William Hartston Explained

William Hartston
Country:England
Full Name:William Roland Hartston
Birth Date:12 August 1947
Birth Place:Willesden, Middlesex, England
International Master (1973)
Peakrating:2485 (January 1979)
Fideid:400262

William Roland Hartston (born 12 August 1947) is an English journalist who wrote the Beachcomber column in the Daily Express. He is also a chess player who played competitively from 1962 to 1987 and earned a highest Elo rating of 2485.[1] He was awarded the title International Master in 1972, but is now best known as a chess author and presenter of the game on television.

Biography

Hartston was born in Willesden, Middlesex, England, and attended the City of London School before studying Mathematics at Jesus College, Cambridge.[2]

At the 19th Chess Olympiad, held at Siegen 1970, he won the gold medal for best score on board 3 (78.1%).[3] He won the British Chess Championship in 1973 and 1975. In international competition, he had many strong performances but failed, by the smallest possible margin, to achieve the results required for the title of International Grandmaster. Hartston became the first person to stack the pieces from an entire chess set on top of a single white rook.[4] [5] He studied mathematics at Jesus College, Cambridge but did not complete his PhD on number theory as he spent too much time playing chess.[6]

From the early 1970s, Hartston made many TV appearances for the BBC,[7] [8] usually in the role of expert commentator and analyst on world title matches, including Fischer-Spassky '72, Karpov-Korchnoi '78, Kasparov-Short '93 and Kasparov-Anand '95. On December 7, 1990, he was featured in an experimental interactive BBC2 broadcast called Your Move, which was hosted by Rob Curling and featured grandmaster Jon Speelman. In the groundbreaking one-off episode, Speelman was pitted against the audience, who would use a special telephone line to submit their moves, with the move played by the viewers being decided by a democratic vote. Speelman won the match, although the viewers put up a good fight. The broadcast went for approximately three hours, about double the time that it had been scheduled for.[9]

He twice won the BBC's The Master Game competition before taking over from Leonard Barden as its resident expert. During the 1980s he presented the BBC series Play Chess. In recent years he has diversified into a number of creative areas, running competitions in creative thinking for The Independent newspaper and the Mind Sports Olympiad. He wrote the off-beat Beachcomber column for the Daily Express and has written books on chess, mathematics, humour and trivia. He has also been a regular guest on the BBC Radio 4 and occasional TV programme, Puzzle Panel and appeared in Series 8 of The Museum of Curiosity also on Radio 4. Aside from his chess and media-related activities, Hartston is a mathematician and industrial psychologist. During the 1980s, he was recruited by Meredith Belbin, at the Industrial Training Research Unit in Cambridge, to research the dynamics of teams. While continuing to write the Beachcomber column and other features for the Daily Express, he was also behind the launching of the now defunct wakkipedia.com Internet site of useless information. His latest publication is A Brief History of Puzzles: 120 of the World's Most Baffling Brainteasers from the Sphinx to Sudoku (2019).[10]

On 2 April 2013 it was reported that Hartston had "perfected" a formula for predicting the winner of the Grand National horse race, in a study commissioned by bookmaker William Hill.[11] [12] [13] The story of the winning formula has since been widely thought to be an April Fools joke for which many have fallen.[14]

In 2013 Hartston and his friend Josef Kollar became regular 'viewers' on the Channel 4 programme Gogglebox.[15]

In 2023 his book Knock, knock! In pursuit of a grand unified theory of humour was published by Watkins Media.[16]

Personal life

Hartston was the first of three British chess champions to be married to Woman Grandmaster Jana Bellin (née Malypetrova) (January 1970 in Cambridge). With his second wife, Elizabeth Bannerman (1978) he has two sons, James and Nicholas.[17]

Bibliography

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

Notes

  1. "FIDE rating history :: Hartston, William R.", OlimpBase.
  2. Web site: William Hartston . Jewish Lives Project . 2 April 2022 . unfit . https://web.archive.org/web/20220306131742/https://www.jewishlivesproject.com/profiles/william-hartston . Mar 6, 2022 .
  3. Web site: OlimpBase :: 19th Chess Olympiad, Siegen 1970, information. olimpbase.org.
  4. Web site: Radio 4: The Museum of Curiosity . bbc.co.uk . 8 February 2016 . 13 February 2016. from 15:20
  5. Web site: The Streatham & Brixton Chess Blog: Something to try if you're bored on the rest day . Streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.co.uk . 1 August 2010 . 13 February 2016.
  6. Book: Hartston, William. Even More Things That Nobody Knows: 501 Further Mysteries of Life, the Universe and Everything. 5 November 2015. Atlantic Books. 9781782396116. 21 April 2018. Google Books.
  7. Web site: BFI | Film & TV Database | HARTSTON, William . https://archive.today/20140402231002/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/895719?view=credit . dead . 2 April 2014 . Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk . 16 April 2009 . 3 April 2014.
  8. Web site: BFI | Film & TV Database | HARTSTON, Bill . https://archive.today/20140402231027/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/136406?view=credit . dead . 2 April 2014 . Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk . 16 April 2009 . 3 April 2014.
  9. Web site: Your Move - UKGameshows . 2023-06-13 . www.ukgameshows.com.
  10. Web site: A Brief History of Puzzles – Where and how did our obsession with testing ourselves begin? . Paul . Donnelley . 7 November 2019 . Express.co.uk . 2 April 2022.
  11. Web site: Grand National: Formula To Pick Winning Horse. Sky News . 2 April 2013 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20231123230629/https://news.sky.com/story/grand-national-formula-to-pick-winning-horse-10449863 . Nov 23, 2023 .
  12. Web site: Seabass - Grand National . Sporting Post.
  13. Web site: Cambridge University maths whizz predicts Grand National winner. Cambridge News . Jennie . Baker . 3 April 2013 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20131231235107/http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Cambridge-University-maths-whizz-predicts-Grand-National-winner-20130403104304.htm . Dec 31, 2013 .
  14. Web site: 'Maths whizz' 'predicts' Grand National 'winner'. The Aperiodical. 5 April 2013 . Peter . Rowlett .
  15. Web site: Gogglebox star and chess champ Bill Hartston of Cambridge on the joys of appearing on bizarre Channel 4 show . Cambridge News . April 4, 2014 . 6 December 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20141208080228/http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Gogglebox-star-chess-champ-Hartston-Cambridge-joys-appearing-bizarre-Channel-4/story-22367667-detail/story.html . 8 December 2014 . dmy-all .
  16. Web site: Knock, knock! In pursuit of a grand unified theory of humour | Jesus College in the University of Cambridge .
  17. Web site: Happy Birthday IM William ("Bill") Hartston (12-viii-1947) . John . Upham . 12 August 2020 . British Chess News . 6 March 2022.
  18. Book: Knock, Knock: In Pursuit of a Grand Unified Theory of Humour . 978-1-78678-735-4 . 9 May 2023 . Watkins Media Limited .

External links

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