London 1980 - Softcover

Hartston, William Roland; Reuben, Stewart

Softcover

ISBN 10: 4871878597 ISBN 13: 9784871878593

Publisher: Ishi Press, 2010

Phillips & Drew/GLC Kings 1980 was one of the great chess events. London was a desert for international tournament chess from 1948-1973. In 1975 there was the Evening Standard London Chess Fortnight. Although these were fine events and very valuable to English chess; they could not be compared with the events in Hastings and Teesside. Really the photo from the Daily Mail says it all. The game between 14 year old Nigel Short and Viktor Korchnoi attracted immense interest. I had feared there wouldn't be many spectators. How foolish! So a large number of children were hired to fill up the hall. Of course they couldn't see what was going on, so they came to the front in order to have a better view. Harry Golombek muttered, 'We can't have a mess like that again.' Leonard Barden said, 'We'll have to wait another 20 years anyway.'

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About the Author:

William Roland Hartston (born London 12 August 1947) is an English chess player who played competitively from 1962 to 1987 with a highest Elo rating of 2515. However, he failed by the closest possible margin to achieve the results required for the formal award of the title of International Grandmaster. Hartston is probably best known as a chess author and presenter of the game on television. At the 19th Chess Olympiad, held at Siegen 1970, he won the gold medal for best score on board 3 (78.1%). He won the British Chess Championship in 1973 and 1975, the former being one year after he was awarded the International Master title. During the 1980s he presented the BBC series Play Chess and since the early 1970s, has made many TV appearances for the BBC, usually in the role of expert commentator and analyst on chess world title matches, including Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky, Karpov-Korchnoi, Kasparov-Nigel Short and Kasparov-Viswanathan Anand. He has since diversified into a number of creative areas, running competitions in creative thinking for The Independent newspaper and the Mind Sports Olympiad. He writes the off-beat Beachcomber column for the Daily Express and books on chess, mathematics, humor and trivia. Aside from being a chess player, Hartston is a Cambridge-educated mathematician and industrial psychologist. He has since been a regular guest on the BBC Radio 4 program, Puzzle Panel.

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