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Yorkshire
Chess Association |
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Death of
Tony Miles |
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As many will now be aware,
Anthony John Miles, the first British-born player to become an over-the-board
chess grandmaster, was found "collapsed" at his home in Birmingham
having died over the night of Sunday/Monday the 11th/12th of November 2001 at
the age of 46. He was diagnosed as
diabetic 2 or 3 years ago and it is suspected this is related to his death.
Tony Miles was born on the
23rd of April 1955 in Birmingham. He
became a pupil at King Edward's Birmingham where he was in the same
"House" as Chris Shephard who has for many years lived in Sheffield. It was arguably Chris who first
"discovered" Tony Miles in that it was Chris who first selected the
young Miles to play in the House chess team.
In 1968 Miles won the
British Under-14 Championship. Around
this time, after the departure of Chris Shephard from King Edward's Birmingham,
Miles played board one for KEB in the Sunday Times schools' competition against
the present writer who was on board one for King Edward VII's, Sheffield. I was totally unaware of any reputation or
credentials my opponent might have had, and launched into the game, as white,
with 1.d4 f5 2.g4. Black was visibly
thrown by this and continued to chew fingernails etc well into the game. Needless to say Miles won, but I vaguely
wonder whether I might in some very small way have contributed the Miles's
subsequent challenging approach to opening theory which honed somewhat off-beat
ideas into fashionable, if not main-line lines of play. At Blackpool in 1971 he won the British
Under-21 title at the age of 16.
On leaving school Miles went
to Sheffield University who he represented from time to time in the Sheffield
league where his score was less than 100%, a fate which befalls all the great
who venture out into this 30-moves-an-hour hustlers' world! In the outside chess world, however, he was
building up an international standing.
The adverse effect on his application to his academic studies was
noticed by the university authorities, and he was said by University chess club
members to have been given the option of applying himself seriously to his
academic studies or else leaving university.
Fortunately for the chess world he made the right decision!
He won the World Under-21
Championship, the first and so far only British player to do so, in 1974 at
Manila, and became an International Master.
Since then the World Under-21 Championship has come to afford its winner
an automatic Grandmaster title, though none of the players at Manila were
grandmasters. In 1976, while still 20,
he became the first British-born player to gain the Grandmaster title (pedants
see below). This won him the £5,000
which had been offered by chess playing financier Jim Slater for the first to
achieve this.
To its credit, Sheffield
University soon bestowed an honorary degree on Miles in recognition of his
feats in the chess world - heart-warming recognition that Miles's decision to
pursue a chess career was justified.
Miles had a number of
tournament successes in the 1970s and 1980s.
One game which endeared itself to the chess playing British public was
his defeat with black of Karpov with the opening 1.e4 a6 2.d4 b5 in the
European Team Championships at Skara in 1980.
That he could so successfully take on a reigning world champion with
such an unorthodox approach to the opening says much of his style and ability. In the 1990s he had good results in the
Cuban Capablance Memorial tournaments.
On the home front he played
on the congress circuit, winning the Grand Prix in 1974 (equal with G H
Bennett), 1975, 1982 and 1984, and won the British Championship in 1982. He represented England in 8 Olympiads. Despite his international stature he did not
neglect club chess and led Slough to first place in the 4 Nations Chess League
three times.
While passionate about chess
on the board, he also got passionate, perhaps too obsessively so for mental health,
with political issues in chess. He is
the only Grandmaster I've seen at a Yorkshire Chess Association Annual General
Meeting! On an occasion when the matter
of the YCA's affiliation or otherwise to the British Chess Federation was on
the table, Miles appeared, presumably at the instigation of the anti-BCF lobby,
and said his piece in criticism of certain organisations and individuals. At the time I noticed with some amusement
that on the attendance register circulated at the meeting Miles's name had
"Doncaster" by it in the "club" column. Whether a membership fee had been collected
I did not like to ask! For a period
around the 1990s he played under the United States flag, but returned to the
English flag a few years ago.
Whatever the rights and
wrongs of any disputes Miles may have had with any people he regarded as
enemies, I can't help thinking Miles was better loved than those enemies (those
I know of at least) by chess players at large.
I know who I'd prefer in my team!
Steve Mann
Hon. Sec. YCA
16/11/01
Note for pedants:
The first British
over-the-board chess Grandmaster was Jacques Mieses. He was one of those declared grandmasters on the basis of past
performance when the title was first introduced in 1950. Despite his French-sounding first name,
Mieses was German-born, but became a naturalised Briton shortly before the
introduction of the GM title.
Links to Obituaries:
BCF, Daily
Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, KasparovChess, The
Scotsman, The
Times
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