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Here is a set of cards that you can have up your sleeve while running a junior chess club.  Sometimes you have a spare player -- and sometimes players get a bit bored playing the same old faces each week #8211; so here are some ways to mix things up. 

Here is a collection of very short games organised by tactical theme.  The main aim is to give you a quick run-through the basic tactical ideas in genuine positions.nbsp; One advantage of using short games is that you can set the positions up on a board very quickly and accurately.nbsp; You can of course just use the diagrams as test positions.nbsp; If you have a database that you can use with a group, you might like the PGN regardless.

Anyone could have done this, and maybe you would have done it better, but you might find it useful that it has been done by someone else.

Chess is an old game, and didn't always used to look like chess.  So, last week we learned about Shatranj , and tried to solve Dilaram's mate (an old Shatranj  puzzle ), and invite you to try playing Shatranj online .

Just in case anyone hasn't seen it before: I forget that it is new and fresh to every generation of chess players.

• Morphy P. - Duke Karl of Brunswick C. [C41]
• Story and Annotations at Wikipedia
  

We're used to doing puzzles which might be mate-in-one (Level I), mate-in-two (Level II) and so on. Someone asked on Friday, what's the highest level you can get? Well, I have heard of a 1220-move monster by Babson, but that has some peculiar conditions.

The most moves in a forced-mate problem with no conditions is this one, from Otto Blathy, who published a whole book of such monsters.

Mate in 290 -- best of luck!

Some games from the match:

Click [...] for list of games

[Event "Lions vs. Tigers"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2008.12.12"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Pawel"]
[Black "Adam"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C47"]
[PlyCount "46"]

1. e4 1... e5  2. Nf3  2... Nc6  3. Nc3 (3. d4 {Scotch Game})
(3. Bc4 {Italian Game}) (3. Bb5 {Ruy Lopez (Spanish Game)}) 3... Nf6 {

You have to feel sorry for him, but it's also hard not to laugh: the world champion shows a computer who's boss...

Position (Black to play and lose):