| NIGELSHORT | English chess player who challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess Championship in 1993 |
| WHITE | Hardly anything given to English chess player |
| ICEL | Where Fischer played Spassky for the World Chess Championship (abbr.) |
| MATE | Win for Kasparov, for short |
| CHESSCHAMPION | Kasparov, for one |
| UPTON | Who was the mental conditioning coach for D. Gukesh when he won the World Chess Championship in 2024? (5) |
| BORISSPASSKY | Who did Bobby Fischer beat to win the World Chess Championship in 1972? (5,7) |
| IAN | Nepomniachtchi who lost the World Chess Championship in April |
| FISCHER | Bobby ---, American chess grandmaster who took the World Chess Championship title from Boris Spassky in 1972 (7) |
| PADDY | Who was the mental coach for D. Gukesh when he won the World Chess Championship last year? (5) |
| KASPAROV | Garry ___, 1985 winner of the World Chess Championship (8) |
| CAPABLANCA | Cuban chess player who won the world championship in 1921, remaining almost invincible until his defeat by Alekhine six years later (10) |
| BOTVINNIK | Mikhail ___, winner of the World Chess Championship from 1948-57 (9) |
| EUWE | Max ___, winner of the World Chess Championship from 1935-37 (4) |
| PETERLEKO | Hungarian chess player who became the world's youngest grandmaster in 1994 |
| HUNT | Jeremy, Conservative politician who challenged Boris Johnson for the party leadership in 2019 (4) |
| HESELTINE | Surname of the politician who challenged Margaret Thatcher in the 1990 leadership contest (9) |
| DEEP | And 5 IBM supercomputer that played a match with world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 (4,4) |
| BLUE | IBM supercomputer that played a match with world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 (4,4) |
| DEEPBLUE | IBM supercomputer that played a match with world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 |
