Nigel Short

Chess player, born in Atherton, Lancashire, NW England, UK. He won the British Championship in 1977, became an international master in 1980, and in 1984 was the UK's youngest ever grandmaster. In 1993 he beat Jan Timmen to become the first UK grandmaster to qualify for a World Championship match, but was defeated by Gary Kasparov. He resigned from FIDE (the international chess organization) in 1993 and with Kasparov formed the Professional Chess Association.

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. He became the second youngest International Master in chess history, after Henrique Mecking, by scoring 8/15 in the Hastings Premier in 1979/80.

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 Candidates stage had by this time reverted to its traditional match format: Short defeated Sax (+2,=3) in St. John, Canada, in 1988, but then unexpectedly lost (-2,=3) to his countryman, Jon Speelman, in London. 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. 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.

Short won the British Chess Championship in 1984, 1987, and 1998 and the English Championship in 1991. 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. 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).

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.

Short's highest world ranking (third) was attained during January 1988-July 1989. In the July 2006 FIDE rating list, Short was ranked number 28 in the world with an Elo rating of 2676, making him England's number two behind Michael Adams.

As well as his playing activities, Short is a noted chess writer. He wrote the The Sunday Telegraph chess column for a decade. He also reported on the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 in San Luis, Argentina, for the ChessBase website.

Short is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Bolton.

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. Nigel Short, Chess Prodigy: His Career and Best Games.