Paul Motwani (born 13 June 1962) is a Scottish

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 ...

grandmaster. He was the first Scottish player to become a grandmaster.

Chess career

Born in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

and raised in

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

, he became World Cadet (Under 17) Champion in 1978, and won the first of his seven

Scottish Championship The Scottish Championship, known as the cinch Championship for sponsorship reasons, is the second tier of the Scottish Professional Football League, the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland Scotland (, ...

titles that year. He was a secondary school

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 ...

teacher at

St Saviour's RC High School St Saviour's RC High School was a state secondary school in Dundee, Scotland. It was a denominational school within the Catholic religious tradition, although it welcomed students from all religious backgrounds. The school closed in June 2008 an ...

in Dundee for a number of years after studying

and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

at the

University of Dundee The University of Dundee; . Abbreviated as ''Dund.'' for post-nominals. is a public university, public research university based in Dundee, Scotland. It was founded as a University college#United Kingdom, university college in 1881 with a donation ...

. In 1990, he took time out to pursue his final Grandmaster norm. Motwani has been a regular member of the Scottish

Olympiad An olympiad ( el, Ὀλυμπιάς, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the ancient and modern Olympic Games. Although the ancient Olympics were established during Greece's Archaic Era, it was not until ...

, never having had a performance

rating A rating is an evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of quality, quantity, or some combination of both. Rating or ratings may also refer to: Business and economics * Credit rating, estimating the credit worthiness of an individual, c ...

below 2500. He made his first two

Grandmaster norm A norm in chess is a high level of performance in a chess tournament. The level of performance is typically measured in tournament performance rating above a certain threshold (for instance, 2600 for GM norm), and there is a requirement on the leve ...

s at the

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal ente ...

and

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

Olympiads, then faced a race against time to achieve his third before the first one expired in 1991. (Although norms now last a lifetime, the

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 ...

rule in place at the time saw them expiring after five years.) He just failed to reach the required number of points in a hastily organised tournament in Dundee days before the deadline, ironically, FIDE changed the rules shortly after this, and reset the expiry time for norms at six years. He duly achieved his final norm in 1992, and starred in a

Grampian Television Grampian Television was the original name of the Channel 3 service for the north of Scotland founded in 1961 and now named STV. The northern region's coverage area includes the Northern Isles, Western Isles, Highlands (except Fort William and ...

documentary called "The Grandmasters of Dundee" along with

Colin McNab Colin Anderson McNab (born 3 February 1961) is a Scottish chess player. He is Scotland's second player to be awarded the title of Grandmaster (GM), fulfilling its requirements in 1992 just after Paul Motwani. After achieving his three norms, ...

, who had also achieved the title by then. Motwani is a regular contributor to ''Scottish Chess'' (the magazine of

Chess Scotland Chess Scotland is the governing body for chess in Scotland. It was formed in 2001 with the merger of the ''Scottish Chess Association'' (SCA) and the ''Scottish Junior Chess Association'' (SJCA). It is one of the oldest national chess associations ...

), ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its par ...

'' (for whom he writes a weekly column) and has written for many other chess publications. He has written five chess books - ''H.O.T. Chess'', ''C.O.O.L. Chess'', ''S.T.A.R. Chess'', ''Chess Under the Microscope'' and ''The Most Instructive Games of the Young Grandmasters''. His writings are known for his use of acronyms to remember key concepts and some of the non-chess 'general puzzle' content (including 'Mr Fab' the alien).

Personal life

Motwani is of Scottish and Indian descent. He currently lives in Belgium with his wife Jenny and son Michael. He teaches

third grade Third grade (also called grade three, equivalent to Year 4 in England) is a year of primary education in many countries. It is the third school year of primary school. Students are usually 8–9 years old. Examples of the American syllabus *In ...

and organizes an

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

chess club A chess club is a club formed for the purpose of playing the board game of chess. Chess clubs often provide for both informal and tournament games and sometimes offer league play. Traditionally clubs host over the board, face to face chess more t ...

at St. John's International School in

Waterloo, Belgium Waterloo (, ; wa, Waterlô) is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in Wallonia, located in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium, which in 2011 had a population of 29,706 and an area of . Waterloo lies a short distance south of Brussels, ...

and teaches mathematics in the Musica Mundi School in Waterloo, Belgium. His favorite number is the

prime A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

Bibliography

* * * * *

References

External links

* *
Paul Motwani at 365Chess.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Motwani, Paul Scottish chess players Chess grandmasters World Youth Chess Champions Sportspeople from Dundee 1962 births Living people British chess writers Chess Olympiad competitors People educated at St Saviour's Roman Catholic High School Alumni of the University of Dundee Sindhi people Scottish people of Indian descent