Luke McShane
Encyclopedia
Luke James McShane is an English chess
player. A former World Youth Champion
and prodigious talent in chess, he has become one of England's leading players and a member of the Olympiad team. He has also been a trader in London's financial sector.
at a simultaneous exhibition
in 1995. At sixteen he became the youngest ever British Grandmaster
, gaining the three results required ("grandmaster norms") in tournaments in Germany, Iceland
and the Politiken Cup in Copenhagen
, Denmark. He held the record until David Howell
broke it in January 2007. In January 2004 McShane was ranked second in the world among junior (under-21) players behind Teimour Radjabov
.
, winning five of his six games, and joint winner with Stuart Conquest
and Bogdan Lalić
of the Iona Tech Masters in Kilkenny
. McShane led the 2002 British Championship
in Torquay
, and was in a good position in the final round before blundering and losing to the tournament's winner, Ramachandran Ramesh
. McShane finished tied for fourth.
From around 2002, McShane has been facing stiffer opposition, including players from the world's top ten. He played for England in the 2002 Chess Olympiad in Bled
, scoring 6½/11, and won the silver medal at the World Junior Championship in Goa
. In 2003 he finished a respectable fifth in the strong Hrokurinn tournament in Reykjavík
, finishing ahead of Britain's number one player Michael Adams and drawing games against Viktor Korchnoi
and Alexei Shirov
. Shortly afterwards, he beat Shirov in a Reykjavík blitz tournament. In the 2003 Siegman tournament in Malmö
, he finished third with 5½/9, drawing his game with the tournament winner, Vasily Ivanchuk. Also in 2003, McShane finished 27th out of 207 with 8/13 in the strong European Individual Championships in Silivri
in Turkey, 1½ points behind the winner, Zurab Azmaiparashvili
. Shortly afterwards he tied for first with Alexei Dreev and Krishnan Sasikiran
in the North Sea Cup
played in Esbjerg
in Denmark with 6½/9, finished tied for second in the Politiken Cup in Copenhagen
with 8½/11 and won the Malmö Masters with 7½/9, a point and a half ahead of his nearest rival. In 2009/10 he tied for first through fifth place with Eduardas Rozentalis
, Pavel Ponkratov, Radosław Wojtaszek and Igor Lysyj
at the 39th Rilton Cup in Stockholm
. In 2010 he won the third Remco Heite tournament in Wolvega.
McShane is a strong blitz chess
player. He won the 136-player Kuppenheim
tournament in 2003 ahead of Vladimir Epishin
and former German blitz champion, Robert Rabiega, finishing with a score of 50½/53. In this tournament he played his games over the Internet, while all other participants were in the playing hall in Germany. In 2003 he won the British Blitz Championship held at Uxbridge
with a score of 14.5/16 and the Greenland
Open rapid tournament with 8½/9.
In 2009 and 2010 McShane participated at the London Chess Classic
. He finished mid-table at the tournament's inaugural showing and took the best game prize for his win against Hikaru Nakamura
. The 2010 tournament included Viswanathan Anand
(reigning World Chess Champion), Magnus Carlsen
(rated #1 for most of 2010) and Vladimir Kramnik
(former World Champion). Under a scoring system of 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss, McShane finished joint second with Anand, behind Carlsen, whom McShane had beaten in their individual encounter, and ahead of Kramnik. Undefeated, his event performance rating was 2838 - higher than Carlsen's or Anand's. In the January 2011 rating list, he briefly topped Nigel Short
to become the UK's second highest ranked player after Michael Adams.
In January 2011 McShane came joint first with David Navara
in the 'B group' of the Tata Steel tournament, winning on tie break and qualifying, with Navara, for the 2012 'A group', but will not play due to work commitments.
and then City of London School
, before entering Oxford University in 2003, where he read philosophy
and mathematics
at University College
. In the summer of 2006 he interned at Goldman Sachs
in FICC. After graduating in the summer of 2007, he worked there as a trader. A brief increase in his chess activity occurred when he subsequently left his job, but he was forced to decline his invitation to the 2011 British Championship when he later returned to full-time employment. He continues to play in a reduced capacity.
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...
player. A former World Youth Champion
World Youth Chess Championship
The World Youth Chess Championship is a chess competition for girls and boys under the age of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18.The first predecessor of the youth championship was the Cadet Championship. It started off unofficially in 1974 in France for players under 18. The 1975 and 1976 editions were also...
and prodigious talent in chess, he has become one of England's leading players and a member of the Olympiad team. He has also been a trader in London's financial sector.
Early career
McShane won the World Under-10 Championship in Duisburg at the age of eight. Shortly afterwards he found a sponsor in the form of computer company Psion and played Garry KasparovGarry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
at a simultaneous exhibition
Simultaneous exhibition
A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition in which one player plays multiple games at a time with a number of other players. Such an exhibition is often referred to simply as a "simul".In a regular simul, no chess clocks are used...
in 1995. At sixteen he became the youngest ever British 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....
, gaining the three results required ("grandmaster norms") in tournaments in Germany, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
and the Politiken Cup in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark. He held the record until David Howell
David Howell (chess player)
David Wei Liang Howell is an English chess player. He is the youngest chess Grandmaster in the United Kingdom, a title he earned when he came second during the 35th Rilton Cup in Stockholm on 5 January 2007 when he was 16...
broke it in January 2007. In January 2004 McShane was ranked second in the world among junior (under-21) players behind Teimour Radjabov
Teimour Radjabov
Radjabov's knight sacrifice, 21. ... Ngxe5, was praised by several strong players for its bravery, including English grandmaster Nigel Short. Said Short of the move, "Radjabov plays very imaginatively... he just won't give up, he is extremely tenacious and will always find a way to muddy the...
.
Grandmaster
Among McShane's more notable results are joint first in the 1998 Bunratty Masters in Ireland with John NunnJohn Nunn
John Denis Martin Nunn 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....
, winning five of his six games, and joint winner with Stuart Conquest
Stuart Conquest
Stuart Conquest is an English chess Grandmaster.-Chess career:In 1981, at the age of 14 he won the World Youth Chess Championship in the under-16 category. Conquest was British Rapidplay Chess Champion in 1997...
and Bogdan Lalić
Bogdan Lalic
Bogdan Lalic is a Croatian-English Grandmaster of chess. He was born in the former Yugoslavia in 1964. FIDE awarded him the International Grandmaster title in 1988. He finished equal first at the Pleven 1987 and Sarajevo 1988 tournaments. Although registered with the Croatian Federation, he...
of the Iona Tech Masters in Kilkenny
Kilkenny
Kilkenny is a city and is the county town of the eponymous County Kilkenny in Ireland. It is situated on both banks of the River Nore in the province of Leinster, in the south-east of Ireland...
. McShane led the 2002 British Championship
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 Torquay
Torquay
Torquay is a town in the unitary authority area of Torbay and ceremonial county of Devon, England. It lies south of Exeter along the A380 on the north of Torbay, north-east of Plymouth and adjoins the neighbouring town of Paignton on the west of the bay. Torquay’s population of 63,998 during the...
, and was in a good position in the final round before blundering and losing to the tournament's winner, Ramachandran Ramesh
Ramachandran Ramesh
Ramachandran Ramesh is an Indian chess grandmaster from Chennai who won the 2002 British Championship and 2007 Commonwealth Championship.He is married to WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy. They are India's first Grandmaster...
. McShane finished tied for fourth.
From around 2002, McShane has been facing stiffer opposition, including players from the world's top ten. He played for England in the 2002 Chess Olympiad in Bled
35th Chess Olympiad
The 35th Chess Olympiad took place from October 25th to November 11th, 2002, in Bled, . In the men's tournament there were 136 teams, and in the women's, 92 teams...
, scoring 6½/11, and won the silver medal at the World Junior Championship in Goa
Old Goa
Old Goa or Velha Goa is a historical city in North Goa district in the Indian state of Goa. The city was constructed by the Bijapur Sultanate in the 15th century, and served as capital of Portuguese India from the 16th century until its abandonment in the 18th century due to plague...
. In 2003 he finished a respectable fifth in the strong Hrokurinn tournament in Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
, finishing ahead of Britain's number one player Michael Adams and drawing games against Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ; pronounced in the original Russian as "karch NOY"; Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, born March 23, 1931 is a professional chess player, author and currently the oldest active grandmaster on the tournament circuit...
and Alexei Shirov
Alexei Shirov
Alexei Dmitrievich Shirov is a Soviet-born Latvian chess grandmaster. He has consistently ranked among the world's top players since the early 1990s, and reached a ranking as high as number four in 1998...
. Shortly afterwards, he beat Shirov in a Reykjavík blitz tournament. In the 2003 Siegman tournament in Malmö
Malmö
Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...
, he finished third with 5½/9, drawing his game with the tournament winner, Vasily Ivanchuk. Also in 2003, McShane finished 27th out of 207 with 8/13 in the strong European Individual Championships in Silivri
Silivri
Silivri is a city and a district in Istanbul Province along the Sea of Marmara in Turkey, outside of metropolitan Istanbul, containing many holiday and weekend homes for residents of the city. The largest city in the district is also named Silivri...
in Turkey, 1½ points behind the winner, Zurab Azmaiparashvili
Zurab Azmaiparashvili
Zurab Azmaiparashvili is a chess Grandmaster from Georgia. In the September 2010 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2637, making him 114th in the world and Georgia's number two.-Career:He became a Grandmaster in 1988...
. Shortly afterwards he tied for first with Alexei Dreev and Krishnan Sasikiran
Krishnan Sasikiran
Krishnan Sasikiran is an Indian chess Grandmaster. Among Indians, he is second, after Viswanathan Anand, No. 6 in Asia & ranked 56th in the world in FIDE rating as on September 2011....
in the North Sea Cup
North Sea Cup
The North Sea Cup is the only professional ice hockey league in the Netherlands and Belgium and the highest level of competition organized by the Nederlandse IJshockey Bond and sanctioned by the Royal Belgian Ice Hockey Federation...
played in Esbjerg
Esbjerg
Esbjerg Municipality is a municipality in Region of Southern Denmark on the west coast of the Jutland peninsula in southwest Denmark. Its mayor is Johnny Søtrup, from the Venstre political party...
in Denmark with 6½/9, finished tied for second in the Politiken Cup in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
with 8½/11 and won the Malmö Masters with 7½/9, a point and a half ahead of his nearest rival. In 2009/10 he tied for first through fifth place with Eduardas Rozentalis
Eduardas Rozentalis
Eduardas Rozentalis is a Lithuanian chess grandmaster.He played for the Lithuanian team at first board in seven Chess Olympiads in 1992–98, and 2002–06....
, Pavel Ponkratov, Radosław Wojtaszek and Igor Lysyj
Igor Lysyj
Igor Lysyj is a Russian chess grandmaster.In 2006 he tied for first place, with Roman Ovetchkin of Russia, in the Zudov Memorial. he tied for 1st-8th with Sergey Volkov, Dmitry Bocharov, Aleksandr Rakhmanov, Valerij Popov, Denis Khismatullin, Dmitry Andreikin and Dmitry Kokarev in the Voronezh...
at the 39th Rilton Cup in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
. In 2010 he won the third Remco Heite tournament in Wolvega.
McShane is a strong blitz chess
Blitz chess
Fast chess, also known as blitz chess, lightning chess, sudden death, speed chess, bullet chess and rapid chess, is a type of chess game in which each side is given less time to make their moves than under the normal tournament time controls of 60 to 180 minutes per player.-Overview:The different...
player. He won the 136-player Kuppenheim
Kuppenheim
Kuppenheim is a town in the district of Rastatt, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the river Murg, 5 km southeast of Rastatt, and 8 km north of Baden-Baden....
tournament in 2003 ahead of Vladimir Epishin
Vladimir Epishin
Vladimir Epishin is a Russian chess grandmaster with an Elo-rating of 2610.He finished third in the 58th USSR Chess Championship...
and former German blitz champion, Robert Rabiega, finishing with a score of 50½/53. In this tournament he played his games over the Internet, while all other participants were in the playing hall in Germany. In 2003 he won the British Blitz Championship held at Uxbridge
Uxbridge
Uxbridge is a large town located in north west London, England and is the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Hillingdon. It forms part of the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is located west-northwest of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres...
with a score of 14.5/16 and the Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
Open rapid tournament with 8½/9.
In 2009 and 2010 McShane participated at the London Chess Classic
London Chess Classic
The London Chess Classic is a festival of the game of chess held at the Olympia Conference Centre, West Kensington, London. The flagship event is a strong invitational tournament between some of the world's top grandmasters...
. He finished mid-table at the tournament's inaugural showing and took the best game prize for his win against Hikaru Nakamura
Hikaru Nakamura
Hikaru Nakamura is an American chess Grandmaster . He has been ranked among the top six players in the world by FIDE....
. The 2010 tournament included Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand
V. Anand or Anand Viswanathan, usually referred as Viswanathan Anand, is an Indian chess Grandmaster, the current World Chess Champion, and currently second highest rated player in the world....
(reigning World Chess Champion), Magnus Carlsen
Magnus Carlsen
Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen is a Norwegian chess Grandmaster and chess prodigy who is currently the number-one ranked player in the world. In January 2010 he became the seventh player ranked number one in the world on the official FIDE rating list...
(rated #1 for most of 2010) and Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007...
(former World Champion). Under a scoring system of 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss, McShane finished joint second with Anand, behind Carlsen, whom McShane had beaten in their individual encounter, and ahead of Kramnik. Undefeated, his event performance rating was 2838 - higher than Carlsen's or Anand's. In the January 2011 rating list, he briefly topped 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...
to become the UK's second highest ranked player after Michael Adams.
In January 2011 McShane came joint first with David Navara
David Navara
David Navara is a chess Grandmaster from Czech Republic. On the April 2007 FIDE rating list he was ranked number 14 in the world with an Elo rating of 2720, making him the highest ranked Czech player....
in the 'B group' of the Tata Steel tournament, winning on tie break and qualifying, with Navara, for the 2012 'A group', but will not play due to work commitments.
Education and part-time status
McShane attended Westminster Under SchoolWestminster Under School
Westminster Under School is a private preparatory school for boys aged 7 to 13 and is attached to Westminster School in London.The school was founded in 1943 in the precincts of Westminster School in Little Dean’s Yard, just behind Westminster Abbey. In 1951 the Under School relocated to its own...
and then City of London School
City of London School
The City of London School is a boys' independent day school on the banks of the River Thames in the City of London, England. It is the brother school of the City of London School for Girls and the co-educational City of London Freemen's School...
, before entering Oxford University in 2003, where he read philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and 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 University College
University College, Oxford
.University College , is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2009 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £110m...
. In the summer of 2006 he interned at Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational bulge bracket investment banking and securities firm that engages in global investment banking, securities, investment management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients...
in FICC. After graduating in the summer of 2007, he worked there as a trader. A brief increase in his chess activity occurred when he subsequently left his job, but he was forced to decline his invitation to the 2011 British Championship when he later returned to full-time employment. He continues to play in a reduced capacity.
External links
- A short interview with McShane about his win at Kuppenheim, 2003
- An interview conducted by Geoffrey D Borg at the 2003 European Individual Championship (retrieved from the Internet archiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
)