Photo courtesy Cristiana Falcone

From June 14 to June 22 in 2025 at a site in Italy, 3-Move World Champion Sergio Scarpetta defended his title against challenger Melikaya Nonyukela. The match was tense and exciting and went to the very last game. The final score was 16-16, comprised of 3 wins per player and 26 draws. With a tie score, the title remained with Mr. Scarpetta but Mr. Nonyukela showed himself to be a player of championship rank and a force to be reckoned with.

Grandmaster Richard Pask has annotated all 32 games of the match and presented them in a new booklet which he has generously allowed us to make available for free download from our website. Get your copy here; these games are definitely worthy of many hours of study and enjoyment.

As a sample, let's look at a position later in Game 32, the last in the match. At that point Mr. Scarpetta led by 16-15 but Mr. Nonyukela had the opportunity to play for a win and bring the match to an overall draw.

Here's the critical position.

BLACK

WHITE
White to Play and Draw

W:W17,18,23,29,31,32:B2,4,10,12,13,24

What would you have done here? What would be the outcome? This faced Mr. Scarpetta at the very end of the very last game. See what you might do, and then download the book and turn to Game 32 to see the run-up, full notes, and the surprising outcome.

Once again we thank Mr. Pask for the privilege of presenting his work.