John Nunn
Encyclopedia
John Denis Martin Nunn (born 25 April 1955 in London
) is one of England
's strongest chess
players and once belonged to the world's top ten. He is also a three times world champion in chess problem
solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician
.
Under-18 Champion for the 1969/70 season and less than a year later, at just fifteen years of age, he proceeded to Oriel College, Oxford, to study mathematics
. At the time, it was said that he was Oxford's youngest undergraduate since Cardinal Wolsey. Graduating in 1973, he went on to gain his doctorate in 1978 with a thesis on finite H-space
s, and remained at Oxford University as a mathematics lecturer until 1981, when he became a professional chess player.
In 1975, he became the European Junior Champion
. He gained the Grandmaster title in 1978 and was British champion
in 1979. Nunn has twice won individual gold medals at Chess Olympiad
s. In 1989, he finished sixth in the inaugural 'World Cup', a series of tournaments in which the top 25 players in the world competed. His best performance in the World Chess Championship
came in 1987, when he lost a playoff match against Lajos Portisch
for a place in the Candidates Tournament
. He won the prestigious Hoogovens tournament
(held annually in Wijk aan Zee
) in 1982, 1990 and 1991.
He achieved his highest Elo rating
of 2630 in January 1995. Six years earlier, in January 1989, his then rating of 2620 was high enough to elevate him into the world's top ten, where he shared ninth place. This was close to the peak of the English chess boom and there were two English players above him on the list; Nigel Short
(world number three, 2650) and Jonathan Speelman (world number five, 2640). Nunn has now retired from serious tournament play and hasn't played a FIDE rated game since August 2006, however he has been active in the ECF rapid play.
As well as being a strong player, Nunn is regarded as one of the best contemporary authors of chess books. He has penned many volumes, including Secrets of Grandmaster Chess which won the British Chess Federation Book of the Year award in 1988 and John Nunn's Best Games which took the award in 1995. He is the director of chess publishers Gambit Publications
. Chess historian Edward Winter
has written of him:
Nunn is also involved with chess problem
s, composing several examples and solving as part of the British team on several occasions. On this subject he wrote Solving in Style (1985). He won the World Chess Solving Championship
in Halkidiki, Greece, in September 2004 and also made his final GM norm in problem solving; he won the World Championship again in 2007 and in 2010. He is the third person ever to gain both over-the-board and solving GM titles (the others being Jonathan Mestel
and Ram Soffer
; Bojan Vučković
has been the fourth since 2008).
Since the mid-1990s, Nunn has been actively engaged in data mining
from chess endgame tablebase
s. The products of this work include the books Secrets Of Rook Endings, Secrets of Minor-Piece Endings, and Secrets Of Pawnless Endings. These books include human-usable endgame strategies found by Nunn (and others) by extensive experimentation with tablebases, and new editions have come out and are due as more tablebases are created and tablebases are more deeply data-mined. Nunn is thus (as of 2004) the foremost data miner of chess endgame tablebases. This work corresponds to the endgame part of the work of Berlekamp, Conway
et al. in dots-and-boxes, Hex
and other games.
He is married to Petra Fink-Nunn, a German chess player with the title Woman FIDE Master. They have a son, Michael.
of the Vienna Game
regularly provides swashbuckling play and Nunn's game with Jacob Øst-Hansen at Teesside 1974, was no exception. The latter part of the game was played in a frantic time scramble, with Nunn sacrificing pieces to bring the enemy king into the open and deliver checkmate.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
) is one of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
's strongest 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...
players and once belonged to the world's top ten. He is also a three times world champion in chess problem
Chess problem
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by somebody using chess pieces on a chess board, that presents the solver with a particular task to be achieved. For instance, a position might be given with the instruction that White is to move first, and checkmate Black in two...
solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
.
Career
As a junior, he showed a prodigious talent for the game and in 1967, at twelve years of age, he won the British under-14 Championship. At fourteen, he was LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
Under-18 Champion for the 1969/70 season and less than a year later, at just fifteen years of age, he proceeded to Oriel College, Oxford, to study mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. At the time, it was said that he was Oxford's youngest undergraduate since Cardinal Wolsey. Graduating in 1973, he went on to gain his doctorate in 1978 with a thesis on finite H-space
H-space
In mathematics, an H-space is a topological space X together with a continuous map μ : X × X → X with an identity element e so that μ = μ = x for all x in X...
s, and remained at Oxford University as a mathematics lecturer until 1981, when he became a professional chess player.
In 1975, he became the European Junior Champion
European Junior Chess Championship
The first chess youth championship in Europe was the yearly European Junior Championship for under age 20. It was played from 1971–2002. FIDE officially introduced the European Junior Championship in 1970 at their Annual Congress and so the 1971/72 edition was the first official European...
. He gained the Grandmaster title in 1978 and was British 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 1979. Nunn has twice won individual gold medals at 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...
s. In 1989, he finished sixth in the inaugural 'World Cup', a series of tournaments in which the top 25 players in the world competed. His best performance in the World Chess Championship
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
came in 1987, when he lost a playoff match against Lajos Portisch
Lajos Portisch
Lajos Portisch is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster, whose positional style earned him the nickname, the "Hungarian Botvinnik"...
for a place in the Candidates Tournament
Candidates Tournament
The Candidates Tournament is a chess tournament organized by the world chess federation FIDE since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship...
. He won the prestigious Hoogovens tournament
Corus chess tournament
The Tata Steel Chess Tournament formerly called the Corus chess tournament takes place every year, usually in January, in a small town called Wijk aan Zee, part of the larger Beverwijk in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands...
(held annually in Wijk aan Zee
Wijk aan Zee
Wijk aan Zee is a small town on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk in the province of North Holland of the Netherlands. The prestigious Tata Steel chess tournament formerly Corus chess tournament and before that called Hoogovens tournament takes place there every year.Due...
) in 1982, 1990 and 1991.
He achieved his highest Elo rating
Elo rating system
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in two-player games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-born American physics professor....
of 2630 in January 1995. Six years earlier, in January 1989, his then rating of 2620 was high enough to elevate him into the world's top ten, where he shared ninth place. This was close to the peak of the English chess boom and there were two English players above him on the list; Nigel Short
Nigel Short
Nigel David Short MBE is an English chess grandmaster earning the title at the age of 19. Short is often regarded as the strongest English player of the 20th century as he was ranked third in the world, from January 1988 – July 1989 and in 1993, he challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess...
(world number three, 2650) and Jonathan Speelman (world number five, 2640). Nunn has now retired from serious tournament play and hasn't played a FIDE rated game since August 2006, however he has been active in the ECF rapid play.
As well as being a strong player, Nunn is regarded as one of the best contemporary authors of chess books. He has penned many volumes, including Secrets of Grandmaster Chess which won the British Chess Federation Book of the Year award in 1988 and John Nunn's Best Games which took the award in 1995. He is the director of chess publishers Gambit Publications
Gambit Publications
Gambit Publications is a major publisher of chess books. The company's headquarters is in London. It has published more than 150 chess books.The company was founded by three chess players...
. Chess historian Edward Winter
Edward Winter (chess historian)
Edward Winter is an English journalist, archivist, historian, collector and author about the game of chess. He writes a regular column on that subject, Chess Notes, and is also a regular columnist for ChessBase.-Chess Notes:...
has written of him:
A polymath, Nunn has written authoritative monographs on openings, endings and compositions, as well as annotated games collections and autobiographical volumes. As an annotator he is equally at home presenting lucid prose descriptions for the relative novice and analysis of extreme depth for the expert.
Nunn is also involved with chess problem
Chess problem
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by somebody using chess pieces on a chess board, that presents the solver with a particular task to be achieved. For instance, a position might be given with the instruction that White is to move first, and checkmate Black in two...
s, composing several examples and solving as part of the British team on several occasions. On this subject he wrote Solving in Style (1985). He won the World Chess Solving Championship
World Chess Solving Championship
The World Chess Solving Championship is an annual competition in the solving of chess problems organised by FIDE via the Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions ....
in Halkidiki, Greece, in September 2004 and also made his final GM norm in problem solving; he won the World Championship again in 2007 and in 2010. He is the third person ever to gain both over-the-board and solving GM titles (the others being Jonathan Mestel
Jonathan Mestel
Andrew Jonathan Mestel is Professor of applied mathematics at Imperial College London who works on magnetohydrodynamics and biological fluid dynamics...
and Ram Soffer
Ram Soffer
Ram Soffer is an Israeli chess grandmaster with Elo rating 2475 in 2008.Ram Soffer is also International solving grandmaster since 1998.-External links:...
; Bojan Vučković
Bojan Vučković
Bojan Vučković is a Serbian chess Grandmaster.His current FIDE rating is 2630. He is also strong chess problemist holding title of International solving grandmaster.-External links: * http://www.saunalahti.fi/~stniekat/pccc/sgm.htm...
has been the fourth since 2008).
Since the mid-1990s, Nunn has been actively engaged in data mining
Data mining
Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
from chess endgame tablebase
Endgame tablebase
An endgame tablebase is a computerized database that contains precalculated exhaustive analysis of a chess endgame position. It is typically used by a computer chess engine during play, or by a human or computer that is retrospectively analysing a game that has already been played.The tablebase...
s. The products of this work include the books Secrets Of Rook Endings, Secrets of Minor-Piece Endings, and Secrets Of Pawnless Endings. These books include human-usable endgame strategies found by Nunn (and others) by extensive experimentation with tablebases, and new editions have come out and are due as more tablebases are created and tablebases are more deeply data-mined. Nunn is thus (as of 2004) the foremost data miner of chess endgame tablebases. This work corresponds to the endgame part of the work of Berlekamp, Conway
John Horton Conway
John Horton Conway is a prolific mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory...
et al. in dots-and-boxes, Hex
Hex (board game)
Hex is a board game played on a hexagonal grid, theoretically of any size and several possible shapes, but traditionally as an 11x11 rhombus. Other popular dimensions are 13x13 and 19x19 as a result of the game's relationship to the older game of Go...
and other games.
He is married to Petra Fink-Nunn, a German chess player with the title Woman FIDE Master. They have a son, Michael.
Notable game
The Frankenstein-Dracula VariationFrankenstein-Dracula Variation
The Frankenstein–Dracula Variation is a chess opening, usually considered a branch of the Vienna Game, but can also be reached from the Bishop's Opening...
of the Vienna Game
Vienna Game
The Vienna Game is a chess opening that begins with the moves:White's second move is less common than 2.Nf3, and is also of more recent vintage; a book reviewer wrote in the New York Times in 1888 that "since Morphy only one new opening has been introduced, the 'Vienna.The original idea behind...
regularly provides swashbuckling play and Nunn's game with Jacob Øst-Hansen at Teesside 1974, was no exception. The latter part of the game was played in a frantic time scramble, with Nunn sacrificing pieces to bring the enemy king into the open and deliver checkmate.
Books
- 101 Brilliant Chess Miniatures (2000), Gambit PublicationsGambit PublicationsGambit Publications is a major publisher of chess books. The company's headquarters is in London. It has published more than 150 chess books.The company was founded by three chess players...
. ISBN 1-901983-16-1. - Beating the Sicilian 3 (1995, with Joe Gallagher), Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 0-8050-4227-X.
- The Complete Najdorf 6. Bg5 (1997), International Chess Enterprises. ISBN 1-879479-45-1.
- Complete Najdorf: Modern Lines (1999), Sterling Pub Co Inc. ISBN 0713482184.
- The Complete Pirc (1989), Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-5389-3.
- Endgame Challenge (2002), Gambit Publications. ISBN 1-901983-83-8.
- Grandmaster Chess Move by Move (2005), Gambit Publications. ISBN 1-904600-34-4.
- John Nunn's Best Games (2001), Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-7726-1.
- John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book (1999), Gambit Publications. ISBN 1-901983-08-0.
- Learn Chess (2000), Gambit Publications. ISBN 1-901983-30-7.
- Learn Chess Tactics (2004), Gambit Publications. ISBN 1-901983-98-6.
- Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games (2004, with Graham BurgessGraham BurgessGraham K. Burgess is an English FIDE Master of chess and a noted writer and trainer. He became a FIDE Master at the age of twenty. He attended Birkdale High School in Southport, Merseyside. In 1989 he graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in mathematics...
and John Emms), Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1411-5. - New Ideas in the Pirc Defence (1993), Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-7237-5.
- Nunn's Chess Openings (1999), with Joe Gallagher, John Emms, and Graham BurgessGraham BurgessGraham K. Burgess is an English FIDE Master of chess and a noted writer and trainer. He became a FIDE Master at the age of twenty. He attended Birkdale High School in Southport, Merseyside. In 1989 he graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in mathematics...
, Everyman ChessEveryman ChessEveryman Chess is a major publisher of books and CDs about chess. The company was formerly called Cadogan Chess. "Everyman" is a registered trademark of Random House and the company headquarters is in London. Former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov is their chief advisor and John Emms is the...
. ISBN 1-85744-221-0. - Nunn's Chess Endings, volume 1 (2010), Gambit PublicationsGambit PublicationsGambit Publications is a major publisher of chess books. The company's headquarters is in London. It has published more than 150 chess books.The company was founded by three chess players...
, ISBN 978-1-906454-21-0. - Nunn's Chess Endings, volume 2 (2010), Gambit PublicationsGambit PublicationsGambit Publications is a major publisher of chess books. The company's headquarters is in London. It has published more than 150 chess books.The company was founded by three chess players...
, ISBN 978-1-906454-23-4. - Secrets of Grandmaster Chess (1997), International Chess Enterprises. ISBN 1-879479-54-0.
- Secrets of Practical Chess (1998), Gambit Publications. ISBN 1-901983-01-3. Second edition 2007, ISBN 978-1-904600-70-1.
- Secrets of Minor-Piece Endings (2001), Rowman Littlefield. ISBN 0-7134-7727-X.
- Secrets of Pawnless Endings (1994, 2002), Gambit Publications. ISBN 1-901983-65-X.
- Secrets of Rook Endings (1992, 1999), Gambit Publications. ISBN 1-901983-18-8.
- Solving in Style (1985 Batsford) then (2002), Gambit Publications. ISBN 1-901983-66-8.
- Tactical Chess Endings (2003), Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-5937-9.
- Understanding Chess Endgames (2009), Gambit, ISBN 978-1-906454-11-1
- Understanding Chess Move by Move (2001), Gambit Publications. ISBN 1-901983-41-2.
See also
- The Nunn Convention - Nunn's system of showing the evaluation of chess moves