! The most prejudiced player ever loses again. SOLUTION:  L Bigot vs C Purdy, 1947 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Bigot is a Dutch name stemming from "Bigodi" meaning "by God". clue #9: prize claimed by garrykasparov! qeeopow SOLUTION:  J Piket vs Kasparov, 2000 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Oops, my fingers were one row too low on my keyboard! clue #10: prize claimed by The HeavenSmile! Short's first opponent's first opponent's last opponent's last opponent's first opponent's first opponent's first opponent's last game. SOLUTION:  A Markov vs P Vinogradov, 1916 PRIZE:  The book Mastering Positional Chess from New in Chess COMMENT:  The trick is to begin with Robert Short, Canadian champion of 1890, and from there everything plays itself out. Short's first opponent in our database was Emanuel Lasker. Lasker's first opponent was Curt von Bardeleben. Von Bardeleben's last opponent was a team, Marshall & Allies. The Marshall team last played against Reuben Fine. Fine's first opponent was Arthur Dake. Dake's first game in our database is against Alexander Alekhine. Alekhine's first opponent was Paul Vinogradov. And this is Vinogradov's last game. clue #11: prize claimed by crawfb5! SOLUTION:  W Schmidt vs T Tsagan, 1964 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The graphic is the Arecibo Message designed by Carl Sagan (name similar to Tsagan). It represents a message sent into deep space to announce our existance to hypothetical alien intelligences. clue #12: prize claimed by Kvasir! CLICK HERE TO LISTEN MP3 playing ability required; if your browser cannot play MP3 files try downloading it to your hard-drive (right click; Save As...) then play it in your favorite MP3 player. SOLUTION:  Keene vs P Hammer, 1979 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The song "If I Had a Hammer" wasn't referring to Jon Ludwig Hammer, but rather Peter Hammer. After all, this is Peter Paul & Mary. clue #13: prize claimed by shalgo! SOLUTION:  Parma vs J Qi, 1979 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  This "crop circle" depicts the popular BBC quiz show QI. The designers of the crop circle (who are entirely terrestial) confessed to their mischief on QI series H, episode 3. clue #14: prize claimed by acirce! (the 6th primeval number) * (the 16th Eisenstein Prime) * (the year that Emperor Trajan began his war against Parthia) SOLUTION:  H Malm Lindberg vs J Bellon Lopez, 2006 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  All three numbers are the same: the 6th primeval number is 113, the 16th Eisenstein prime is 113, and the year that Emperor Trajan began his expedition against Parthia is 113. 113 cubed gives the game number of 1,442,897. clue #15: prize claimed by OhioChessFan! The most criminal player ever loses again. SOLUTION:  E Winslow vs K Lawless, 1981 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Play on the word lawless. clue #16: prize claimed by BVer! Blow our minds SOLUTION:  Bowie vs Lasker, 1913 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The clue is a phrase from the song Starman by David Bowie. clue #17: prize claimed by AnimusEtOblivio! SOLUTION:  Averbakh vs Geller, 1952 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The photo is a bent spoon, which is the staple trick of mentalist Yuri Geller. This game is Yuri-Geller. Just to be kind, we included the ECO etched on the spoon. clue #18: prize claimed by MostlyAverageJoe! To d8 and back SOLUTION:  Miles vs G Miralles, 1989 PRIZE:  Howard Staunton: the English World Chess Champion COMMENT:  In this game, Tony Miles moves his king all the way from the starting square on e1 to d8, then back again to e1. It's the only game in our database that meets this definition. clue #19: prize claimed by tpstar! Cubum autem in duos cubos... SOLUTION:  F Zannoni vs F Cantoni, 1886 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  These words are Pierre de Fermat's famous margin note meaning "a cube cannot be two cubes", which has gone down in mathematics history as "Fermat's Last Theorem". This game of the day we ran back in October made a pun of that, "Fermo's Last Theorem". clue #20: prize claimed by JonathanJ! SOLUTION:  Deuterium vs Chess++, 2010 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The clue is an illustration of "heavy water", which is H2O composed of Deuterium atoms. clue #21: prize claimed by Artsemthon! http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=n where n is the remainder of dividing 405,007,931 to the power of 439,893,586,169 by 5,460,419. SOLUTION:  Mamedyarov vs Z Izoria, 2003 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  What seems to be an impossibly large math problem can be solved quickly by a relatively simple algorithm which is the underpinning of much modern cryptography. See Wikipedia's page on Modular exponentiation for the nitty gritty details, and see Fast Modular Exponentiation for a website that performs such computations for you. clue #22: prize claimed by acirce! jqejqsl SOLUTION:  Euwe vs Reti, 1920 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Oops, my fingers were one row too high on my keyboard! (Game of the Day, titled Mad Max.) clue #23: prize claimed by druid! 130812782.6503 523251130.6012 Hint: These are the 28th and 52nd numbers in a well known sequence. SOLUTION:  R Hommel vs P Haba, 1995 PRIZE:  Chessgames T-Shirt COMMENT:  The numbers are the frequency of musical notes, expressed in Microhertz. 130812782.6503 μHz = 130.81 Hz = the 28th key on a piano = C3 (an octave below middle C). 523251130.6012 μHz = 523.25 Hz = the 52nd key on a piano = C5 (an octave above middle C). The Opening Explorer quickly locates this as one of the few games in our database that begins 1.c3 c5. clue #24: prize claimed by MostlyAverageJoe! ❒❍❒❒  =  Nicholas II, for one ❒❍❒❒❒❒❒  =  Like Esau, not Jacob ❒❍❒❒❒❒❒❒  =  A type of seat ❒❍❒❒❒  =  Smooth ❒❍❒❒❒  =  Wind SOLUTION:  Zhou Zijun vs N Paikidze, 2004 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The solutions to the clues are czar, hirsute, ejection, suave, and snake. The solution to the clue is the 2nd column reading down, "ZIJUN". The first column is the secret confirmation: it spells "CHESS". clue #25: prize claimed by NakoSonorense! SOLUTION:  Alekhine vs V Rosenbergs, 1935 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Pictured is Julius Rosenberg, a spy for the USSR, executed by electricution during the Cold War for providing the Soviets with atomic military secrets. clue #26: prize claimed by MostlyAverageJoe! INNER OVENS SOLUTION:  NN vs A Severino, 1723 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  An anagram for NN-Severino. clue #27: prize claimed by Domdaniel! The most debilitated player ever loses again. SOLUTION:  P Haba vs O Sick, 1991 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Play on the word sick. clue #28: prize claimed by The HeavenSmile! Betty augments a3, altar. SOLUTION:  R Schulder vs S Boden, 1853 PRIZE:  Howard Staunton: the English World Chess Champion COMMENT:  This is a cryptogram for "Queen captures c3, check." This is the game which dubbed this kind of checkmate Boden's mate. Tip: the online Decrypto is a useful aid in deciphering cryptograms. clue #29: prize claimed by crawfb5! z6x SOLUTION:  Zzzzzz vs XINIX, 2006 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  z6 = Zzzzzz. clue #30: prize claimed by BVer! Overworked chambermaid of BBC fame SOLUTION:  P Wright vs J Hanken, 2001 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  A reference to the character Polly of the classic comedy series Fawlty Towers. clue #31: prize claimed by metamushroom! SOLUTION:  G Cooper vs J B Hakizimana, 2010 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The photo is that of American actor Gary Cooper. clue #32: prize claimed by SamAtoms1980! SOLUTION:  Bacrot vs C Lutz, 2005 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The photo is binary code (with "stub" bits at the bottom) for seven digits: 1, 3, 5, 6, 0, 4, and 7. This is the same encoding system used in the Arecibo Message above. clue #33: prize claimed by acirce! SOLUTION:  I (Babataeva) Bajt vs A Isaeva, 2010 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Pictured is a commemorative stamp of Indira Gandhi. clue #34: prize claimed by MostlyAverageJoe! .35 SOLUTION:  Letelier vs Fischer, 1960 PRIZE:  The book Mastering Positional Chess from New in Chess COMMENT:  .35 is 21/60, and this is the 21st game of the famous 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer. clue #35: prize claimed by chancho! FRIEND END YANKEES SOLUTION:  Fine vs A Dake, 1931 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Read every other letter of the clue starting at the beginning to reveal F-I-N-E-D-A-K-E. clue #36: prize claimed by shalgo! The FLT of chess? SOLUTION:  Em. Lasker / Marler / Liddel vs Babson / Henderson / Fleming, 1892 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  FLT stands for, as you may have presumed from earlier clues, Fermat's Last Theorem. But what is the FLT of Chess? It must be a question which was posed for many years, stumping generations of chess players, before eventually being solved by clever modern techniques. The best fit for this metaphor, in our opinion, is the famous Babson Task composition, a challenge proposed by Babson and left unanswered for decades, judged by some brilliant composers as being impossible, until finally Leonid Yarosh satisfied Babson's demands in 1983. clue #37: prize claimed by MostlyAverageJoe! Lipreader man SOLUTION:  E Delmar vs W Napier, 1901 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  An anagram for Delmar-Napier. clue #38: prize claimed by NakoSonorense! SOLUTION:  A Compton vs S Reichard, 2008 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  A very easy one: the city depicted is Compton, California. clue #39: prize claimed by Sastre! A game from the early days of chess science. SOLUTION:  Tarrasch vs J Berger, 1889 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Introduction to the game from Nimzowitsch's My System. clue #40: prize claimed by Guimuco! ❒❒❒❒❒  =  Q/c2r ❒❒❒❒❒❒  =  Green invoices ❒❒❒❒❒  =  Composer's piece ❒❒❒❒❒  =  Ask Fritz SOLUTION:  J Sefc vs F Zita, 1948 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  This time we made it harder by not highlighting the key columns. The solution to the clues are Suzie (read "Q of CCR"), ebills, fairy, and cheat. The first and third columns contain the names of the players: Sefc and Zita. clue #41: prize claimed by Domdaniel! Twist of Fate SOLUTION:  D McClain vs T Hamilton, 2001 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The reference is to Bob Dylan's song A Simple Twist of Fate. clue #42: prize claimed by maxxowar! CLICK HERE TO LISTEN MP3 playing ability required; if your browser cannot play MP3 files try downloading it to your hard-drive (right click; Save As...) then play it in your favorite MP3 player. Hint: A Calypso Melody. SOLUTION:  C Boo Martin vs P Gutierrez Barrientos, 2001 PRIZE:  Chessgames T-Shirt COMMENT:  "I wonder why nobody don't like me, or is it the fact that I'm ugly?" This melody is from the song Boo-Boo Man by the calypso artist Lord Melody. You can hear the entire track at YouTube. clue #43: prize claimed by Henryaw! "Not me, but the people..." SOLUTION:  J Polgar vs H Schussler, 1989 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  "Not me, but the people they say, that the men are leading the women astray / But I say that the women of today / Are smarter than the man in every way." Continuing with our calypso theme, this line is from Harry Belafonte's song Man Smart, Women Smarter. In this game, poor Harry finds that that Judit Polgar is smarter. You can hear the entire song at YouTube. clue #44: prize claimed by kevinatcausa! The Great Contretemps SOLUTION:  Lasker vs Steinitz, 1894 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Title given to the game in the book Steinitz & Lasker Match by Steinitz, Lasker, and Bird. clue #45: prize claimed by kevinatcausa! And where were you on the evening of the 29th? SOLUTION:  O Alabi vs F Afonso, 1998 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  A play on the word alibi. This game was played on September 29th. clue #46: prize claimed by Kvasir! xxxxyxy SOLUTION:  vs ,  PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  A simple cryptogram of the game number, in which x=1 and y=7. Of course there was no way to know that y=7 except by trial and error, but you should have known that x had to be 1, as all games in our database start with a 1. clue #47: prize claimed by child in time! Acherontia styx SOLUTION:  F Foster vs B Marsick, 1978 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The asian moth Acherontia styx helped the Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) solve the crime in the movie Silence of the Lambs. clue #48: prize claimed by dakgootje! xvxcmbn SOLUTION:  C Y Chong vs J Shaw, 2004 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Oops, my fingers were three rows loo low on my keyboard... and one to the right. clue #49: prize claimed by Phony Benoni! SOLUTION:  K Bayer vs Falkbeer, 1853 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The statue is that of Anastasia Romanovna, the wife of Ivan the Terrible, and here White gets mated terribly in an "Anastasia Mate". clue #50: prize claimed by pulsar! The most boring player ever loses again. SOLUTION:  Rafnung vs Auger, 1985 PRIZE:  Chessgames T-Shirt COMMENT:  "Boring" meaning "to bore a hole", and an "auger" is a drill. clue #51: prize claimed by imag! KOSHI KOSHY KOSH (Game of the Day slated for December 10th, 2011) SOLUTION:  Blackburne vs Burn, 1870 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  It is a cryptogram for a proposed pun of the day, "Burne Burns Burn". December 10th is Blackburne's birthday. clue #52: prize claimed by Domdaniel! SOLUTION:  Bacrot vs Z Almasi, 2000 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Count only the blue shards of ice, starting at the top and moving clockwise. You'll count 1, 4, 5, 2, 3, 5, and 5--the game ID. clue #53: prize claimed by NakoSonorense! Tomorrow's Game of the Day SOLUTION:  M Umansky vs D Kudischewitsch, 1987 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  We just received the sad news that World Correspondence Champion Umansky had passed away. He will be dearly remembered at Chessgames and the entire chess world. clue #54: prize claimed by Devilish! IF Lock Trainer SOLUTION:  D Calder vs N Katte, 2007 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Alexander Calder is the NPC (non playing character) in the World of Warcraft. IF = the Dwarven capital city of Ironforge; Lock = abbreviation for warlock. clue #55: prize claimed by SwitchingQuylthulg! SOLUTION:  Robson vs Onischuk, 2010 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  The photo is Posh Spice from the Spice Girls. The game is from the recent SPICE Cup, as posh as any. clue #56: prize claimed by The HeavenSmile! ashseut SOLUTION:  Ehlvest vs Kasparov, 1988 PRIZE:  Chessgames T-Shirt COMMENT:  Oops, my fingers were two rows too low on my Dvorak keyboard! clue #57: prize claimed by BVer! It slices! It dices! SOLUTION:  Lasker vs S Polner, 1889 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  A reference to Ron Popiel (and his father Samuel) who revolutionized American product marketing with catchy slogans. clue #58: prize claimed by Sastre! 7! SOLUTION:  T Karolyi vs W Schmidt, 1988 PRIZE:  The book Mastering Positional Chess from New in Chess COMMENT:  7! is the mathematical expression "7 factorial", or 1x2x3x4x5x6x7 (in any order, of course). This equals 5,040, which also happens to be the number of ways that you can arrange these digits 1 through 7. While 5,040 is a depressingly large number of game pages to check, only about 600 of them are legal game ID numbers. This game, #1347265, is one of those 600. clue #59: prize claimed by tpstar! MAGNETIC BELLHOP SOLUTION:  A Jain vs R Norinkeviciute, 2007 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  An anagram for "cell phone gambit". clue #60: prize claimed by Kvasir! P 2,576,040 SOLUTION:  Shannon vs Simonet, 1984 PRIZE:  Howard Staunton: the English World Chess Champion COMMENT:  US Patent # 2,576,040 is for the Cathode Ray Tube, invented by computer pioneer and chess enthusiast Claude Shannon. clue #61: prize claimed by jrlepage! Love's Labour's Lost SOLUTION:  P Saint Amour vs A Gilimshin, 2003 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Of course, amour means love in French. clue #62: prize claimed by BVer! I saw London, I saw France, I saw Café Kerkau. SOLUTION:  J Mieses vs Capablanca, 1913 PRIZE:  The book Mastering Positional Chess from New in Chess COMMENT:  From My Chess Career by Capablanca: A few weeks after winning the Rice Chess Club Masters Tournament I took the steamer for Europe. I had entered the Cuban Foreign Office, and was sent to the Consulate at St. Petersburg, where I arrived in Novemeber of 1913. On my way I gave simultaneous exhibitions in London, Paris and Berlin. At the last-named city a series of four games, two with Mieses and two with Teichmann, was arranged. clue #63: prize claimed by BVer! CERTAIN POOR SHEPHERDS SOLUTION:  H Jennings Nowell vs Philidor, 1788 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  A phrase from the Christmas carol The First Nowell. If you a do a search on "Nowell" with our advanced search on the homepage, this is the first game that shows up. clue #64: prize claimed by bittonp! Reindeer games SOLUTION:  R Teschner vs J H Donner, 1971 PRIZE:  A Four Month Free Subscription to Chessgames.com COMMENT:  Donner and Rudolf take time off from their Christmas duties to play a game of chess. That's all for this year, thanks to everybody for playing and have a wonderful holiday.

SOME GENERAL TIPS AND HINTS:

1. This list is designed to provide some helpful hints and tips to win the contest. See the Official Rules for complete information.
2. Bookmark this page and check back frequently. You never know when the next clue might appear, and as soon as it does, the race is on.
3. Some clues involve initials. E.g., the clue "B.F. vs B.S." might refer to Bobby Fischer vs Boris Spassky.
4. Some clues draw upon popular chess literature and anecdotes.
5. Not all clues will narrow the field down to a single game; some clues may refer to more than one possible game. Some clues are very hard exactly because they are very vague. For clues like these, you'll simply have to search through the possible games and hope that you get lucky.
6. Some clues are anagrams. For example, if a clue was "Apply Humor 1850" then you might want to look at Paul Morphy games from 1850. ("Apply Humor" is an anagram of "Paul Morphy".)
7. Some clues are puns, similar to what you might find on our Game of the Day. The Game of the Day Archive might come in handy, even though it only goes back one year.
8. For some clues, a knowledge of chess players and chess history is helpful--but there are also references to literature, language, pop culture, mathematics, and the arts.
9. Many clues are intentionally misleading, in the spirit of crossword puzzles.
10. Sometimes a clue will be very hard, and then a subsequent clue will make a reference designed to act as a hint for the earlier very hard clue. So if everybody is stuck on a real stumper, pay careful attention to the new clues being released.
11. We promise that we will never insert hints into the HTML of the pages. This includes the filenames (e.g. what the clue graphic file is named in our web server) as well as "alt text" that we use for our graphics. Don't bother investigating those details, because we assure you that it will never help.
12. Don't ask the chessgames administrators for any clarification of the meanings of clues. Some of them are designed to be confusing and ambiguous; we will refuse to clarify their meaning. However, we sometimes offer additional hints to clues which go unsolved for a long period of time.
13. To give everybody a fair chance, there is a limit of five (5) prizes per member. If you are skilled enough to win 5 prizes you'll have to stop playing until next year.
14. If you are trying to solve a clue, keep your eye out for a seven-digit game ID number, for that is the index to all games in our database. For example, to see game number 1234567 you just go to https://www.chessgames.com/1234567. Be aware that the valid range of game ID's goes from 1,000,000 to (approx.) 1,600,000. So you don't have to examine all 10 million numbers, "only" about 600 thousand. Every valid game ID begins with the numeral "1".
15. It is possible to design software that downloads thousands of games in bulk to scan the HTML pages for prize graphics. This is regarded as cheating. We have measures in place designed to detect and prevent this. Anybody caught using these methods will be disqualified, and the prizes will not be awarded but instead returned to the prize pool.
16. Chessgames.com will be the most important site to use for all clues, but being skilled with Google.com can also help a lot. Some of the clues will involve anagrams, for which the Internet Anagram Server is an indispensable resource. For questions of history, art, mathematics, or a number of other subjects that our clues reference, Wikipedia will surely come in handy. Having a good dictionary will also be an asset.
17. Since many clues refer to player names, our Player Directory will be a valuable tool. When searching for players by name, it's probably best to use the Advanced Search on the homepage.
18. This contest would not exist were it not for the generous contributions of our sponsors. Whether or not you win, you should take a minute to visit their websites and see the fine publications and merchandise they have to offer.
19. These hints are not inclusive; some types of clues might not be described herein. You're on your own--good luck!