Nigel Short

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Nigel Short

Nigel Short MBE (born June 1, 1965 in Leigh, Lancashire) is widely regarded as the strongest British chess player of the 20th century.

A chess prodigy, Short first attracted significant media attention, as a 10 year old, by defeating Viktor Korchnoi in a simultaneous exhibition. In 1977 he became by far the youngest ever participant in the British Chess Championship by qualifying three days before his twelfth birthday. Two years later, at the British Championship in Chester 1979, the 14 year-old tied for first place with John Nunn and Robert Bellin, earning his first IM norm. He became the second youngest International Master in chess history, after Henrique Mecking, by scoring 8/15 in the Hastings Premier in 1979/80. Participating in four World Junior Championships (1980–1983), his best result was at first attempt - second, to Garry Kasparov, in 1980. He was awarded the grandmaster title in 1984, aged nineteen – the youngest in the world at that time.

Short’s assaults on the World Chess Championship title began in earnest in 1985 when he narrowly qualified from the Biel Interzonal to become the Britain’s first ever Candidate. The Montpellier Candidates Tournament brought him little success, however, as he scored 7/15 to finish in tenth place. In the next cycle, he again qualified by winning the 1987 Subotica Interzonal with Jon Speelman. The Candidates stage had by this time reverted to its traditional match format: Short defeated Sax (+2,=3) in Saint John, Canada, in 1988, but then unexpectedly lost (-2,=3) to his countryman, Jon Speelman, in London.

His next attempt was to prove his most successful. A last round victory over Mikhail Gurevich enabled Short to finish equal third with Vishwanathan Anand, behind Vassily Ivanchuk and Boris Gelfand, at the Manila Interzonal, thus qualifying as a Candidate for the third successive time. Defeating Gelfand (+4,=2,-2) in the 8/Final, he progressed to meet his former nemesis, Jon Speelman, in the quarters. This oscillating struggle went into extra-time in which the younger man eventually prevailed. In the semi-final the Englishman overcame the legendary Russian Anatoly Karpov (+4,=4,-2) in a match that was described as “the end of an era.” In the final, in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Short defeated Dutchman Jan Timman (+5,=5,-3) to earn the right to meet defending World Champion, Garry Kasparov.

When the then FIDE President, Florencio Campomanes, flouted the governing body’s own regulations by awarding the venue to Manchester, without taking into account the choices of the players, the two participants promptly formed a rival organisation - the Professional Chess Association. The resulting match – sponsored by The Times newspaper – was held under the auspices of the new body in London, September-October 1993. Kasparov won convincingly (+6,-1,=14).

Nigel Short at the 2005 Corus chess tournament

Short won the British Chess Championship in 1984, 1987, and 1998 and the English Championship in 1991. He became Commonwealth Champion in Mumbai, 2004, and again in 2006. He won the European Union Championship in Liverpool, 2006. He has finished outright first, or tied for first, in dozens of other international tournaments including Geneva 1979, the BBC Master Game (1981), Amsterdam OHRA (1982), Baku 1983, Esbjerg 1984, Wijk aan zee (1986, 1987), Reykjavík (1987), Amsterdam VSB (1988,1991,1992,1993), Hastings (1987/80, 1988/89), Parnu (1996), Groningen (1996), Tallinn/Parnu 1998, Dhaka United Insurance1999, Shymkent 1999, Pamplona (1999/00), Tan Chin Nam Cup, Beijing 2000, Sigeman and Co. Malmö 2002, Gibraltar (2003, 2004), Budapest Hunguest Hotels 2003, Samba Cup, Skanderborg 2003, Taiyuan (2004) and the Politiken Cup 2006. Arguably Short's finest performance came at the Amsterdam VSB tournament in 1991 when he tied for first place with Valery Salov ahead of both Kasparov and Karpov.

Short has enjoyed considerable success as a matchplayer, crushing the US Champion Lev Alburt in Foxboro 1985 by the score of 7-1 (+6,=2). He has also defeated Utut Adianto (+3,=3) in Jakarta 1995, Etienne Bacrot in Albert 2000 (+3,=2,-1), Hannes Stefansson in Reykjavík 2002 (+4,=1,-1) and Ehsan Ghaem Maghami in Tehran 2003 (+2,=4).

A perennial fixture on the national team, Short won silver medals in the chess Olympiads of Thessaloniki 1984, Dubai 1986 (where he also took gold medal for the best individual performance on board three) and Thessaloniki 1988. He took a bronze in the Novi Sad Olympiad of 1990, and led the England team to victory in the 1997 European Championship.

Short's highest world ranking (third) was attained during January 1988-July 1989. He reached his numerical peak ELO rating of 2712 in April 2004. In the January 2007 FIDE rating list, Short was ranked number 23 in the world with an Elo rating of 2691, making him England's number two behind Michael Adams.

As well as his playing activities, Short is a noted chess writer. He has written columns and book reviews for the British newspapers The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and The Spectator. He wrote the The Sunday Telegraph chess column for a decade. He most recently wrote for The Guardian, with his final column appearing on October 19, 2006. He also reported on the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 in San Luis, Argentina, for the ChessBase website.

He has individually coached young prodigies Pentala Harikrishna, Sergey Karjakin, David Howell and Parimarjan Negi. His first team assignment, with the Islamic Republic of Iran, led to them unexpectedly taking bronze medal at the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, in 2006.

Short is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Bolton. In 1999 he was appointed MBE, in recognition of his chess accomplishments. In August 2005, he was unanimously elected Secretary General of the Commonwealth Chess Association. In June 2006 he became its President. He resides in Athens and is married to drama-therapist Rhea Argyro Karageorgiou. The couple have two children: Kyveli Aliki (born July 7, 1991) and Nicholas Darwin (born December 18, 1998).

In 2001, Short was in the news as the story broke that he had been secretly playing the reclusive former chess champion Bobby Fischer online in speed chess matches. Short later retracted the claim after Fischer himself denied it.