Nigel David Short was born on 1 June 1965 and is an English chess grandmaster, columnist, coach and commentator who has been the FIDE Director for Chess Development since September 2022.
41 Facts About Nigel Short
2.
Nigel Short was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1999 Birthday Honours for services to chess.
3.
Nigel Short is the second of three children of David and Jean Short.
4.
Nigel Short's father was a journalist and his mother was a school secretary.
5.
Nigel Short grew up in Atherton, going to St Philip's Primary School on Bolton Old Road.
6.
Nigel Short studied at the independent Bolton School and Leigh College.
7.
Nigel Short began playing chess at the age of five after watching his father teach his older brother Martin.
8.
Nigel Short was a member both of Atherton Chess Club, which was founded by his father, and later of Bolton Chess Club, which initially rejected him for being too young.
9.
Nigel Short's parents divorced when he was 13 years old.
10.
Nigel Short left school at age 17, having completed four O-levels, to focus on chess full-time.
11.
Nigel Short dominated British youth chess during this period, and earned a Master rating with his showing in the 1977 British finals.
12.
In 1979, in the British Championship at Chester, Nigel Short tied for first place with John Nunn and Robert Bellin, earning his first International Master norm; Bellin won the title on tiebreak.
13.
Later in 1979, Nigel Short tied for first place in the World Championship for players under age 16, the World Cadet Championship, at Belfort, France, but lost to Argentinian Marcello Tempone on tiebreak.
14.
Nigel Short represented England in international team play for the first time at the 1983 European Team finals in Plovdiv.
15.
Nigel Short needed a playoff to advance past John van der Wiel and Eugenio Torre for the last berth, after the three had tied in regulation play.
16.
The Candidates stage had by this time reverted to its traditional match format: Nigel Short defeated Gyula Sax in Saint John, Canada, in 1988, but then unexpectedly lost to Speelman in London.
17.
Nigel Short defeated Mikhail Gurevich in the last round of the Manila Interzonal and finished equal third with Viswanathan Anand, behind Vassily Ivanchuk and Boris Gelfand, qualifying him as a Candidate for the third successive time.
18.
The King walk, perhaps the most famous in recent history, where Nigel Short defeated Jan Timman in Tilburg in 1991, was voted as one of the hundred greatest chess games in a list compiled by FM Graham Burgess, and GMs John Nunn and John Emms.
19.
The unprecedented rebellion organized by Kasparov and Nigel Short resulted in a parallel World Championship cycle organized by FIDE, featuring Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman playing a title match later in 1993, which was won by Karpov.
20.
Nigel Short won the British Chess Championship in 1984,1987 and 1998, and the English Championship in 1991.
21.
Nigel Short was the Commonwealth Champion in 2004,2006 and 2008.
22.
Nigel Short won the 2006 EU Individual Open Chess Championship in Liverpool and took a share of second place in 2008 when it was held there again.
23.
Nigel Short has defeated Utut Adianto in Jakarta 1995, Etienne Bacrot in Albert 2000, Hannes Stefansson in Reykjavik 2002, Ehsan Ghaem Maghami in Tehran 2003 Zahar Efimenko in Mukachevo 2009 and Hou Yifan in Hoogeveen 2016.
24.
Nigel Short won the classic games, the rapid games and the blitz games.
25.
Nigel Short made his international team debut in the European Team Chess Championship at age 17 at Plovdiv 1983.
26.
Nigel Short represented England in 17 consecutive Olympiads between 1984 and 2016.
27.
Nigel Short took a team bronze in the Novi Sad Olympiad of 1990, and led England to fourth-place finishes in both 1994 and 1996.
28.
Nigel Short led the English team to victory in the 1997 Euroteams at Pula, and was a member of the bronze winning team in 1992, and of fourth place teams in 1983 and 2001.
29.
Nigel Short was a member of three English teams in the World Team Chess Championships of 1985,1989, and 1997.
30.
Nigel Short was appointed to serve as one of several Vice Presidents of the World Chess Federation in October 2018.
31.
Nigel Short has written chess columns and book reviews for the British newspapers The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and The Spectator.
32.
Nigel Short wrote for The Sunday Telegraph for a decade and for The Guardian between 2005 and 19 October 2006.
33.
Nigel Short reported on the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 in San Luis, Argentina, for the ChessBase website.
34.
Nigel Short wrote a column, "Short Stories", for New in Chess magazine from January 2011 until December 2018.
35.
Nigel Short worked as national coach of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 2006 to 2007.
36.
Nigel Short was made an honorary Fellow of the then Bolton Institute of Higher Education in 1993, and was admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Bolton in 2010.
37.
Nigel Short became its president in June 2006, stepping down in January 2008.
38.
Nigel Short was the FIDE delegate for the ECF between 2009 and 2014.
39.
In 2001, Nigel Short told The Sunday Telegraph chess column that he believed he had been secretly playing the reclusive former chess champion Bobby Fischer on the online chess platform Internet Chess Club in speed chess matches.
40.
In January 2007, Nigel Short gave an interview to the Indian newspaper DNA, in which he called for an inquiry to examine allegations that Veselin Topalov cheated during the World Championship in San Luis.
41.
In 2015, Nigel Short was criticised for saying that men are biologically better suited to chess than women, though he stated that women are better in other areas.