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

Jon Speelman: The joys of Codgerdom

10/3/2021 – Yesterday, 2 October 2021, Jon Speelman turned 65. Congratulations! The English Grandmaster and former World Championship Candidate, who in January 1989 was the world’s number four, used this occasion to look back on his career and to select some of the most interesting games he played as an up-and-coming player. | Photo: David Llada

Do pawns disregard Einstein?

9/19/2021 – A pawn promotion is a huge event in a chess game, as the energy garnered by the pawn advancing up the board is transformed in a most un-Einsteinian way (surely a pawn’s advance doesn’t create that much energy) into serious amounts of matter. Star columnist Jon Speelman looks at overwhelming pawn avalanches, and analyses a game in which Albert Einstein got the better of Robert Oppenheimer. | Pictured: Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer in 1947

The patter of tiny feet

9/5/2021 – The humble pawn is the foot soldier of chess. A single passed pawn may be a huge threat if well-supported, but can also become a liability if not. Today we look at some instances of pawn “avalanches”, in which the patter of tiny feet became thunder. | Pictured: Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais

Initiating fission

8/15/2021 – In this week’s column, Jon Speelman looks at the dichotomy between energy and matter in chess. While some players choose material, others go for dynamism. To illustrate his points, Speelman analyses two recent wins by Magnus Carlsen and an early game by Mikhail Tal, in which he was able to recover and win from a material disadvantage “of a mere two knights”! | Pictured: Tal at the 1964 Amsterdam Interzonal | Photo: Harry Pot / Anefo

Blood pudding

8/2/2021 – When you look at games by very strong positional players, you may get the impression that they don’t like tactics and are perhaps not corruscatingly good at them. But this is almost always a mirage. Star columnist Jon Speelman looks at three excellent attacking wins by world champion Magnus Carlsen. | Photo: Anastasiia Korolkova / FIDE World Cup

The Norwegian Bishops’ new wood

7/18/2021 – In his third column examining who is the best chess player in history — and his 150th overall — Jon Speelman fast forwards to the present champion, Magnus Carlsen. Speelman considers that Carlsen’s greatest strength is in the endgame, and dares to call him the best ever for this stage of the game. | Photo: Anastasiia Korolkova / FIDE World Cup

A few reflections more (and a cocktail of Caissists)

7/4/2021 – Star columnist Jon Speelman reactivates his “mirror”, a potent if imaginary artefact intended to reflect the best chess players ever. This week, a couple of games by Garry Kasparov, “an (un)caged tiger who revels in violent conflict”. | Pictured: Kasparov with ChessBase’s Matthias Wüllenweber

Mirror mirror on the wall...

6/20/2021 – A comment in the previous column prompted Jon Speelman to share with the readers which players he considers to be the best to have ever lived. He starts with Bobby Fischer, whom he characterizes as having “precise power”; and with Anatoly Karpov — “deft control”. Chime in your thoughts in the comments section and, if you like, characterize your favourite players’ styles in a couple of words! | Artwork: Unknown (via Quora)

Overthinking the silence

6/6/2021 – Often times during a chess game you have to make a choice between waiting and initiating concrete action. Star columnist Jon Speelman notes that “this eerie silence before battle is perhaps the most difficult moment psychologically”, and goes on to show how even world champion Magnus Carlsen can take a wrong turn from time to time. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

Pearly Kings

5/16/2021 – Looking at the games from the recent Russian Team Championship, played in Sochi, prompted Jon Speelman to reminisce on a tournament he played nearly four decades ago in the same Russian city near the Black Sea. “In those distant Soviet times, the seven foreigners were put up in the Zhemchuzhina (Pearl) Hotel while the nine Soviets were dispersed among other lesser establishments”. | Photo: John Saunders / John Nunn 60th Birthday Blitz Chess Tournament

Raising the floor: Nepo's chances against Carlsen

5/2/2021 – Now that we know that Ian Nepomniachtchi will be Magnus Carlsen’s next challenger for the World Championship title, it’s time to start getting ready for the big match. Star columnist Jon Speelman has another go at prediction, claiming that “Carlsen is surely the favourite, but not, I think, by that much: no more than 60-40, and perhaps just 55-45”. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Ovi-ready

4/18/2021 – With the Candidates Tournament resuming this week, all eyes are turning to Yekaterinburg. Bravely, star columnist Jon Speelman decided to add his voice to the hubbub of predictions, “thus preparing to get egg all over my face or, as you might say, becoming Ovi-ready”. Who do you think will be Magnus Carlsen’s next challenger? | Image: FIDE

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.
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