One of the world's most celebrated and combative chess encounters took place in 1970 when the USSR challenged the rest of the world to a 10-player match. In an effort to rekindle the excitement of that match, the world chess federation has announced a similar tournament: Russia vs the World, to be played in Moscow, Sept. 8-12. Virtually every top player in the world will compete for a million dollar prizefund. The 1970 match was played in Belgrade, and it had many memorable moments. Perhaps the most spectacular was then-world champion Boris Spassky's routing of Denmark's Bent Larsen in a wild game that featured an unanticipated Rook sacrifice. Another unexpected moment came away from the action, when Bobby Fischer agreed to play second board, allowing Larsen to challenge the Soviet's top-ranked Spassky. The normally egocentric Fischer may have wanted to save his energy against Spassky, whom he defeated for the world championship two years later. Even so, Fischer was paired with former world champion Tigran Petrosian, and the smooth technique he displayed in handling his opponent convinced many observers that he would soon become the new world champ. In other high-profile matches, Hungary's Lajos Portisch beat Viktor Korchnoi and Vlastimil Hort of Czechoslovakia defeated Lev Polugayevsky. Even though the Soviets lost their individual four-game matches on the top four boards, they battled back to edge out the rest of the world by 20.5 to 19.5. Small wonder, as half their team members had at one time held the title world champion. Fourteen years later, another USSR vs World match was contested in London. Though it wasn't nearly as spectacular as the first, the Soviets managed to repeat their winning performance. This time around, the Russians will be just as formidable. Their team will include Gary Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Anatoly Karpov, Alexander Khalifman and a host of other top grandmasters. But players in the former Soviet republics will now be on the other side, including Ukrainian wunderkind Ruslan Ponomariov. The rest of the world's team will be led by Viswanathan Anand of India, and will also include a roster of superstar grandmasters.

*** *** *** Aron Kaptsan and Samuel Lipnowski tied for first place in last weekend's Winnipeg Open tournament, each scoring 4.5 points. Top Class A prize went to Yuchen Mu, with Top Class B going to Rory Curtis, both of whom finished with 3.5 points. Devarshi Shome and Francis Trueman tied for Class C honours, scoring 3 points each. Jeff Hou won the D Class/Unrated prize with his 2 point score. *** *** *** This week's problem: Mate in 2.

Solution to last problem: White mates with 1.Nd3.