DRAUGHTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10037, 25 January 1896, Page 4 (Supplement)

DRAUGHTS.

SOLUTION OF PROBLEM No. 827. 10- 7 18-11 20'—'25 27—34 25—22. 32—14 17(1)10 10-17 3-10 20-27 17-19 W. wins. (1) 3-10 17-22 22-18 18-16 15-10 1011- 7 18-14 14-10.. 10- 6. 23-19 7-8 White wins.

PROBLEM No. 830, (By Mr, D, Oourut, Glasgow.) Buck.

it JUTE. ■' ! White to move and win. (Won from a Dundee player over the board.)

THE STURGES' SNARE. To the novice there is no more captivating game than that springing from the opening which custom has designated the " Old Fourteenth." Full of beautiful shots and strokes it has allurements far in excess of any other opening, save perhaps the " Laird and Lady," but the extreme care which it is necessary to exercise in every variation and at every stage of the latter game is a bar to it in the early days of the neophyte's studies. Should he have a mentor the "old hand" is sure to lead his pupil into the pitfalls into which, in his early days, he himself fell, and chuckle when lie sees in another the discomfiture he had previously experienced himself. One of the earliest traps into which the student is likely to be led is the following from

Game No. 71.—"01 d Fourteenth." 11—IB 22-17 9-13 23-18 6-14 -20 23-19 4- 8 27 -23 , 9-14 26-23 15-24 8-11 25-22 6- 9 18- 9 2— «i 2-;— _ (a) It is best to play I—G here and take Anderson's line to draw.

(b) This is the difficult point. Druinmoml has shown a draw by o—9, but it is very critical; 11-15 opens out what is locally known as the " Garden Gate," to illustrate which we display the position on a diagram. Black. *"*™*iwmt.

White to move and win. 20-16,15-24, 22-18, 12-20,18-2, White wins.Joshua Sturges, 1800. Another game which will attract the attention of the students is the " Cross," and it will be found little less interesting in some of its variations than the " Old fourteenth." Guided by his " wise and faithful monitor" the pupil will probably havo the black sido in the following game

Game No. 72.—" Cross." 11-15 4- 8a 18- 9 C-'fl 2tl-2ib 15-24 23-18 23-10 6-14 26-22 2- 0 28-19 8-11 9-14 22-17 9-13 24-20 11-15 27-23

And the novice is confronted with the "Gordon Gate" again, White winning as in the preceding game. (a) Same as the " Old Fourteenth" above. Anderson is credited with this introduction.

(bj The position has also been arrived at from the 9-13 line.

The instances we have given above by no means exhaust tho games out of which this interesting situation may be evolved. I.iruuunoud, in the variety of the " Single Corner" which he has named after the well-known !.ola Jlontez, runt the position so close that ii couple of moves brings us to it. Hero it is

Game No. 73.—" Single Corner." 11-15 8-11 10-15 10-14 7-10 5-14 22-18 29-25 25- 22 24-19 31-27 a 22-lSb 15-22 4- 8 6-10 15-24 0-13 13-17 25-18 24—20 27-24 2S-19 18- 9 B. wins. (a) Druinmmid does not give this move. 31—26, 32—27, and 32—28 are his lines of play. The move in the text was played by Mr. Walton aeainst "Buffalo Bill,"the position coming up in a different order. (b) Mr. Walton is by no means a novice, yet unsuspectingly lie was on the point of opening the "Garden Gate" by the text move, when just in lime he saw the "Sturges' snare."—K.L., Melbourne Leader. Mr. Priest, ex-champion of Philadelphia, recently contested a 36-gaine match for SO dollars with Mr. Lovejoy, to whom he undertook to concede the draws. He won at the end of the twenty-second game by 19 wins to 3 draws. The D. P. Quarterly Review announces the publication, at an early dal of a revised ami corrected edition of .Sturges'original "Guide to the Game of Draughts," with additional play and opening", by J. A. Kerr, sen., of Bristol. Mr. K. AtldamsWilliams, 8.A., Cantab., will edit tho literary portion of the work, which will contain matter of the deepest interest to draughts-players. A short time hack, says the Leeds Mercury, we had the pleasure of looking through an original copy of this scarce work, dated 1800, in the possession of Mr. T. J. Riley, of Nottingham, and were greatly interested in the contents, winch, among other things, contain! a long list of the subscribers, including amongst them royalty, nobility, and tho elite of fashionable society of that date, showing time the status ot our grand old gatno as a fashionable pastime has somewhat diminished since then, though as a popular recreation we believe it has never stood higher in public estimation than at the present time. Mr. I'. J. Riley, by the way, possesses, without doubt, the finest draughts library in the king-dom-it not in the world. We are not exaggerating when we say that lie has one or more copies of every work on draughts that has been published in the English language, besides a number of foreign treatises. The collecting of these volumes has been a labour of love to Mr. ltiley, and he is never so happy as when showing his various treasures of the game to an appreciative audience, even if that audience should only number one.