Nova Daily - 14 November 2025: The Sponsor (Book Review)
Hi!
Writing book reviews is something I've wanted to do for a bit, so here's my first review. I'll try to keep this one short and keep the amount of spoilers to a minimum.
The Sponsor
Fred Das/Jeroen Terlingen
Sometime last year, between two periods of being unable to sleep, I decided to read this piece of chess fiction. It's written by two Dutch writers, one a journalist and the other a less prominent sponsor of the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee.
The Sponsor looks very inviting to read, starting with a very intriguing cover. Essentially you'd expect to be reading a murder mystery novel, a whodunnit against the background of a chess-tournament that has international stature and all eyes on it. The ten contestants are from different countries that have diplomatic and political issues between them. All these ingredients could make for a wonderful pageturner.
What impressed me about this book in a very negative way is how much of the potential was left on the shelf. When it comes to it, the entire murder is almost treated as irrelevant. More a nuisance in the flow of things than the actual focal point of the story as was promised by the book subtitle and cover image.
Then what do we read instead? An affair, someone's devout beliefs, open psychological warfare that directly influences the course of the game, and hardly any of that appears consequential to the solving of the mystery. You have to go to some lengths to turn them into nothing more than hassle, but the authors chose to prioritise the tournament over anything else. Which is an odd choice. Queer orientation that could be a big deal but is dropped like a rock by an action could put their own life in danger. The intrigue and outside interferences that do matter for the story and should be shrouded in darkness are infused into the story so heavy-handedly that it makes even Carlsen's table slam resignation against Gukesh subtle by comparison.
The selection of chess-games was very cheesy in my opinion: Kasparov's king hunt against Topalov in Wijk aan Zee 1999, Shirov's bishop sac against Topalov in Linares 1998, and Marshall's Qg3 move are all so famous that I was cringing to see them be clayed into this story. The only way I can reconcile the use of these is to attract new players to these games. But I don't think that they need an actually-not-quite-a-murder-mystery for this.
Conclusion
All in all, I was plain disappointed with this book, especially because there is enough potential to make something awesome from the elements that they have. With some luck I can give the book 2½ stars out of 5 because the writing style is overall quite pleasant and I can picture the events, but I can't bail it out with a higher score based on the writing alone. I didn't know about BlogChamps yet when I read this book, but there are a lot of BlogChamps blog entries that I'd recommend over The Sponsor.
If Das and Terlingen write a sequel to The Sponsor, I hope that they'll make it into a more awesome entry.
Puzzles
In case you're wondering why I don't include a solution grid into the collapsibles: it doesn't work. I've tried to make it work for my Trojan War blog, and I don't think that Chess.com have altered the website CSS between then and now.
Puzzle 1: White to move
My thought process
Accidentally started up this puzzle.I have two double checks available that seem very tempting. I also have Nxb6+ to collect a few bits of wood.
It must be observed that black has a rook and two pawns move, so I'd need to find something that outweighs that.
Time to calculate them.
1.Nxf6++ Kh8 2.Nxh7 Qe8 3.Nxf8 and after 3...Qxf8, I think that 4.Nxe5 is very strong, threatening both Qh5# and Ng6+. What do I do in response to 4...Qf5?
Line 2: 1.Ne7++ Kh8. Now I can see ideas with Ng6+ hxg6, but can I gain access to the h-file for checkmate?
The third line runs 1.Nxb6+ d5 (to lure the bishop to d5 so it'll be attacked later) 2.Bxd5+ Kh8 and now the issue is 3.Nxh8 Qxd5 looks very good for black because the knight is awkward.
In the first line, does black have 2...Rf6? Let's see: 3.Nxf6 gxf6 and now I think that 4.Ng5 is brutal.
I also know what to do against 4...Qf5 in the first line: 5.Nf7+ Kh7 (5...Kg8 6.Nh6++) and now 6.Bd3 pins the queen.
I'm going for the first line.
Playing 1.Nxf6++.
Correct. 1...Kh8
Playing 2.Nxh7.
Correct. 2...Qe8
Playing 3.Nxf8.
Correct. The puzzle ends here.
Does the engine agree with my assessment that 3...Qxf8 4.Nxe5 is completely winning for white?
Yes it does. After 4...Qf5 it gives the immediate 5.Bd3 as an alternative that exists in the same ball-park as the move 5.Nf7+ that I opted for.
Alternatively, 1.Nxb6+ d5 is still better for white after 2.Nxd5 (a move that I rejected because of 2...Kh8 which takes the sting out of it, even though 2.Nxd5 is better than 2.Bxd5 because of the line I proposed), but it's not as immediately crushing. The third candidate move 1.Ne7++ simply loses.
This puzzle had three critical candidate moves. The task was to calculate each of them and find out which one gives white the greatest advantage.
The forcing candidate moves were immediately striking, but I also paused to check the material balance.
Result: Solved
Time: 13:04
Puzzle 2: White to move
My solution
This is nice. There appears to be a checkmate threat against g7 in the position. Also there is the idea of taking on g5 followed by Bxg4. Problem with that last idea is that there's Qxg5 defending g4.Candidate move: 1.Qd4. I think I know where this will go from here, but I'm not sure.
After 1.Qd4, what does black have? There's 1...Nxf3+, which I can recapture in three ways.
There's also 1...Qf6 defending against a threat.
I think I'm seeing it now.
1.Qd4 Nxf3+ 2.gxf3, and I can take on g4 next because black still has to defend against the mate threat. 2.Bxf3 doesn't work because of 2...Qg5.
1...Qf6 2.Qxf6 gxf6 3.Nxg5 and now after 3...Bxe2 I can play the brutal 4.Nge4 threatening to take on e2 and f6. The latter threat also sets up a windmill tactic. This has to be it.
Playing 1.Qd4.
Correct. 1...Qf6
Playing 2.Qxf6.
Correct. 2...gxf6
Playing 3.Nxg5.
Correct. 3...Bxe2
Playing 4.Nge4.
Correct. The puzzle ends here.
The puzzle was pretty straightforward calculation. At the start, the undefended bishop on g4 and the mate threat were all that was needed to solve the thing. What I did see but didn't include in my notes is that after 1...Qf6 I can't take on g4 because the bishop on b2 would be hanging.
Result: Solved
Time: 6:50
I now have a puzzle streak of 13 puzzles. Not bad, I think. Especially now that the puzzles are getting tougher.
Weekend Repertoire Study
When looking at one of the variations for my English repertoire, I found a few games that I felt I want to analyse. I included the games here as my own homework assignments for the weekend.
