Jonathan Simon Speelman (born 2 October 1956) is an English Grandmaster

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

player,

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

and chess writer.

Early life and education

He was educated at

Worcester College, Oxford Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms w ...

, where he read

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

Career

A winner of the

British Chess Championship The British Chess Championships are organised by the English Chess Federation. The main tournament incorporates the British Championship, the English Chess Championships and the British Women's Chess Championship so it is possible, although it has ...

in 1978, 1985 and 1986, Speelman has been a regular member of the English team for the

Chess Olympiad The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 and ...

, an international biennial

chess tournament A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition amo ...

organised by

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

, the

World Chess Federation The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

. He qualified for two

Candidates Tournament The Candidates Tournament (or in some periods Candidates Matches) is a chess tournament organized by FIDE, chess's international governing body, since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship. The wi ...

s: *In the 1989–1990 cycle, Speelman qualified by placing third in the 1987 interzonal tournament held in

Subotica Subotica ( sr-cyrl, Суботица, ; hu, Szabadka) is a List of cities in Serbia, city and the administrative center of the North Bačka District in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. Formerly the largest city of Vojvodina region, ...

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

. After beating

Yasser Seirawan Yasser Seirawan ( ar, ياسر سيروان; born March 24, 1960) is a Syrian-born American chess grandmaster and four-time United States champion. He won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1979. Seirawan is also a published chess author an ...

in his first round 4–1, and

Nigel Short Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster, columnist, coach, and commentator, who is the vice-president of FIDE since October 2018. Short earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 19, and was ranked third in the w ...

in the second round 3½–1½, he lost to

Jan Timman Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known as ...

at the semi-final stage 4½–3½. *In the following 1990–93 championship cycle, he lost 5½–4½ in the first round to Short, the eventual challenger for

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...

's crown. Speelman's highest ranking in the FIDE

Elo rating The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor. The Elo system was invented as an improved ch ...

list was fourth in the world, in January 1989.All Time Rankings
In 1989, he beat Kasparov in a televised speed tournament, and then went on to win the event. In the April 2007 FIDE list, Speelman had an Elo rating of 2518, making him England's twelfth-highest-rated active player.

Writing

He has written a number of books on chess, including several on the

endgame Endgame, Endgames, End Game, End Games, or similar variations may refer to: Film * ''The End of the Game'' (1919 film) * ''The End of the Game'' (1975 film), short documentary U.S. film * ''Endgame'' (1983 film), 1983 Italian post-apocalyptic f ...

, among them ''Analysing the Endgame'' (1981), ''Endgame Preparation'' (1981) and ''Batsford Chess Endings'' (co-author, 1993). Among his other books are ''Best Games 1970–1980'' (1982), an analysis of nearly fifty of the best games by top players from that decade, and ''Jon Speelman's Best Games'' (1997). Today he is primarily a chess journalist and commentator, being the chess correspondent for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'' and ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' and sometimes providing commentary for games on the

Internet Chess Club The Internet Chess Club (ICC) is a commercial Internet chess server devoted to the play and discussion of chess and chess variants. ICC had over 30,000 subscribing members in 2005.John Black, Martin Cochran, Martin Ryan Gardner"Lessons Learned ...

Bibliography

''(partial)'' *Speelman, Jonathan (1981). ''Analysing the Endgame''. Batsford (London, England). 142 pages. . *Speelman, Jonathan (1981). ''Endgame Preparation''. B.T. Batsford (London, England). 177 pages. . *Speelman, Jon (1982). ''Best Chess Games, 1970-80''. Allen & Unwin (London, England; Boston, Massachusetts). 328 pages. . *Speelman, Jonathan; Tisdall, Jon; Wade, Bob. (1993). ''Batsford Chess Endings''. B.T. Batsford (London, England). 448 pages. . *Speelman, Jon (1997). ''Jon Speelman's Best Games''. B.T. Batsford (London, England). 240 pages. .

References

External links