The unpublished games of Nigel Short

The missing games of the British legend

Short is the first British player to become a World Championship challenger and the only grandmaster to have won a tournament in six continents. He has done everything there is to do, from being a columnist for various leading newspapers and journals to a commentator. His last role as a commentator was in the Women's World Championship held in January this year.

This article is not about all the accomplishments of the legend but about the missing games, the unpublished games of his career.

Short has played and beaten a number of World Champions: Tigran Petrosian (simul), Boris Spassky (rapid), Vassily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Vishy Anand, Veselin Topalov, Vladimir Kramnik, Ruslan Ponomariov, Alexander Khalifman, Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Magnus Carlsen (blitz).

Greatest Hits Vol. 1

Nigel Short takes us on an electrifying journey through a very rich chess career, which saw him beat no less than twelve world champions. His experience in tournaments and matches all over the world – Short has visited a total of 89 countries – can be seen in the narratives that precede the games which he annotates with humour and instructive insights.

Ten-year-old Nigel Short giving a simul on 17th May 1976 | Photo: Hans Peters / Anefo / Wikimedia Commons

Assorted games

Born in 1965, Short played some nice attacking games as early as 1975. Against B. Kimber, he won in only 17 moves.

14-year old Short showed his intent towards a king walk for the very first time against Ian Duncan Wells in 1980 in another rematch. It is quite evident that Ian Wells was one of Short's rivals in his childhood. We present the game together with the famous king walk against Jan Timman in 1991.

Select an entry from the list to switch between games

It is quite surprising that a game against Samuel Reshevsky went under the radar for all these years. Reshevsky has played against Akiba Rubinstein, Bobby Fischer, Emmanuel Lasker, Jose Raul Capablanca, Miguel Najdorf, Mikhail Botvinnik, Tigran Petrosian and Vlastimil Hort among the legendary players. Reshevsky faced Short in Lugano in 1985.

The score sheet of Short vs Reshevsky - 10^th Lugano Open, 1985 | Photo: Nigel Short

In 1986, Short had a pretty finish against G. Pieterse, also in Lugano.

Secret training matches with Ruslan Ponomariov

Ukraine's Ruslan Ponomariov at the age of 14 years was the youngest grandmaster at that time. He was supposed to defend his World Championship title against Kasparov in September 2003 at Yalta in a fourteen-game match. Few weeks before that, Short played a few secret training games against him. Only one of them (game number eight) had been published so far. Here are the remaining seven, including two annotated by Short himself.

Ponomariov in 2017 | Photo: Pascal Simon

All unpublished games

Links

• Original articles on ChessBase India: Part 1 | Part 2