Jonathan Speelman

Jonathan Speelman was born in 1956 and graduated from Worcester College Oxford, where he read mathematics. He became an IM and a professional chess player in 1977, a GM in 1980 and was a member of the English Olympic team from 1980–2006. Three times British Champion he played twice in the Candidates, reaching the semi-final (of what was then a knockout series of matches) in 1989 when he lost 4.5-3.5 to Jan Timman. He was twice a second to a world championship challenger: Nigel Short and then Viswanathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and New York 1995.

Jon has written for The Observer (weekly) since 1993 and The Independent since 1998. With its closure (going online, but without Jon on board) he is expanding online activity and is also now offering online tuition. He likes puzzles, especially (cryptic) crosswords and killer sudokus. If you'd like to contact Jon, then please write to jonathan@speelman.demon.co.uk

Recent news

Spurning the morsel

4/4/2021 – In the mid-nineteenth century, sacrifice was king, and it was supposedly considered “ungentlemanly” to disdain the tasty bait which the opponent proffered. In today’s column, Jon Speelman looks at three examples of the decision-making process behind accepting or not a sacrifice made by the opponent. | Pictured: Vasily Smyslov | Photo: Dutch National Archive

When the fat lady hits the wrong note

3/21/2021 – Star columnist Jon Speelman explores the topic of players sometimes failing to find the finishing touches after getting a big edge during a game. “Sometimes things go wrong and rather than ‘the fat lady singing’ truly, she hits the wrong notes: and while it is over it ain’t in the way it ought to have been.” | Pictured: Nils Grandelius | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit – Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2021

Feeding the flames

3/7/2021 – In this week’s column, Jon Speelman looks deeply into “a real fire fight” in which 18-year-old Arseniy Nesterov came out on top after a terrific battle. In the game, the aggression was mutual and included extended hand-to-hand fighting!

Grumpy silicon and happy carbon

2/21/2021 – In this week’s column, Jon Speelman focuses on the importance of ‘trusting your hand’, noting that “playing chess is one of the few times in our lives when we are totally self-sufficient and self-reliant. It’s the joy and horror of the game that you can take all the credit for your triumphs but have nobody else to blame for your mistakes.” Unmissable! | Photo: David Llada

An elegant sufficiency of cooks

2/7/2021 – “The 8x8 board allied with the rules of chess is an amazing canvas. Much of the time the pictures it paints are fairly mundane, but occasionally it creates something extraordinary”, writes Jon Speelman to conclude this week’s article. In it, you will find helpmates, cooks and a surprising move out of a Catalan. | Photo: Anna Barnett website

Australian rules

1/17/2021 – Noting that Australia is the continent with the greatest variety of venomous animals, star columnist Jon Speelman explores creepy-crawlies in chess — i.e. tiny moves that often have a huge effect, far beyond their visual impression. He then looks at games in which Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov make use of such creeping manoeuvres.

Backwards and forwards

1/3/2021 – Star columnist Jon Speelman recaps what he describes as an “unpr******ted” year, noting that the u-word is “a screen behind the comforting foliage of which gormless politicians have hidden”. Speelman then analyses remarkable wins by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Daniil Dubov, Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen. | Photos: Niki Riga / Lennart Ootes

Festive violence

12/20/2020 – “I couldn’t easily decide on what to do for the last column of this very difficult year and eventually fell back on some cheerful ultra-violence”, writes Jon Speelman. Our star columnist analyses the two most famous games by Rashid Nezhmetdinov and presents a couple of studies by French composer Henri Rinck. | Speelman’s photo: David Llada

The stillness of the hunter

12/7/2020 – After indulging in extreme violence with some of his favourite “hacks”, star columnist Jon Speelman changes gears and looks into a set of very interesting endgames. He focuses on zugzwangs, noting that “were it not for the obligation to move then almost all endgames with rook and pawn v rook would be drawn”.

Hackery (Pt. 2)

11/15/2020 – Star columnist Jon Speelman continues to look at games where hacking (or hackery — the two are more or less interchangeable in his mind) plays a key role. “In a time still dominated by lockdowns we need entertainment, and a blood sport which doesn’t spill real blood seems ideal”, asserts Speelman. | Pictured: Thai Dai Van Nguyen | Photo: iSport.cz

The joy of hacking

11/1/2020 – Former world number 4 and long-standing columnist Jon Speelman shares one of the most complicated games he has ever played — a win he got over Britain’s first grandmaster Tony Miles when he was 19 years old. How did he do it? Speelman concludes his analysis: “There’s no point in looking for consolidation when the board is awash with lava.” | Pictured: Tony Miles (sitting) and Michael Stean at the Zonal Tournament 1978 in Amsterdam | Photo: Dutch National Archive

When 3 is greater than 5

10/18/2020 – Star columnist Jon Speelman explores the exchange sacrifice. Speelman shares five illustrative examples to explain in which conditions giving up a rook for a minor piece is a good trade. “As a general rule and in fact (almost all?) of the time you need other pieces on the board for an exchange sacrifice to work.” | Pictured: Mikhail Tal and Tigran Petrosian following a post-mortem analysis at the 1961 European Team Championship in Oberhausen | Photo: Gerhard Hund

Sacred squares and foolish horses

10/4/2020 – Two days ago, October 2, it was Jon Speelman’s 64th birthday. Given that 64 is a canonical number for chess players, our columnist used this chance to remind us that every single square of the chessboard may be important. In order to illustrate his point, he goes on to show a game in which, as Black, he placed his knights on both h1 and a8 during a single game. Happy birthday, Jon! And many thanks for your ever-ingenious columns! | Pictured: Speelman usin PressTel Chessbox to play long distance chess | Source: British Chess News

Post-mortems and princes

9/20/2020 – Star columnist Jon Speelman reminisces on the days chess players indulged in a post-mortem discussion — across a table — after their game was over. Speelman also talks about the very strongest players never to become world champion, particularly two that he faced repeatedly during his career — Viktor Korchnoi (pictured) and Vassily Ivanchuk. | Photo: Mary Delaney Cooke/Corbis

Speelman on Tal: “His feeling for the initiative has never been bettered”

9/6/2020 – Star columnist Jon Speelman was asked to write about Mikhail Tal, and he happily obliged. Speelman points out that, had Misha Tal been alive today, he would certainly be playing blitz and bullet online, and adds, “He was able to play extremely strongly, even in a state in which the rest of us would have struggled to remain upright”. | Pictured: Tal analysing with Dutch IM Coen Zuidema in Wijk aan Zee 1973 | Photo: Dutch National Archive

The tower of time and motion

8/16/2020 – This is a two-part piece by star columnist Jon Speelman. First, inspired by a beautiful victory by Ian Nepomniachtchi, he looks at games which include the remarkable ...Bb1 manoeuvre (by Black). Then, he demonstrates the solution to a fantastic problem created by François Labelle: to construct a game ending in 7.Rc7 mate with the black king on d7!

The anatomy of Agony

8/3/2020 – Star columnist Jon Speelman tells a story from the old days, when Soviet tournaments were long and inordinately slow. In it, he mentions Leonid Yurtaev, a fierce attacking player who in 1996 became Kyrgyzstan’s first-ever grandmaster and sadly died in 2011 aged just 52. Speelman then goes on to analyse two of Yurtaev’s finest efforts. | Pictured: The city of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

The Cockroach’s Carapace (and other opening disasters)

7/19/2020 – Remembrances of his first chess books, analysis of a World Championship game, backstories from a Candidates Match and a ‘squashed’ Caro-Kann are all part of the latest column by Jonathan Speelman. The former world number four confesses: “Opening theory has never been my thing, and I was perhaps lucky to be active at a time when it was much less essential”. | Photo: David Llada
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