William Hartston

William Roland Hartston (born London 12 August 1947) is an English chess player who played competitively from 1962 to 1987 with a highest Elo rating of 2515 [ [http://us.share.geocities.com/wallw_99/who.htm Aaron, Manuel (1935- ) ] ] . However, he failed by the closest possible margin to achieve the results required for the formal award of the title of International Grandmaster. Hartston is probably best known as a chess author and presenter of the game on television.

He won the British Chess Championship in 1973 and 1975, the former being one year after he was awarded the International Master title.

During the 1980s he presented the BBC series "Play Chess". Indeed, since the early 1970s he has made many TV appearances for the BBC, usually in the role of expert commentator and analyst on chess world title matches, including Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky, Karpov-Korchnoi, Kasparov-Nigel Short and Kasparov-Viswanathan Anand. He has since diversified into a number of creative areas, running competitions in creative thinking for The Independent newspaper and the Mind Sports Olympiad. He writes the off-beat Beachcomber column for the Daily Express and books on chess, mathematics, humour and trivia.

During the 1980s Harston was recruited by Meredith Belbin to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team researching the dynamics of team roles at the Industrial Training Research Unit in Cambridge.

He has been a regular guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme, "Puzzle Panel".

"Bill" Hartston was the first of three British chess champions to be married to Woman Grandmaster Dr Jana Bellin (née Malypetrova).His second wife, Elizabeth, bore him two sons; James and Nicholas.

Bibliography

*"How To Cheat At Chess" (1977)
*"Soft Pawn" (1980)
*"The Ultimate Irrelevant Encyclopaedia (1984)
*"The Kings of Chess" (1985)
*"Chess - The Making of the Musical" (1986)
*"Drunken Goldfish and Other Irrelevant Scientific Research" (1988)
*"How was it for you, Professor?" (1992)
*"The Guinness Book of Chess Grandmasters" (1996)
*"Teach Yourself Better Chess" (1997)
*"The Book of Numbers: The Ultimate Compendium of Facts About Figures" (2000)
*"What Are the Chances of That?" (2004)
*"What's What - The Encyclopedia of Quite Extraordinary Information" (2005)

He has written various technical chess books under his full name of William R. Hartston or William Roland Hartston.

Notes

External links

*chessgames player|id=16132
* [http://www.chessworld.net/chessclubs/statistics_pgn_rating_chart.asp?username=Hartston,William%20R. Statistics at ChessWorld.net]
*FIDE rating card for [http://www.fide.com/ratings/card.phtml?event=400262 William R Hartston]