Chess: Cycle starts again

YESTERDAY in New York, Nigel Short and Michael Adams began their quarter-final matches in the PCA World Championship. Short (ranked 10th on the latest PCA list) is a clear favourite to beat Boris Gulko (ranked 51st), although any man who has won both the Soviet and American championships can be guaranteed to put up a tough fight.

On paper, the match between Adams (19th) and Tiviakov (23rd) looks harder to call. Since the English grandmaster lost to Boris Gelfand in the Fide world championship cycle earlier this year, he has been struggling to regain his confidence. A good win against Tiviakov should help, and the Russian's relative inexperience at this level should contribute to that result.

In the other matches, Viswanathan Anand should beat Romanishin, and Vladimir Kramnik is tipped to beat Kamsky, even though the latter just took first place ahead of Karpov in Las Palmas. If the results go as expected, the semi-finals will be Short- Kramnik and Adams-Anand.

Meanwhile, here is a competition we can all enter.

This is the starting position for the 1994-5 British Chess Solving Championship. It is White to play and mate in two moves. Entries should mention the Independent, and consist of White's first move only. Send to: Brian Stephenson, 9 Roydfield Drive, Waterthorpe, Sheffield S19 6ND before 30 June.

With no sponsorship this year, there is an entry fee of pounds 2 (payable to 'BCPS'). A stamped addressed envelope should also be included for receipt of the fiendishly difficult postal round to which successful solvers will be subjected. There will be a pounds 50 prize for the first randomly drawn correct answer to the starter. The best solvers of the postal stage, which includes longer mates, studies and a variety of other problems, will contest the final in 1995.

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