Raymond Keene

There is a tendency to suppose that chess has always been played with the same pieces upon the same board. This is not so. In various ancient forms of chess some quite exotic pieces made their appearance. In the Great Chess of Alfonso the Wise of Spain, and in the extended version of the game favoured by the world conqueror Tamburlaine, the ordinary menagerie of chess was enlarged.

Member ratings Well argued: 100% Interesting points: 100% Agree with arguments: 100% 1 rating - view all Jimmy Adams: chess polymath With the death of Jimmy Adams at the age of 81, the chess world has lost one of its most devoted custodians. He was an author, editor, publisher, historian, and lifelong champion of the royal game. Only recently he received an English Chess Federation award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to chess.

The Westminster Alice is the name of a collection of vignettes written by Hector Hugh Munro (better known by his pseudonym “Saki”) in 1902 and published by The Westminster Gazette. It is a political parody of Lewis Carroll’s two books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871). The book features 48 drawings by Francis Carruthers Gould, after the celebrated originals by John Tenniel. It is critical of the politics of the day, of which Alice tries to make sense.