40 Facts About Raymond Keene

Raymond Dennis Keene was born on 29 January 1948 and is an English chess grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.

Raymond Keene won the British Chess Championship in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974.

Raymond Keene 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.

Raymond Keene was the chess correspondent of The Times from 1985 to November 2019, and is a prolific author, having written over 100 books on chess.

Raymond Keene was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to chess in the 1985 Birthday Honours.

Raymond Keene won the London and British Under 18 Championships in 1964, and represented England at the 1965 and 1967 World Junior Chess Championships, held in Barcelona and Jerusalem respectively.

Raymond Keene was educated at Dulwich College and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Raymond Keene wrote his first chess book whilst studying at Cambridge, and won the British Chess Championship at Blackpool 1971.

In 1974, Keene married Annette, the sister of International Master David S Goodman.

Raymond Keene was the second British player to meet the necessary requirements to become a Grandmaster.

Raymond Keene was pipped to the post by a few months by Tony Miles, the first British Grandmaster in 1976.

Miles and Raymond 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.

Raymond Keene represented England for nearly two decades in international team events, beginning with the 1966 Chess Olympiad in Havana at age 18.

Raymond Keene followed with the next seven straight Olympiads: Lugano 1968, Siegen 1970, Skopje 1972, Nice 1974, Haifa 1976, Buenos Aires 1978, and La Valletta 1980.

Raymond Keene represented England four times at the Students' Olympiad and four times at the European Team Championships.

Raymond Keene won the 1971 British championship and shared second place on three occasions, in 1968,1970 and 1972.

Raymond Keene's playing style tended toward the strategically original and positional.

Raymond Keene was the originator and organiser of the annual Staunton 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, Raymond Keene has attracted considerable sponsorship and has proved himself capable of efficient and rapid organisation of chess events".

Raymond 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 Zoltan Ribli was played at the same site.

Raymond Keene has been involved in organising several World Championship finals matches.

Raymond Keene arranged for the first half of the World Chess Championship 1986 return match between Kasparov and Karpov in London.

Raymond Keene 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.

Raymond Keene became the chess columnist of The Spectator in March 1977.

Raymond Keene's column was terminated in September 2019, when he was replaced by Luke McShane.

Raymond Keene covered the world championships of 1981,1985,1986,1990,1993, and 1995 for BBC 2, CHANNEL 4, and Thames TV.

From 1978 to 1982, Raymond Keene was the editor of Modern Chess Theory, a magazine on openings which included contributions from the Soviet world champions Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, and Mikhail Tal.

Raymond Keene has written over 200 books on chess and mind games.

Raymond Keene was for many years the Chess Advisor to Batsford.

In 1978, along with Michael Stean and Jacob Murey, Raymond Keene helped Viktor Korchnoi during the 1978 World Chess Championship match Karpov-Korchnoi.

In 1981, Raymond Keene came to the USSR and helped Anatoly Karpov prepare for the 1981 World Chess Championship match Karpov-Korchnoi.

In 1993 John Donaldson accused Raymond Keene of committing plagiarism in The Complete Book of Gambits.

Two months later, Raymond Keene resigned his posts as BCF Publicity Director and FIDE delegate.

Raymond Keene said that his resignation was for different reasons, and that he was "furious" at his treatment after organising numerous events from 1983 to 1987.

Levy further alleged that Raymond Keene changed his story several times as to the purpose of the payment and the reasons why the new company had been set up.

Raymond Keene complained that shares in the new company were held by Keene and an associate but not by the company for which they had been supposed to be working, nor any of its directors other than themselves.

Viktor Korchnoi alleged that when acting as his second in the 1978 World Championship match, Raymond Keene broke his contract by writing a book about the match having specifically signed an agreement "not to write, compile or help to write or compile any book during the course of the match".

Attempts to defend Raymond Keene were rebutted by Michael Stean's mother, who stated that she was in a position to know what was in Raymond Keene's contract since she herself had typed it.

Raymond Keene, she claimed, had signed this despite having already negotiated a contract with Batsford to write a book about the match.

Raymond Keene described "a premeditated and deliberate plan to deceive" and noted that Keene's conduct had come under suspicion during the match.