Harry Golombek
Encyclopedia
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(1 March 1911 – 7 January 1995), was a British chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
International Master and honorary grandmaster
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
, chess arbiter, and chess author. He was three times British chess champion
British Chess Championship
The British Chess Championship is organised by the English Chess Federation. There are separate championships for men and women. Since 1923 there have been sections for juniors, and since 1982 there has been an over-sixty championship. The championship venue usually changes every year and has been...
, in 1947, 1949, and 1955 and finished second in 1948. He became a grandmaster in 1985.
He was the chess correspondent of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper from 1945 to 1989. He was an official of the FIDE
Fédération Internationale des Échecs
The Fédération Internationale des Échecs or World Chess Federation is an international organization that connects the various national chess federations around the world and acts as the governing body of international chess competition. It is usually referred to as FIDE , its French acronym.FIDE...
, and served as Arbiter for several important events, including the Candidates' Tournament of 1959 in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, and the World Chess Championship match 1963 between Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...
and Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was a Soviet-Armenian grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his playing style because of his almost impenetrable defence, which emphasised safety above all else...
. He was also editor of some well-known collections of games such as Capablanca's and Réti
Richard Réti
Réti composed one of the most famous chess studies, shown in this diagram. It was published in Ostrauer Morgenzeitung 4 December 1921. It seems impossible for the white king to catch the advanced black pawn, while the white pawn can be easily stopped by the black king...
's, and was a well-respected author. He was editor of British Chess Magazine
British Chess Magazine
British Chess Magazine is the world's oldest chess magazine in continuous publication. First published in January 1881, it has appeared at monthly intervals ever since. It is frequently known in the chess world as BCM....
from 1938 to 1940, and its overseas editor throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Golombek also translated several chess books from Russian into English.
On the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in September 1939, Golombek was in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, competing in the Chess Olympiad
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...
for Britain alongside C. H. O'D. Alexander and Stuart Milner-Barry
Stuart Milner-Barry
Sir Stuart Milner-Barry KCVO, CB, OBE was a British chess player, chess writer, World War II codebreaker and civil servant. He represented England in chess both before and after World War II...
. They immediately returned to the UK, and were soon recruited into Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...
, the wartime codebreaking centre. Golombek worked in Hut 8
Hut 8
Hut 8 was a section at Bletchley Park tasked with solving German naval Enigma messages. The section was led initially by Alan Turing...
, the section responsible for solving German Naval Enigma
Enigma machine
An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...
, moving to another section in October/November 1942. After the war he lived at 35 Albion Crescent Chalfont St Giles
Chalfont St Giles
Chalfont St Giles is a village and civil parish within Chiltern district in south east Buckinghamshire, England, on the edge of the Chilterns, 25 miles from London, and near Seer Green, Jordans, Chalfont St Peter, Little Chalfont and Amersham....
.
Golombek represented England nine times in chess Olympiads. He earned the title of International Master in 1950 and was made a GME (Grandmaster Emeritus) in 1985. He was the first British player to qualify for an Interzonal
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...
tournament.
Golombek studied philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
at King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
, having been a pupil at Wilson's Grammar School
Wilson's School
Wilson's School is a boys' grammar school in Wallington, in the London Borough of Sutton, UK. Admission is based on performance in an entrance test with around 1,000 pupils being taught there....
, Camberwell. He was appointed OBE in 1966, the first to be so honoured for services to chess.
Books
- Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess, edited by Golombek, 1977, Batsford/Crown, ISBN 0-517-53146-1
- A History of Chess, by Harry Golombek, 1976, Routledge & Kegan Paul, ISBN 0-7100-8266-5
- The Art of the Middle Game, by Harry Golombek, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-046-102-7
- Modern Opening Chess Strategy, 1959, Pitman
- Reti's Best Games of Chess, annotated by H. Golombek, 1954 (B. Bell & Sons, Ltd), republished 1974 (Dover Publications, Inc.)
- Instructions to Young Chess Players, 1958, Pitman, ISBN 0273485504