Welcome to this active site. Each week I am going to present to you an endgame position for you to solve or to workout the best continuation. Computer analysis will also be considered. Some of these positions will come from actual historical games. Others will be composed endgame studies, but all the solutions will be relevant to the practical game. The new position will occur each SUNDAY and I will always be pleased to receive POSITIVE feedback about the positions and the analysis and I will try to acknowledge these where relevant.

British player of Master Strength. A keen gifted amateur, Andrew Thomas was for many years a mathematics teacher at Blundell's School in Devon. In 1937 he won a small international tournament in Worcester and on this achievement he was invited to play in the Hastings Premier Tournament of that year. By his own admission his chess was not equal to the likes of Flohr, Reshevsky, Keres and Fine, his Hasting opponents,but he later had a lot of success in the local scene. After 1948 he was champion or co-champion of the West of England eight times. His deep affection for the game came across in a book he wrote in 1973 called Chess for the Love of It.

When this game was played Najdorf was an up and coming Polish international. It was only later , when war broke out during the Buenos Aires Olympiad in 1939, that he made Argentina his home.

White has a material and positional advantage. Besides the extra protected passed pawn, he has the better minor pieces and the Black pawn on c5 is a ready target.

1. Cumulative 2003 Prizes: 1st £100 or equivalent, 2nd £50, 3rd £30; 4th £20. (Total Prize Money=£200) Entries limited to 20 solvers. This event will run from 5/1/2003 to 22/12/2003 with a recess in July. Present CUMULATIVE COMPETITION rules apply but note the prizes will go to those participants who climb the ladder the greatest number of times during the year. The relative position of the solver's name on the ladder will decide the allocation of prizes.