Tony Miles was born in Birmingham on 23 April 1955, St George's Day, as it is known in England, where St George has been the patron saint since the time of Richard the Lionheart. 

Miles learnt to play chess from his father at the age of five and then played chess every evening for three years. Then he got bored with the game and turned his attention to other things. When he was nine, chess fever broke out at his school and Tony Miles was infected again. It soon became apparent that he was very good at the game and could beat everyone at school, including the teachers.

Miles began playing competitive chess at the age of eleven and played several games a week. He was also keen on other sports, including rugby, cricket, swimming and athletics, but his special talent lay in chess. At the age of eleven Miles won the Birmingham Primary School Championships and joined his local chess club, where he met stronger chess players.

In 1967, at the age of twelve, he came second in the Birmingham Adult Rapid Chess Championships. In the same year Miles also came second in the English U14 Championships, losing only to the winner, John Nunn. The following year Miles won the British U14 Championship, although he lost again to Nunn. A year later he beat Nunn in the British U18 Championships. Both shared second place.

Miles went on to win regional tournaments in England and then international youth tournaments. In 1971, the 16-year-old became British Under-21 champion. A year later, he competed in his first national championships, scoring 50%. That same year, he was called up to the England national team for the first time for an international match against the Netherlands.

After chess patron Jim Slater had already saved the 1972 World Championship match between Fischer and Spassky by doubling the prize money, he offered a prize of £5,000 (equivalent to around £100,000 today) at the 1972/73 Christmas tournament in Hastings for the British player who would be the first to win the grandmaster title. At that time, the title was much more difficult to obtain than it is today. The prize attracted many young Englishmen to take up chess.

The young Miles continued to enjoy great success in international youth tournaments, but also increasingly in adult tournaments. At the 1973 World Youth Championship, Miles won silver behind Alexander Beliavsky. However, during the tournament, which took place in Teeside, England, his luggage was stolen.

At the end of the year, Miles met some of the world's top players, including Szabo, Tal and Gligoric, at the Christmas Congress in Hastings, but only managed to finish near the bottom of the table. During the year, he had enrolled as a mathematics student at the University of Sheffield. 

Photo: via Douglas Griffin

In 1974, Miles became the first Briton to win the U20 World Championship, which was held in Manila. For a long time, one of his most dangerous weapons was the Sicilian Dragon variation. His victory over his rival Alexander Kochyev was one of Miles' favourite games. 

In 1974, Miles was awarded the IM title and, with Slater's bonus for the first British grandmaster in sight, he rushed from tournament to tournament. However, Raymond Keene was a serious contender for the Slater bonus. Miles nevertheless won the 1975 London International Tournament ahead of the slightly older players Timman and Adorjan, easily achieving his first GM norm. The following year, he was invited to a GM tournament in Dubna in the Soviet Union, where he achieved his second GM norm against strong Eastern European competition, earning him the grandmaster title and Slater's prize money. At that time, only two GM norms were required for the title. In 1976, Miles was the youngest grandmaster in the world at the age of 21. Observers in the Soviet Union were also impressed by the young Englishman's play, particularly his endgame skills.

Miles now played strong open tournaments in Las Vegas and Lone Pine, was one of the participants in the 1976 Dortmund tournament and, together with Viktor Kortschnoi, at that time number two behind Karpov in the world rankings, won the IBM Tournament in Amsterdam.

England won the bronze medal at the Chess Olympiad in Haifa. Tony Miles also won bronze on board one. In 1977, Miles won the IBM tournament and the GM tournament in Biel, before finishing second behind world champion Karpov in Tilburg.

However, 1978 was not a good year for Miles in chess. He did not win a single tournament. That year, he married former Czechoslovakian national player Jana Malypetrova, who had previously been married to William Hartston. The marriage to Miles lasted only three years, and Jana Malypetrova later married Robert Bellin.

1979 was a better year. Among other things, Miles qualified for the Interzonal Tournament in Riga. However, due to his many previous tournaments, he was poorly prepared and finished in a disappointing mid-table position. At the Clarin International in Buenos Aires, however, he achieved a consolatory joint second place behind Bent Larsen.

The following year, Miles was in top form and played his most famous game in the European Team Championship in Skara, Sweden, against Karpov. Miles had Black and responded to Karpov's 1.e4 with 1...a6, which is, of course, a legal move, but could still be considered a kind of insult.

Photo: Unknown

After the game, Karpov did not sign his score sheet himself, but had it signed by the Soviet team captain.

At the highly competitive Phillips & Drew Tournament in London in 1980, Miles shared first place with Kortschnoi and Andersson. Miles also shared first place in Las Palmas. However, Miles declined an invitation to the Zonal Tournament. In 1982, he won his only title at the British National Championships. 

The BBC had been producing its legendary TV tournaments since the early 1980s. Miles was always there, and in 1983 he scored another victory over Karpov, against whom he had not fared well in most tournaments. The world champion took his revenge the following year at a tournament in Oslo.

In 1983, Miles and Nunn shared first place at the GM tournament in Biel. In 1984, Miles finally became the first player from the ‘West’ to win the Interpolis Super Tournament in Tilburg, finishing one and a half points ahead of Robert Hübner in second place. At the 1984 Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki, England won silver, with John Nunn outstanding on board two. 

During this period, Miles struggled with significant fluctuations in form. He would lose a lot of weight and find it difficult to concentrate for weeks at a time. This was also reflected in his results. 

He finished the Interzonal Tournament in Tunis in 1985 in the lower midfield and lost several games miserably. At the tournament in Tilburg in 1985, he suffered from severe back pain but was allowed to continue the tournament lying face down on a couch, despite protests from some of the other players.

Photo: British Chess News

At the World Team Championships in Lucerne in 1986, Miles was back in good form and helped win the silver medal. By then, he had more or less moved to Germany and was living in Porz, where he had been playing for Wilfried Hilgert's team since 1981/82. In May 1986, he played a match against the new world champion Garry Kasparov. At the time, Miles was ranked 20th in the world and the fourth-best player in the ‘West’ behind Nunn, Hübner and Andersson. However, Kasparov crushed Miles 5.5:0.5. "I thought I was playing the world champion, not a monster with a thousand eyes who sees everything," Miles commented on his defeat.

The heavy defeat marked a turning point in Tony Miles' career. At the Olympiad in Dubai, England won silver with half a board point less than the USSR, but this was mainly thanks to Nigel Short's performance. Miles delivered a very poor result on board one and was soon replaced by Short as the best British player.

Miles also performed very poorly at the 1987 Interzonal Tournament in Zagreb. This was followed by a heated dispute with Raymond Keene and the British Chess Federation. Keene claimed to have worked as Miles' second. Miles denied this. The public dispute took a heavy toll on Miles. He was unable to sleep, fell ill and was unable to play for months. In the dispute with the BCF, Miles resigned from the English national team and joined the US Chess Federation.

Miles met his second wife, Jeannie, in Australia in 1989. However, this marriage also did not last long and ended in divorce in 1991. In 1991, Miles returned to the British Chess Federation and moved back to Birmingham, where he was also active as a chess coach. Miles now mainly played in open tournaments, but also won several invitational tournaments, including the Capablanca Memorial in Cuba in 1994.

Tony Miles was diagnosed with diabetes in 1999. He played his last tournament in 2001 at the British Championships, but had to withdraw one round before the end due to illness. However, he went on to play a few more team matches in the 4NCL. 

On 12 November 2001, he was out with friends during the day. In the evening, Miles died of a heart attack as a result of his diabetes. Miles was 46 years old. Today would have been his 70th birthday.