David Norwood's Christmas Quiz

12/21/2003 – It's the time of year when Telegraph columnist David Norwood likes to test the chess knowledge of his readers. There are 20 questions, mainly relating to chess trivia, but some require thought and research. At least you have plenty of time to finish your turkey and Christmas pudding before you check your results. Here's the Telegraph quiz.

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The twenty questions posed by Norwood are funny (Where in chess would you find the Monkey's Bum?), obscure (Which world champion wrote a thesis entitled "The Theory and Prospects of Application of Asynchronized Synchronous Machines?"), sometimes very easy (Who has won both the USA and USSR chess championships? or Which English GM once famously wrote a book review consisting of just two words?) but generally entertaining. Certainly many arouse one's curiosity. Here are some we are working on:

  • What was unusual about the longest ever game in world championship history? (Apart from it being the longest game of course.)

  • Who became world chess champion for a single day, and how?

  • Who was the first player to have to play against the Alekhine Defence in a world championship match and what was strange about this?

  • Who is this GM who said "I love all positions. Give me a difficult positional game, I will play it. Give me a bad position, I will defend it. Openings, endgames, complicated positions, dull draws, I love them and I will do my very best. But totally won positions, I cannot stand them."?

Here's the Telegraph column, which has some pictures to help you answer the questions. The correct solutions will appear in next week's column, on Saturday, December 27th).

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