To Resign or Not to Resign...

 I was intrigued by this brevity I found in the Wolverhampton Express and Star for 11 October 1950...

The print is a bit fuzzy so here's the game in a more user-friendly format...

You will notice that the columnist awards an exclamation mark to Black's 5th and 6th moves. That said, he suggests that 7 Qh5 might have been tried, with 7...g6 being met by 8 Qg5+ and 7...f6 being met by "NxPch" except that there is no such move available so maybe he meant 8 Ng6+.

But anyway, here's a poser for you. What should White do in the final position after 6...Ke7? Should he (a) resign; (b) follow the columnist's advice and play 7 Qh5; or (c) play something else? (and if so, what?)

White was the Rev. (Eric) Gilbert Wood (1901-79), the Rector of Beckbury in Shropshire, who later retired to Hastings to spend more time with his chess pieces. I've found two more of his games which were also over in six moves.

On the above occasion the Resigning Rector clearly did the right thing as Bxf7+ followed by Qe6 mate is not hard to foresee.

In our final six-move fiasco, which pre-dates the other two, the Reverend Wood was the victor...

Imagine the elation the clergyman felt later on seeing the score published in CHESS magazine, where it was declared to be the shortest game of the 1948 British Championship congress. But, as it says in Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."

Here endeth the lesson.