World championship challenger and one of England’s strongest ever chess players, Nigel Short, is coming to Shropshire on 16 October 2011 along with ECF president and presenter of TV’s Eggheads, CJ de Mooi.
Shropshire players will have a chance to take on Nigel on a 30-board simul as well as enjoy his characteristic humour and insight as he talks about his chess career.
So far, interest in the Nigel Short and CJ de Mooi visit has been very strong, so thank you to all those who responded to the initial publicity. I am pleased to say that we have been able to reduce prices from those originally proposed, and now is the time to make a firm commitment in order to secure your place.
If the initial expressions of interest are anything to go by, places will fill rapidly, particularly for Nigel Short’s simultaneous display. There are discounts for early payment too, so there’s every reason to sign up now. Tickets are on a first come, first served basis and it would be good if our strongest players were well represented.
You can be involved from as little as £5 and plans are in place to make this the premier event of Shropshire chess this year. Don’t miss out!
NIGEL SHORT is one of England’s top chess Grandmasters, earning that title in 1984. In 1993, he earned the right to challenge Gary Kasparov for the world championship, having defeated Anatoly Karpov, Jan Timman and Boris Gelfand en route.
Describing himself as the oldest player in the world’s top 100 players, Nigel continues to entertain with his chess and commentaries, whilst still turning out first class tournament performances.
Earlier this year Nigel played a number of simuls around the country and was undefeated after 169 games and conceded only 9 draws!
Have a look at some games from his earlier tour.
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James “Bobby” Fischer (March 9, 1943 – January 17, 2008) was an American chess player and the eleventh World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author. After ending his competitive career, he proposed a new variant of chess and a modified chess timing system. Both ideas have received some support in recent years.
Widely considered a “chess legend”,[1][2] at age 13 Fischer won a “brilliancy” that became known as The Game of the Century. Starting at age 14, he played in eight United States Championships, winning each by at least a point. At 15½, he became both the youngest grandmaster and the youngest Candidate for the World Championship up until that time. He won the 1963–64 U.S. Championship 11–0, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. In the early 1970s he became the most dominant player in modern history – winning the 1970 Interzonal by a record 3½-point margin and winning 20 consecutive games, including two unprecedented 6–0 sweeps in the Candidates Matches. According to research by Jeff Sonas, in 1971 Fischer had separated himself from the rest of the world by a larger margin of playing skill than any player since the 1870s.[3] He became the first official World Chess Federation (Fédération Internationale des Échecs) (FIDE) number one rated chess player in July 1971, and his 54 total months at number one is the third longest of all time.
In 1972, he captured the World Championship from Boris Spassky of the USSR in a match held in Reykjavík, Iceland that was widely publicized as a Cold War confrontation. The match attracted more worldwide interest than any chess match before or since. In 1975, Fischer declined to defend his title when he could not come to agreement with FIDE over the conditions for the match. He became more reclusive and did not play competitive chess again until 1992, when he won an unofficial rematch against Spassky. This competition was held in Yugoslavia, which was then under a United Nations embargo.[4][5][6] This led to a conflict with the U.S. government, and Fischer never returned to his native country.
In his later years, Fischer lived in Hungary, Germany, the Philippines, Japan, and Iceland. During this time he made increasingly anti-American and antisemitic statements, despite his Jewish ancestry. After his U.S. passport was revoked over the Yugoslavia sanctions issue, he was detained by Japanese authorities for nine months in 2004 and 2005 under threat of deportation. In February 2005, Iceland granted him right of residence as a “stateless” alien and issued him a passport.[7] When Japan refused to release him to Iceland on that basis, Iceland’s parliament voted in March 2005 to give him full citizenship.[8] The Japanese authorities then released him to that country, where he lived until his death in 2008.[9]
