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
5/5/2024 – One of the most interesting aspects of the Candidates Tournament was the superb opening preparation, and in particular how they managed to set each other problems which hadn’t been foreseen. This is a special skill that involves interacting with the fearsome engines not to find the “best” moves but ones which are almost as strong according to the silicon evaluation — but lower down the food chain! | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza
4/7/2024 – As the much-anticipated Candidates Tournament is taking place in Toronto, it’s not too difficult to separate the players into those with a decent chance of winning and becoming Ding’s challenger and those who will hope to have a decent result and gain invaluable experience for the future. After three rounds of play, the overall impression is that these guys are going to beat each other to a pulp and that the level of opening preparation is terrifying! | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza
3/3/2024 – A fortnight ago, I showed a game by Lu Miaoyi, a ferocious 14-year-old Chinese girl. This started me thinking about the best attacking players of all time. I don’t have an ordered list myself, just some names which I think should go very close to the top. Here I analysed three brilliant attacking wins by Rashid Nezhmetdinov (pictured), Paul Keres and Wei Yi. What is your top ten of attacking players? Share your list in the comments section.
2/18/2024 – Today’s column is about sacrifices and the exchange in particular. If you’re shown a chess position cold, then the first thing you do normally is to count the pieces just to check that the material is fairly balanced. But the relative activity is at least as important. The “joy of innumeracy” might turn out to be a valuable (in)ability in many chess positions! | Pictured: Lu Miaoyi at the 2023 Rapid and Blitz World Championships. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
2/4/2024 – In the final round of the Tata Steel Masters, five players started first equal and four of them won. Big pile ups do occur quite often at the end of open Swiss tournaments, but I don’t think that I’ve ever seen this before at the end of a top-class all-play-all. The last round was a fantastic spectacle, so I thought I’d add some of my own observations now, augmented by some incredible moves from our silicon lords and masters. | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess
1/21/2024 – Since we can’t hope to emulate the calculating ability of modern engines, what we must do is to plough a sensible course, in which we calculate as much as possible within the constraints of the time limit, aiming for positions to play in which we feel reasonably comfortable. There’s little advantage in going for some horrifically complicated line in which the machine is very happy but we feel seasick! | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Tata Steel Chess
1/7/2024 – As the new year gets underway, it's traditional to look both forwards and backwards. 2023 saw Magnus Carlsen abdicate his world title, Ding Liren capture the vacant crown after a nail-biting match against Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ju Wenjun retain her world title also by a narrow margin after defeating her countrywoman Lei Tingjie. Jon Speelman looks back to 2023 and forward to 2024. | Photo: Fabiano Caruana | Photo: Lennart Ootes
12/17/2023 – In order to attack the enemy king successfully in a game of chess, you need sufficient firepower and a clear target. Often there will be a complex of squares of the same colour that come under attack, and so we have white or dark-square games. Today we have some instances of attacks on both light and dark squares, featuring the likes of Johannes Zukertort (pictured) and Anatoly Karpov!
12/3/2023 – Endings with a rook and a minor piece each are especially difficult. There is still enough firepower on the board for plenty of tactics, up to and often including mating attacks. But in contrast to middlegames, where unless matters are very forcing you have to rely to a great extent on intuition, in principle you “ought” — with material limited — to be able to calculate fairly accurately! | Photo: John Saunders (2007)
11/19/2023 – This week, I’m looking at calculation and what’s reasonable for a mere human being without excessive genuflection to our silicon lords and masters. One thing that the silicon brings us is a totally unprejudiced “eye”, but seeing far enough in difficult positions over the board is something any competitive player needs to develop properly. | Pictured: Vidit Gujrathi | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage
11/5/2023 – Marking Guy Fawkes Day in the UK, Jon Speelman goes over a number of suitably pyrotechnic games. Three correspondence-chess marvels from the 1980s are followed by recent games from the Qatar Masters and the FIDE Grand Swiss. Fire on board!
10/22/2023 – Magnus Carlsen’s disastrous loss to Alisher Suleymenov in Qatar has gone round the world, partly because it was an excellent game but mainly because it was so unusual: Carlsen’s first defeat by such a relatively “weak” opponent since the Norwegian Championship of 2006! Unusual but not really that shocking. Anybody can have an off day, and the truly shocking thing is that Carlsen has managed for nearly two decades to avoid losing at classical chess to such an opponent. | Photo: Aditya Sur Roy
10/1/2023 – A little over a week ago, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura did battle in the Speed Chess Championship. Over three hours, they battered each other at 5+1, 3+1 and 1+1 until Carlsen emerged the victor by the narrowest possible margin. It was a great spectacle, and the thing I liked most of all was how these two great players, when things are going well, ‘trust their hands’. Their autopilots can outperform most people even at much slower time limits, and there were a few decisions which I particularly admired. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
9/17/2023 – Recently, I’ve been looking at some of my old middlegame books, both as potential teaching material and for the pleasure of reminding myself what the bods had to say. A few of the found jewels: Max Euwe and Hans Kramer’s two-volume work on the middlegame; three volumes of “Complete Chess Strategy” by Ludek Pachman; “A Contemporary Approach to the Middlegame” by Alexei Suetin; and three different editions of Aron Nimzowitch’s “My System” (one in Russian).
9/3/2023 – In this week’s column, violence and subtlety are presented side by side — violence from the Düsseldorf Rapid Team Championship, and subtlety from the sophisticated concept of zugzwang. Find here examples from games by Dommaraju Gukesh and Nihal Sarin, plus remarkable zugzwang positions, including the ‘Immortal Zugzwang Game’. | Photos: FIDE / Niki Riga
8/20/2023 – This week’s column happens to be the two hundredth in a series stemming back to April 2016. This time, in honour of the round number, I thought we might span the centuries with some games from round about 1823. I’m no chess historian, so make no particular claim for the games I’ve chosen, but they do illustrate some aspects of how the game has developed! | Pictured: Alexander Alekhine with his wife and Efim Bogoljubow | Photo: Europe Echecs
8/6/2023 – IM Brandon Clarke found a remarkable winning blow in one of his games from the Major Open in Leicester. The blow was a cross pin, a geometric nightmare for the victim — and surely a worthy topic for a Sunday column! | Photo: John Upham
7/16/2023 – Simen Agdestein recently won the Norwegian Chess Championship for a ninth time in his career. The 56-year-old outscored the likes of Aryan Tari and Jon Ludvig Hammer, but did not have to beat national hero and former student Magnus Carlsen, who does not participate in his country’s championships. In his column this week, Jon Speelman analyses recent games by both the master and the student! | Photo: VG.no
I give promising mainlines for white against all black’s main replies to 1.d4 d5 that are engine-proof, easy to learn and can be played almost instantly.
Prague Chess Festival 2024 with analyses by Abdusattorov, Navara, Pragg and many more. Opening videos by Felix Blohberger, Christian Bauer and Nico Zwirs. 11 repertoire articles from Reti to King's Indian and much more.
In this video course we’ll have a look at the Queen’s Indian after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6. We’ll explore the ins and outs of the possible White setups against this rock-solid opening.
This video course includes GM Anish Giri's deep insights and IM Sagar Shah's pertinent questions to the super GM. In Vol.1 all the openings after 1.e4 are covered.
Videos: Nico Zwirs on the Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.d3 c6 5.f4) and part 2 of “Mikhalchishins miniatures”. “Lucky bag” with 53 commented games by Romain Edouard, Michal Krasenkow, Samvel Ter-Sahakyan, Gabriel Sargissian, Nodirbek Yakubboe
I give promising mainlines for white against all black’s main replies to 1.d4 d5 that are engine-proof, easy to learn and can be played almost instantly.
Prague Chess Festival 2024 with analyses by Abdusattorov, Navara, Pragg and many more. Opening videos by Felix Blohberger, Christian Bauer and Nico Zwirs. 11 repertoire articles from Reti to King's Indian and much more.
In this video course we’ll have a look at the Queen’s Indian after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6. We’ll explore the ins and outs of the possible White setups against this rock-solid opening.
This video course includes GM Anish Giri's deep insights and IM Sagar Shah's pertinent questions to the super GM. In Vol.1 all the openings after 1.e4 are covered.
Videos: Nico Zwirs on the Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.d3 c6 5.f4) and part 2 of “Mikhalchishins miniatures”. “Lucky bag” with 53 commented games by Romain Edouard, Michal Krasenkow, Samvel Ter-Sahakyan, Gabriel Sargissian, Nodirbek Yakubboe
€14.90
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