Thanks to Roger Scowen for informing me that today marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of the great François-André Danican Philidor, a renowned composer of operas, instrumental and sacred music, but also the leading chess player of the 18th century. He was the first player who had a genuine understanding of many positional concepts.

Of course chess has moved on a lot since then: looking at his games I think he’d struggle to find a place in our C team.

This is Philidor – Wilson (London 1789). Black has just mistakenly moved his rook to e8 (d8 would have been better). I’m sure you can do better than Philidor and find the best continuation here.

Bharat Kumar – Sedykh (Kingston 2026). White continued 29. dxc6 and soon lost.

He should have continued 29. Nxe6+! 30. Qxe6 Ne5! (or 30… Qd4+ 31. Kf1 Ne5! with the same result) 31. Qg8+ Ke7 32. Qe6+ with a perpetual check.

Congratulations to everyone who solved this correctly.

Here’s a random position from the recent Kingston tournament for you to analyse this Bank Holiday Monday.

Bharat Kumar – Sedykh. White to play.

How would you assess this position?

How would you continue here?

What result would you expect?

Mike Healey has annotated his game from our London League match against Streatham last May.

If you’re familiar with Mike’s play you’ll know what to expect. As he says, an interesting and hard-fought game, with some interesting ideas and many wacky positions.

As always, to play through the game, click on any move for a pop-up window.

If you’ve played any interesting games recently which you’d like to see published, please do submit them to me, ideally with annotations. The more content we can provide, the better.

On Monday I left you with this position from Adam A Taylor (2269) – Sanjit Kumar (2074) (Kingston 2026 Round 3) with white to play.

Black’s last move, 71… Rf1-h1, was a blunder. The four drawing moves were Ra1, Rb1, Rc1 (good to get as far away as possible from the white king to check horizontally) and Kh7.

Now White could have brought home the full point by playing for mate.

72. Kf6 Kh7 (72… Rxh4 73. Rg7 f3 74. g5+ Kh5 75. Kf5) 73. Kxf7 Rxh4 74. Rg7+ Kh6 (74… Kh8 75. g5 f3 76. Rg8+ Kh7 77. g6+ Kh6 78. Rh8+ Kg5 79. g7 f2 80. g8=Q+) 75. Rg6+ Kh7 76. g5 f3 77. Rf6 and wins.

Sadly for him, he missed his chance, playing 72. Rh5+ instead, and the game was drawn on move 85.

Not so easy, of course, at the end of a long and tiring game with little time left on the clock. Which is why you need to practise endings if you want to improve.

A test of your rook ending skills this week.

Adam A Taylor – Sanjit Kumar (Kingston 2026 Round 3). White to play.

How would you continue, and why? As always, I need more than just your first move.

RJCC Alumnus Luke McShane v Frederick Waldhausen Gordon, from Round 6 of last month’s British Championship.

If you’re a reasonably sharp tactician (which you certainly ought to be) you’ll see two things almost immediately. One thing you’ll notice is that the otherwise tempting 36. Nd5 gives Black an immediate perpetual check.

You’ll also observe that White can continue 36. Qxe7+ Kxe7 37. Nf5+ Ke6 38. Nxd4 exd4, reaching a pawn ending which you have to assess before deciding whether or not to choose this line.

Is Black’s passed pawn on d4 a winning advantage, or is it just going to fall off the board? Perhaps the position’s balanced, with neither side being able to make progress.

If you play it out for yourself you’ll soon discover that after 39. Kf1 Ke5 40. Ke2 White will eventually win the d-pawn when his extra pawn will be decisive.

This is a great example of why you have to excel at every aspect of chess. It’s no good finding tactics if you can’t assess the resulting position accurately.

What happened in the game? Did Luke play this?

Surprisingly, no, he didn’t. Perhaps he wasn’t sure about the endgame and thought he could outplay his opponent with the pieces still on the board, even though the computer considers the position more or less level after the game continuation 37. b3.

The good news was that Luke eventually managed to bring home the full point – a mere 83 moves later.

RJCC Alumnus Luke McShane v Frederick Waldhausen Gordon, from Round 6 of last month’s British Championship.

White to play. How would you continue, and why?

On Monday I invited you to analyse this position from the British Championship Round 2 game between Koichi Nicholas and Trisha Kanyamarala last week.

White has three winning moves in this position: in order of preference 37. Qf3 (to prevent Qxc3 and continue with Ne4), 37. Qh7 and 37. Bd2.

37. Rh7??

I presume both players had missed something here. This move should probably lose.

37… Qxc3

Obvious and correct.

38. Rh8

This was White’s point, threatening Qe8+ followed by Qxe7+.

38… Rxb2+?!

Black thought she had nothing more than a perpetual check here, but there was something better.

38… d5! 39. Qe8+ Kd6 looks scary but after 40. Rh7 Qc7! 41. Rh6 d4 White has nothing.

But the game concluded:

39. Bxb2 Qe1+ with a draw by repetition agreed a couple of moves later..

I’ve been looking through some of the games played at last week’s British Championships.

This position is from the Round 2 game between Koichi Nicholas and Trisha Kanyamarala.

The game concluded 37. Rh7 Qxc3 38. Rh8 Rxb2+ 39. Bxb2 Qe1+ with a perpetual check.

Could either player have improved on this?