Raymond Keene
Encyclopedia
Raymond Dennis Keene OBE (born 29 January 1948) is an English chess
Grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter
, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.p196 He won the British Chess Championship
in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm
, in 1974. In 1976 he became the second Englishman, following Tony Miles
, to be awarded the Grandmaster title. He represented his country in eight Chess Olympiad
s.
Keene retired from competitive play in 1986 at the age of thirty eight, and is now better known as a chess organiser, columnist and author. He was involved in organising the 1986
, 1993
and 2000
World Chess Championships; and the 1997, 1998 and 1999 Mind Sports Olympiads
; all held in London. He has been chess correspondent of The Times
since 1985, and is a prolific author, having written over 100 books on chess. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire
(OBE) for services to chess in 1985.
Keene is a controversial figure in the chess world, and has had disputes with figures such as Tony Miles, Viktor Korchnoi
, John Donaldson and David Levy
. His business dealings, and the quality of some of his chess books, have also been criticised.
s, held in Barcelona
and Jerusalem respectively. After education at Dulwich College
and Trinity College, Cambridge
(where he studied modern languages and graduated MA
), Keene wrote his first chess book whilst
studying at Cambridge, and won the British Chess Championship
at Blackpool
1971. As a result, he was awarded the International Master title in 1972, the first English player to achieve this since Jonathan Penrose
in 1961. In 1974, Keene married Annette, the sister of International Master David S. Goodman
. They have one son, Alexander, born in 1991.
Previously the UK had no Grandmaster
chess players. Keene was the second British player to meet the necessary requirements to become a Grandmaster. He was pipped to the post by a few months by Tony Miles
, the first British Grandmaster in 1976. Both he and Miles won financial prizes for this feat.
Miles and Keene were at the forefront of the English chess explosion of the next 20 years, and they were followed by other British grandmasters such as Michael Stean
, John Nunn
, Jon Speelman
and Jonathan Mestel
. The team highlight has been 1986, when England claimed second place and the team silver medals at the Dubai Chess Olympiad
, their highest finish ever. England also won team bronzes at Haifa 1976
, Thessaloniki 1988
and Novi Sad 1990
. Keene, however, played only in the first (Haifa 1976) of these medal-winning performances.
Keene represented England for nearly two decades in international team events, beginning with the 1966 Chess Olympiad
in Havana
at age 18. He followed with the next seven straight Olympiads: Lugano 1968
, Siegen 1970
, Skopje 1972
, Nice 1974
, Haifa 1976
, Buenos Aires 1978
, and La Valletta 1980
. His individual performances at Lugano and Haifa merited bronze medals (although individual medals were not, in fact, awarded at Haifa) and he went undefeated in three Olympiads - these two and Siegen. His later performances, though, were less impressive, with just two draws from four games at Buenos Aires and losses in both his games at La Valletta.
He represented England four times at the Students' Olympiad (Örebro
1966, Harrachov
1967, Ybbs
1968 and Dresden
1969) and four times at the European Team Championships (Bath 1973, Moscow 1977, Skara
1980 and Plovdiv
1983). At Skara he won both a bronze medal with the team and the individual gold medal for the best score on his board.
Keene won the 1971 British championship and shared second place on three occasions, in 1968, 1970 and 1972. His tournament victories include Hastings Challengers 1966
, Slater Challenge Southend 1968, Johannesburg
1973, Woolacombe
1973, Capablanca Memorial (Master Group) 1974, Alicante
1977, Sydney
1979, Dortmund
1980, Barcelona
1980, Lloyds Bank Masters 1981, Adelaide
1983 and La Valletta 1985.
and Richard Réti
, he accordingly preferred hypermodern openings such as the Modern Defence, Nimzo-Indian Defence
and King's Indian Defence
.
memorial chess tournaments, one of the few regular events for masters held in London. The Oxford Companion comments: "By a combination of ability and shrewdness, Keene has attracted considerable sponsorship and has proved himself capable of efficient and rapid organisation of chess events".p196
Keene brought Victor Korchnoi and Garry Kasparov
together for their 1983 Candidates'
semi-final match in London as part of the 1984 World Championship cycle
; the semi-final match between Vasily Smyslov
and Zoltán Ribli
was also played at the same site. He organised the 1984 Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World
match in London within two weeks, enabling the event to go ahead on time after the previous plans had fallen through, described by John Nunn
as "a magnificent organisational achievement at such short notice."
Keene has also been involved in organising several World Championship finals matches. He arranged for the first half of the World Chess Championship 1986
return match between Kasparov and Karpov to be played in London. The match however made a loss for the British Chess Federation
(BCF) and he resigned from his position in the BCF shortly afterwards. He organised the 1993 PCA
World Championship match between Kasparov and Nigel Short
in London, for which he was one of the official commentators along with Grandmasters Jonathan Speelman and Daniel King
. He was the instrumental force behind 'Brain Games', which organized the World Championship match in 2000
between Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik
. Following the match, however, he retained the trophy in lieu of money he believed he was owed by the collapse of Brain Games: Kramnik did not receive it until 2008. Brain Games later collapsed in controversial circumstances.
since 1985, following the retirement of Harry Golombek
, and has written a column for The Spectator
since 12 March 1977. Keene also contributes to the website ChessGames.com
.
network, Keene, along with South African author and civil rights campaigner Donald Woods
, discussed and analysed what Keene regards as the twelve best chess games ever played. In addition to educational TV work, Keene and his co-author, Julian Simpole, were both voice over artists in the UK independent film, The Zombie Diaries
. Keene played a reporter, and Simpole a member of the UK Government.
, but now writes for Hardinge Simpole, which he co-owns, and for his own company Impala. His early books such as Howard Staunton (1975, with R. N. Coles) often dealt with players with styles similar to his own. Aron Nimzowitsch: a Reappraisal (1974) is much admired and was revised and translated into Russian in 1986, with a revised third edition published in English in 1999. In 1989, he and Nathan Divinsky
wrote Warriors of the Mind, an attempt to determine the 64 best chess players of all time. The statistical methods used have not met with wide approval, but the player biographies and games provide a good overview. Some of Keene's later work has attracted criticism for sloppiness and the habit of copying passages, including errors, from one book to another.
in The Complete Book of Gambits (Batsford, 1992). Donaldson wrote "Just how blatant was the plagiarism? Virtually every word and variation in the four and a half pages devoted to Lisitsin's Gambit in Keene's book was stolen." After Keene refused to pay Donaldson a requested $200 for the use of his material, Keene's American publisher Henry Holt and Company
ended up paying Donaldson $3000.
Keene has been accused of plagiarising a column by Edward Winter
for a piece published in The Spectator
and subsequently on the website Chessville. More than a third of the article was taken directly from Winter's column.
alleges that when acting as his second in the 1978 World Championship match
, Keene broke his contract by writing a book about the match (which book appeared three days after the match finished) having specifically signed an agreement "not to write, compile or help to write or compile any book during the course of the match". Korchnoi commented: "Mr Keene betrayed me. He violated the contract. It was clear that while Mr Keene was writing one book and then another, Mr Stean was doing his work for him." Attempts to defend Keene were rebutted by Michael Stean's mother, who stated that she was in a position to know what was in Keene's contract since she herself had typed it. Keene, she claimed, had signed this despite having already negotiated a contract with Batsford to write a book about the match. She described "a premeditated and deliberate plan to deceive" and noted that Keene's conduct had come under suspicion during the match.
During the course of the 2000 Braingames World Championship Keene was accused of heavy-handed behaviour in having journalist John Henderson removed from the press room with the assistance of bouncers.
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...
Grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter
International Arbiter
In chess, International Arbiter is a title awarded by FIDE to individuals deemed capable of acting as arbiter in important chess matches . The title was established in 1951....
, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.p196 He won the British Chess 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 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm
Grandmaster norm
A norm in chess is one of the requirements to receive a title such as Grandmaster from FIDE.- Grandmaster norm :In order to qualify for the title of Grandmaster of chess, a title awarded by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, a player must achieve three or more grandmaster norms in events covering a...
, in 1974. In 1976 he became the second Englishman, following Tony Miles
Tony Miles
Anthony John Miles was an English chess Grandmaster.- Early achievements in chess :Miles was born in Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham...
, to be awarded the Grandmaster title. He represented his country in eight 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.
Keene retired from competitive play in 1986 at the age of thirty eight, and is now better known as a chess organiser, columnist and author. He was involved in organising the 1986
World Chess Championship 1986
The 1986 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov in London and Leningrad from July 28 to October 8, 1986. Kasparov won. Anatoly Karpov was already assured of this rematch during his previous year's match which was won by Garry Kasparov.-Results:The match was...
, 1993
World Chess Championship 1993
The World Chess Championship 1993 was held from 1990 to 1993. It was one of the most controversial in history, with incumbent World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov, and official challenger Nigel Short, splitting from FIDE, the official world governing body of chess, and playing their title match...
and 2000
Classical World Chess Championship 2000
The Classical World Chess Championship 2000, known at the time as the Braingames World Chess Championships, was held from October 8, 2000 – November 4, 2000 in London, United Kingdom. Garry Kasparov, the defending champion, played Vladimir Kramnik...
World Chess Championships; and the 1997, 1998 and 1999 Mind Sports Olympiads
Mind Sports Organisation
The Mind Sports Organisation is an association for promoting mental-skill games including Contract Bridge, Chess, Go, Mastermind, and Scrabble. Since 1997 it has annually organised in England a multi-sport competition, the Mind Sports Olympiad main event.The MSO was founded in conjunction with...
; all held in London. He has been 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...
since 1985, and is a prolific author, having written over 100 books on chess. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire
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...
(OBE) for services to chess in 1985.
Keene is a controversial figure in the chess world, and has had disputes with figures such as Tony Miles, 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...
, John Donaldson and David Levy
David Levy (chess player)
David Neil Laurence Levy , is a Scottish International Master of chess, a businessman noted for his involvement with computer chess and artificial intelligence, and the founder of the Computer Olympiads and the Mind Sports Olympiads. He has written more than 40 books on chess and computers.- Life...
. His business dealings, and the quality of some of his chess books, have also been criticised.
Chess career
Keene won the London and British Under 18 Championships in 1964, and represented England at the 1965 and 1967 World Junior Chess ChampionshipWorld Junior Chess Championship
The World Junior Chess Championship is an under-20 chess tournament organized by the World Chess Federation ....
s, held in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
and Jerusalem respectively. After education at Dulwich College
Dulwich College
Dulwich College is an independent school for boys in Dulwich, southeast London, England. The college was founded in 1619 by Edward Alleyn, a successful Elizabethan actor, with the original purpose of educating 12 poor scholars as the foundation of "God's Gift". It currently has about 1,600 boys,...
and Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
(where he studied modern languages and graduated MA
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
), Keene wrote his first chess book whilst
studying at Cambridge, and won the British Chess 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...
at Blackpool
Blackpool
Blackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...
1971. As a result, he was awarded the International Master title in 1972, the first English player to achieve this since Jonathan Penrose
Jonathan Penrose
Jonathan Penrose, OBE is an English chess player, emeritus Grandmaster, and International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster who won the British Chess Championship ten times between 1958 and 1969. He is the son of Lionel Penrose, a world famous professor of genetics, and brother of Roger Penrose...
in 1961. In 1974, Keene married Annette, the sister of International Master David S. Goodman
David S. Goodman
David Simon Charles Goodman is an International Master of chess, and a chess writer. Awarded the IM title in 1983, he won the World Youth Chess Championship in 1975. He played #10 on the English national team in Moscow in 1977...
. They have one son, Alexander, born in 1991.
Previously the UK had no 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 players. Keene was the second British player to meet the necessary requirements to become a Grandmaster. He was pipped to the post by a few months by Tony Miles
Tony Miles
Anthony John Miles was an English chess Grandmaster.- Early achievements in chess :Miles was born in Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham...
, the first British Grandmaster in 1976. Both he and Miles won financial prizes for this feat.
Miles and Keene were at the forefront of the English chess explosion of the next 20 years, and they were followed by other British grandmasters such as Michael Stean
Michael Stean
Michael Francis Stean is an English chess grandmaster and author.-Junior career:He learned to play chess before the age of five, developing a promising talent that led to junior honours, including the London under-14 and British under-16 titles.There was more progress in 1971, when he placed third...
, John Nunn
John 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....
, Jon Speelman
Jon Speelman
Jonathan Simon "Jon" Speelman is an English Grandmaster chess player, mathematician and chess writer.-Early life and education:He was educated at Worcester College, Oxford, where he studied mathematics, earning a doctorate.-Career:...
and Jonathan Mestel
Jonathan Mestel
Andrew Jonathan Mestel is Professor of applied mathematics at Imperial College London who works on magnetohydrodynamics and biological fluid dynamics...
. The team highlight has been 1986, when England claimed second place and the team silver medals at the Dubai Chess Olympiad
27th Chess Olympiad
The 27th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between November 14 and December 2, 1986, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.-References:...
, their highest finish ever. England also won team bronzes at Haifa 1976
22nd Chess Olympiad
The 22nd Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between October 26 and November 10, 1976, in Haifa, Israel.-References:* OlimpBase...
, Thessaloniki 1988
28th Chess Olympiad
The 28th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between November 12 and November 30, 1988, in Thessaloniki, Greece.-References:...
and Novi Sad 1990
29th Chess Olympiad
The 29th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between November 16 and December 4, 1990, in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia.-References:...
. Keene, however, played only in the first (Haifa 1976) of these medal-winning performances.
Keene represented England for nearly two decades in international team events, beginning with the 1966 Chess Olympiad
17th Chess Olympiad
The 17th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between October 23 and November 20, 1966, in Havana, Cuba.-References:* OlimpBase...
in Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
at age 18. He followed with the next seven straight Olympiads: Lugano 1968
18th Chess Olympiad
The 18th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between October 17 and November 7, 1968, in Lugano, Switzerland.-References:* OlimpBase...
, Siegen 1970
19th Chess Olympiad
The 19th Chess Olympiad, comprising an open team tournament and the Annual Congress of the Fédération Internationale des Échecs, took place between September 5 and September 27, 1970, in the small town of Siegen, West Germany.-Tournament report:...
, Skopje 1972
20th Chess Olympiad
The 20th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between September 18 and October 13, 1972, in Skopje, Yugoslavia ....
, Nice 1974
21st Chess Olympiad
The 21st Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between June 6 and June 30, 1974, in Nice, France.-References:* OlimpBase...
, Haifa 1976
22nd Chess Olympiad
The 22nd Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between October 26 and November 10, 1976, in Haifa, Israel.-References:* OlimpBase...
, Buenos Aires 1978
23rd Chess Olympiad
The 23rd Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between October 25 and November 12, 1978, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.-References:...
, and La Valletta 1980
24th Chess Olympiad
The 24th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between November 20 and December 6, 1980, in La Valletta, Malta.-References:* OlimpBase...
. His individual performances at Lugano and Haifa merited bronze medals (although individual medals were not, in fact, awarded at Haifa) and he went undefeated in three Olympiads - these two and Siegen. His later performances, though, were less impressive, with just two draws from four games at Buenos Aires and losses in both his games at La Valletta.
He represented England four times at the Students' Olympiad (Örebro
Örebro
-Sites of interest:Örebro's old town Wadköping is located on the banks of Svartån . It contains many 18th and 19th century wooden houses, along with museums and exhibitions....
1966, Harrachov
Harrachov
Harrachov is a town on the Mumlava river in the northern Czech Republic, 300 m from the border with Poland. It is within the Krkonoše mountain range, about above sea level.-History:...
1967, Ybbs
Ybbs
Ybbs is a river in Lower Austria, and in Austria also the common short form to designate the little town Ybbs an der Donau.Its source is located on the Zellerrain Pass near Mariazell...
1968 and Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
1969) and four times at the European Team Championships (Bath 1973, Moscow 1977, Skara
Skara
Skara is a locality and the seat of Skara Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden with 18595 inhabitants in 2005. Despite its small size, it has a long educational and ecclesiastical history. One of Sweden's oldest high schools, Katedralskolan , is situated in Skara...
1980 and Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...
1983). At Skara he won both a bronze medal with the team and the individual gold medal for the best score on his board.
Keene won the 1971 British championship and shared second place on three occasions, in 1968, 1970 and 1972. His tournament victories include Hastings Challengers 1966
Hastings International Chess Congress
The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
, Slater Challenge Southend 1968, Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
1973, Woolacombe
Woolacombe
Woolacombe is a seaside resort on the coast of North Devon, England, which lies at the mouth of a valley . The beach, which has Blue Flag and Premier Seaside Beach awards for its cleanliness, water quality and facilities, is long, sandy, gently sloping and faces the Atlantic Ocean near the...
1973, Capablanca Memorial (Master Group) 1974, Alicante
Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...
1977, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
1979, Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....
1980, Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
1980, Lloyds Bank Masters 1981, Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
1983 and La Valletta 1985.
Playing style
Keene's playing style tended toward the strategically original and positional. Strongly influenced by Aron NimzowitschAron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch was a Russian-born Danish unofficial chess grandmaster and a very influential chess writer...
and Richard 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...
, he accordingly preferred hypermodern openings such as the Modern Defence, Nimzo-Indian Defence
Nimzo-Indian Defence
The Nimzo-Indian Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:This hypermodern opening was developed by Grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch who introduced it to master-level chess in the early 20th century. Unlike most Indian openings the Nimzo-Indian does not involve an immediate fianchetto,...
and King's Indian Defence
King's Indian Defence
The King's Indian Defence is a common chess opening. It arises after the moves:Black intends to follow up with 3...Bg7 and 4...d6.The Grünfeld Defence arises when Black plays 3...d5 instead, and is considered a separate opening...
.
Organisation of chess events
Keene has worked as a chess organiser. He is the originator and organiser of the annual StauntonHoward Staunton
Howard Staunton was an English chess master who is generally regarded as having been the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, largely as a result of his 1843 victory over Saint-Amant. He promoted a chess set of clearly distinguishable pieces of standardised shape—the Staunton pattern—that...
memorial chess tournaments, one of the few regular events for masters held in London. The Oxford Companion comments: "By a combination of ability and shrewdness, Keene has attracted considerable sponsorship and has proved himself capable of efficient and rapid organisation of chess events".p196
Keene brought Victor Korchnoi and Garry Kasparov
Garry 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....
together for their 1983 Candidates'
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...
semi-final match in London as part of the 1984 World Championship cycle
World Chess Championship 1984
The World Chess Championship 1984 was a match between challenger Garry Kasparov and defending champion Anatoly Karpov for the World Chess Championship title...
; the semi-final match between Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, and was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions . Smyslov was twice equal first at the Soviet Championship , and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won...
and Zoltán Ribli
Zoltan Ribli
Zoltán Ribli is a Hungarian chess grandmaster and International Arbiter . He was twice a World Championship Candidate and three times Hungarian Champion.-A career in chess:...
was also played at the same site. He organised the 1984 Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World
Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World
There have been two chess matches featuring USSR vs. Rest of the World and 1 match Russia vs. Rest of the World. The first two matches were between a team from the USSR and a team of players from the "rest of the world"...
match in London within two weeks, enabling the event to go ahead on time after the previous plans had fallen through, described by John Nunn
John 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....
as "a magnificent organisational achievement at such short notice."
Keene has also been involved in organising several World Championship finals matches. He arranged for the first half of the World Chess Championship 1986
World Chess Championship 1986
The 1986 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov in London and Leningrad from July 28 to October 8, 1986. Kasparov won. Anatoly Karpov was already assured of this rematch during his previous year's match which was won by Garry Kasparov.-Results:The match was...
return match between Kasparov and Karpov to be played in London. The match however made a loss for the British Chess Federation
English Chess Federation
The English Chess Federation is the governing chess organisation in England and is affiliated to FIDE. The ECF was formed in 2004 and was effectively a re-constitution of the extant governing body, the British Chess Federation , an organisation founded in 1904...
(BCF) and he resigned from his position in the BCF shortly afterwards. He organised the 1993 PCA
Professional Chess Association
The Professional Chess Association , which existed between 1993 and 1996, was a rival organisation to FIDE, the international chess organization...
World Championship match between Kasparov and 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...
in London, for which he was one of the official commentators along with Grandmasters Jonathan Speelman and Daniel King
Daniel J. King
Daniel John King is an English chess grandmaster, writer, coach, journalist and broadcaster.-Chess career:...
. He was the instrumental force behind 'Brain Games', which organized the World Championship match in 2000
Classical World Chess Championship 2000
The Classical World Chess Championship 2000, known at the time as the Braingames World Chess Championships, was held from October 8, 2000 – November 4, 2000 in London, United Kingdom. Garry Kasparov, the defending champion, played Vladimir Kramnik...
between Kasparov 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...
. Following the match, however, he retained the trophy in lieu of money he believed he was owed by the collapse of Brain Games: Kramnik did not receive it until 2008. Brain Games later collapsed in controversial circumstances.
Columnist
Keene has been the chess correspondent of The TimesThe 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...
since 1985, following the retirement of Harry Golombek
Harry Golombek
Harry Golombek OBE , was a British chess International Master and honorary grandmaster, chess arbiter, and chess author. He was three times British chess champion, in 1947, 1949, and 1955 and finished second in 1948. He became a grandmaster in 1985.He was the chess correspondent of The Times...
, and has written a column for The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
since 12 March 1977. Keene also contributes to the website ChessGames.com
Chessgames.com
ChessGames.com is a large chess community on the Internet, with over 156,000 members. The site maintains a large database of historical chess games where every game has a distinct message board for comments and analysis. Basic membership is free and the site is open to players at all levels of...
.
Television work
Keene has appeared on television. He covered the world championships of 1981,1985, 1986, 1990, 1993, and 1995 for BBC 2, CHANNEL 4, and Thames TV. In the "Duels Of The Mind" series which aired on the UK ITVITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
network, Keene, along with South African author and civil rights campaigner Donald Woods
Donald Woods
Donald James Woods, CBE was a white South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist.As editor of the Daily Dispatch from 1965 to 1977, he befriended Steve Biko, leader of the anti-apartheid Black Consciousness Movement, and was banned by the government soon after Biko's death, which had been...
, discussed and analysed what Keene regards as the twelve best chess games ever played. In addition to educational TV work, Keene and his co-author, Julian Simpole, were both voice over artists in the UK independent film, The Zombie Diaries
The Zombie Diaries
The Zombie Diaries is a 2006 British independent horror film written, produced and directed by Kevin Gates and first-time feature film maker Michael Bartlett.The film was shot in a hand-held documentary format on DV and split into three separate parts....
. Keene played a reporter, and Simpole a member of the UK Government.
Books
Keene claims to be "the author of 140 books on chess". He was the Chess Advisor to BatsfordBatsford
Batsford is a village and civil parish in the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 99. The village is about 1½ miles north-west of Moreton-in-Marsh...
, but now writes for Hardinge Simpole, which he co-owns, and for his own company Impala. His early books such as Howard Staunton (1975, with R. N. Coles) often dealt with players with styles similar to his own. Aron Nimzowitsch: a Reappraisal (1974) is much admired and was revised and translated into Russian in 1986, with a revised third edition published in English in 1999. In 1989, he and Nathan Divinsky
Nathan Divinsky
Nathan Joseph Divinsky is a Canadian mathematician, chess master, and chess writer, who is also known for being the former husband of the 19th Prime Minister of Canada, Kim Campbell. Divinsky and Campbell were married from 1972 to 1983....
wrote Warriors of the Mind, an attempt to determine the 64 best chess players of all time. The statistical methods used have not met with wide approval, but the player biographies and games provide a good overview. Some of Keene's later work has attracted criticism for sloppiness and the habit of copying passages, including errors, from one book to another.
Allegations of plagiarism
John Donaldson accused Keene of committing plagiarismPlagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
in The Complete Book of Gambits (Batsford, 1992). Donaldson wrote "Just how blatant was the plagiarism? Virtually every word and variation in the four and a half pages devoted to Lisitsin's Gambit in Keene's book was stolen." After Keene refused to pay Donaldson a requested $200 for the use of his material, Keene's American publisher Henry Holt and Company
Henry Holt and Company
Henry Holt and Company is an American book publishing company. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt...
ended up paying Donaldson $3000.
Keene has been accused of plagiarising a column by 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:...
for a piece published in The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
and subsequently on the website Chessville. More than a third of the article was taken directly from Winter's column.
Tony Miles controversy
In 1985, Keene received £1,178 from the BCF for being Tony Miles's second at the Interzonal in Tunis. However, he had not actually been Miles' second but nevertheless accepted the money and shared it with Miles. Miles had initially agreed to this plan but eventually told the BCF about it in 1987. Two months later, Keene resigned his posts as BCF Publicity Director and FIDE delegate. Keene says that the resignation was for different reasons, that he was "furious" at his treatment after organising numerous events between 1983 and 1987.Brain Games controversies
- In 2000, Keene's former brother-in-law David LevyDavid Levy (chess player)David Neil Laurence Levy , is a Scottish International Master of chess, a businessman noted for his involvement with computer chess and artificial intelligence, and the founder of the Computer Olympiads and the Mind Sports Olympiads. He has written more than 40 books on chess and computers.- Life...
accused him of deceiving the directors of their company Mind Sports Olympiad Ltd by setting up a rival company Brain Games Network PLC without their knowledge and using £50,000 of MSO Ltd money to do so. Levy further alleged that Keene changed his story several times as to the purpose of the payment and the reasons why the new company had been set up. He complained that shares in the new company were held by Keene and an associate (Don Morris) but by not the company for which they had been supposed to be working, nor any of its directors other than themselves. Levy wrote:As one would expect, our original investors were equally astounded at the news and extremely angry at Keene. They had by now invested £1.5 million (approximately $2.25 million at that time) partly or largely on the basis of their faith in Keene and myself. Now they had learned that one of their two key consultants, the one with money raising skills, had been working to set up a rival company.
Nothing, however, was proven against Keene (who had swiftly paid an identical sum, i.e. £50,000 to MSO, making the subsequent explanation that this constituted a personal loan from himself) and his new company went on to organise the world championship match later that same year. (It was at this time that Private EyePrivate EyePrivate Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...
started referring to him as The Penguin, a nickname he had first acquired in 1966.)
- Levy further criticised Keene for selling three of his own companies to Brain Games Network PLC (BGN) for £220,000 despite their being "virtually worthless". The three companies had between them "a total capital and reserves of only £2,300". At much the same time, according to Levy, BGN purchased a web site and two domain names from Chess and Bridge Limited. However, they made the purchase in two stages. The first of these stages was its sale to Giloberg Finance Limited, owned by Keene's associate Alan Lubin: the second was the immediate sale of the same items, by Giloberg, to BGN. The first sale was for approximately £60,000 (in fact $100,000) and the second was for £290,000, hence making Giloberg "an instant profit of approximately £230,000" and raising the question of why BGN should have paid a sum much greater than the original vendors considered the items were worth.
- BGN collapsed in controversial circumstances. Shareholders were unhappy that sums amounting to at least £675,000 had been paid to directors in "fees and payments" despite the company swiftly becoming insolvent. Investors were also unhappy that Keene and Lubin had acquired 88% of the company "for a song" even though the remaining 12% had been sold for around £3 million.
Other controversies
Viktor KorchnoiViktor 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...
alleges that when acting as his second in the 1978 World Championship match
World Chess Championship 1978
The 1978 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio City, Philippines from July 18 to October 18, 1978. Karpov won.- Qualification :...
, Keene broke his contract by writing a book about the match (which book appeared three days after the match finished) having specifically signed an agreement "not to write, compile or help to write or compile any book during the course of the match". Korchnoi commented: "Mr Keene betrayed me. He violated the contract. It was clear that while Mr Keene was writing one book and then another, Mr Stean was doing his work for him." Attempts to defend Keene were rebutted by Michael Stean's mother, who stated that she was in a position to know what was in Keene's contract since she herself had typed it. Keene, she claimed, had signed this despite having already negotiated a contract with Batsford to write a book about the match. She described "a premeditated and deliberate plan to deceive" and noted that Keene's conduct had come under suspicion during the match.
During the course of the 2000 Braingames World Championship Keene was accused of heavy-handed behaviour in having journalist John Henderson removed from the press room with the assistance of bouncers.
External links
- The 1986 FIDE Presidential Election - a series of 1986 articles, opposing the candidacies of Lincoln Lucena for FIDE president and Keene for FIDE General Secretary, by J. Edward Wells of "American Friends of FIDE"