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William Roland Hartston (born 12 August 1947) is an English journalist who wrote the
Beachcomber A beachcomber is a person who practices beachcombing. Beachcomber or Beachcombers may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''The Beachcomber'' (1915 film), an American drama * ''The Beachcomber'' (1938 film), starring Charles Laughton and a ...
column in the '' Daily Express''. He is also a
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 dist ...
player who played competitively from 1962 to 1987 and earned a highest Elo rating of 2485. He was awarded the title International Master in 1972, but is now best known as a chess author and presenter of the game on television.


Biography

Hartston was born in
Willesden Willesden () is an area of northwest London, situated 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Charing Cross. It is historically a parish in the county of Middlesex that was incorporated as the Municipal Borough of Willesden in 1933, and has forme ...
,
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...
, England, and attended the
City of London School , established = , closed = , type = Public school Boys' independent day school , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Alan Bird , chair_label = Chair of Governors , chair = Ian Seaton , founder = John Carpenter , special ...
before studying Mathematics at
Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...
. At the 19th
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 an ...
, held at
Siegen Siegen () is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region. The university town (nearly 20,000 students in the 2018–2019 winter semest ...
1970, he won the gold medal for best score on board 3 (78.1%). He won 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 1973 and 1975. In international competition, he had many strong performances but failed, by the smallest possible margin, to achieve the results required for the title of International Grandmaster. Hartston became the first person to stack the pieces from an entire chess set on top of a single white
rook Rook (''Corvus frugilegus'') is a bird of the corvid family. Rook or rooks may also refer to: Games *Rook (chess), a piece in chess *Rook (card game), a trick-taking card game Military * Sukhoi Su-25 or Rook, a close air support aircraft * USS ...
. He studied mathematics at
Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...
but did not complete his PhD on
number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Mat ...
as he spent too much time playing chess. From the early 1970s, Hartston made many TV appearances for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, usually in the role of expert commentator and analyst on world title matches, including Fischer-Spassky '72, Karpov-Korchnoi '78, Kasparov-Short '93 and Kasparov-Anand '95. He twice won the BBC's '' The Master Game'' competition before taking over from
Leonard Barden Leonard William Barden (born 20 August 1929, in Croydon, London) is an English chess master, writer, broadcaster, journalist, organizer and promoter. The son of a dustman, he was educated at Whitgift School, South Croydon, and Balliol Colleg ...
as its resident expert. During the 1980s he presented the BBC series ''Play Chess''. In recent years he has diversified into a number of creative areas, running competitions in creative thinking for ''
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 publish ...
'' newspaper and the
Mind Sports Olympiad The Mind Sports Olympiad (MSO) is an annual international multi-disciplined competition and festival for games of mental skill and mind sports. The inaugural event was held in 1997 in London with £100,000 prize fund''Mind Sports Olympiad Su ...
. He wrote the off-beat
Beachcomber A beachcomber is a person who practices beachcombing. Beachcomber or Beachcombers may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''The Beachcomber'' (1915 film), an American drama * ''The Beachcomber'' (1938 film), starring Charles Laughton and a ...
column for the '' Daily Express'' and has written books on chess, mathematics, humour and trivia. He has also been a regular guest on the
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
and occasional TV programme, ''
Puzzle Panel {{Use dmy dates, date=July 2014 ''Puzzle Panel'' was a light-hearted, though cerebral BBC Radio 4 panel game that was broadcast between 1998 and 2005. An additional series was broadcast over the winter-spring of 2011, and a further series was broad ...
'' and appeared in Series 8 of ''
The Museum of Curiosity ''The Museum of Curiosity'' is a comedy talk show on BBC Radio 4 that was first broadcast on 20 February 2008. It is hosted by John Lloyd (Professor of Ignorance at the University of Buckingham, and later at Solent University). He acts as th ...
'' also on Radio 4. Aside from his chess and media-related activities, Hartston is a mathematician and industrial psychologist. During the 1980s, he was recruited by
Meredith Belbin Raymond Meredith Belbin (born 4 June 1926) is a British researcher and management consultant best known for his work on management teams. He is a visiting professor and Honorary Fellow of Henley Management College in Oxfordshire, England. Ea ...
, at the Industrial Training Research Unit in
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
, to work as part of a multidisciplinary team researching the dynamics of team roles. While continuing to write the Beachcomber column and other features for the ''Daily Express'', he was also behind the launching of the now defunct ''wakkipedia.com'' Internet site of useless information. His latest publication is ''A Brief History of Puzzles: 120 of the World's Most Baffling Brainteasers from the Sphinx to Sudoku'' (2019). On 2 April 2013 it was reported that Hartston had "perfected" a formula for predicting the winner of the
Grand National The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England. First run in 1839, it is a handicap st ...
horse race, in a study commissioned by bookmaker William Hill. The story of the winning formula has since been widely thought to be an
April Fools April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is an annual custom on 1 April consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fools!" at the recipient. Mass media can be involved in these pranks, which may b ...
joke for which many have fallen. In 2013 Hartston and his friend Josef Kollar became regular 'viewers' on the
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
programme ''
Gogglebox ''Gogglebox'' is a British reality television series created by Stephen Lambert, Tania Alexander and Tim Harcourt, and broadcast on Channel 4. The series documents families and groups of friends around the United Kingdom who are filmed for thei ...
''.


Personal life

Hartston was the first of three British chess champions to be married to
Woman Grandmaster FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...
Dr Jana Bellin (née Malypetrova) (January 1970 in Cambridge}. With his second wife, Elizabeth Bannerman (1978) he has two sons, James and Nicholas.


Bibliography

*''The Grunfeld Defence'' (1971), B. T. Batsford *''The King's Indian Defence'' (1973) ( L. Barden, with W. Hartston and R. Keene), B. T. Batsford *''Karpov-Korchnoi, 1974'' (1977) (W. Hartston and R. Keene), Tony Earl Books, *''The Benoni'' (1977), Batsford, *''How To Cheat At Chess'' (1977) *''The Battle of Baguio City: Karpov-Korchnoi 1978'' (1978) *''Penguin Book of Chess Openings'' (1978) *''Soft Pawn: The Uncensored Sequel'' (1980) *''London 1980: Phillips and Drew Kings Chess Tournament'' (1980) (with Stewart Reuben) *''Teach Yourself Chess'' (c. 1980, later editions 1992, 1997) *''Psychology of Chess'' (1984) (W. Hartston and P. C. Wason),
Facts on File Infobase Publishing is an American publisher of reference book titles and textbooks geared towards the North American library, secondary school, and university-level curriculum markets. Infobase operates a number of prominent imprints, including ...
, *''The Ultimate Irrelevant Encyclopaedia'' (1984) *''The Kings of Chess'' (1985) *''
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 dist ...
- The Making of the Musical'' (1986) (Hartston and
Tim Rice Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice (born 10 November 1944) is an English lyricist and author. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote, among other shows, ''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'', ...
), Pavilion Books, *''Drunken Goldfish and Other Irrelevant Scientific Research'' (1988) *''How was it for you, Professor?'' (1992) *''The Guinness Book of Chess Grandmasters'' (1996) *''Teach Yourself Better Chess'' (1997) *''The Book of Numbers: The Ultimate Compendium of Facts About Figures'' (2000) *''What Are the Chances of That?'' (2004) *''What's What - The Encyclopedia of Quite Extraordinary Information'' (2005) *''The Encyclopedia of Useless Information'' (2007) *''The Things That Nobody Knows'' (2011) *''Even More Things That Nobody Knows'' (2015) Allen & Unwin, *''Sloths'' (2019) *''A Brief History of Puzzles: 120 of the World's Most Baffling Brainteasers from the Sphinx to Sudoku" (2019) Hartston has also written various technical chess books under his full name of William R. Hartston or William Roland Hartston.


Notes


External links

* *
"William Hartston" by Edward Winter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hartston, William 1947 births Living people Sportspeople from London British chess players Jewish chess players Chess International Masters British non-fiction writers British chess writers British male writers Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge English chess players Male non-fiction writers