Chess

“DID you hear Tony Miles had died?” asked Nigel Short when I arrived at the European Team Championships in Spain in November 2001.

It was a shock to hear the terrible news relayed by the rival who had usurped Miles’s position as British number one in the mid-1980s.

It’s hard to believe it’s ten years since Britain’s first grandmaster died at the age of 46. Miles made the breakthrough in 1976 by completing title qualification at a tournament in Russia when GM status was a much rarer badge of worth than the current inflation-ravaged bauble. He had been determined to become Britain’s first post-war professional player after winning the World Junior Championship in 1974.

He was best known in Scotland for his 1983 match with Roddy McKay to celebrate Cathcart’s 30th anniversary. Miles won game three of a four-game contest, the rest drawn. In the final game McKay (White) had sacrificed the exchange to attack Miles’s king. 32 Bh7! Ne4 33 Qg6+ Kf8 34 Qg8+ Ke7 35 Qe6+ Draw agreed. At the time the assumption was that White must have missed a win, for example 33 f3 looked strong. In fact, only the decision to take a draw (perpetual check on e6 and g8) was a mistake – 28 years later, computer assistance shows McKay could have equalised with 35...Kf8 36 Rxe4!! and the bishops dominate the rooks. 36...Qxe4 37 Qxf6+ Ke8 38 Qc6+ Rdd7 If 38...Kf7 the difficult (for a human) 39 h3! has to be played to stop perpetual check. Black is still completely lost. 39 Qc8+ Rd8 40 Bg6+ Rf7 41 Qe6+ which should be more than enough to win.