Speelman Jonathan Simon (02.10.1956)

English Grandmaster (1980). Author and journalist. British Champion in 1978, 1985 and 1986. British vice-champion in 1981, 1982 and 1984.

Best results: won or shared the victory at Hastings in 1983-84 and 1986-87, in Brighton 1979, 1980 and 1984, Dortmund 1981 and Banja Luka 1983, in London 1985, Beersheva 1987, Katrineholm in 1999, Simpson in 2003 and finished joint first at the Staunton Memorial in 2004 and 2005. Winner of the 1987 Subotica Interzonal he qualified for the Candidates’ matches of 1988-89 where he beat Yasser Seirawan (+3=2-0), defeated Nigel Short (+2=3-0), but lost the semi-final to Jan Timman (+1=5-2).
For the Candidates cycle of 1991, he was defeated by Nigel Short.

Speelman was voted BCF’s Player of the Year in 1987 and 1989, he was a participant in 14 Olympiads between 1980 and 2006 where he collected 5 medals.

As chess author, he is known to be an excellent analyst especially on endgames: Best Chess Games 1970-1980, Endgame Preparation (1981), Developments in the Caro-Kann (1984), Analysing the Endgame (1988), and Jon Speelman’s Best Games (1997).
He has been The Observer chess correspondent since 1993 and an Independent chess correspondent since 1998.

Peak rating: 2645 in 1988, he was then ranked 5th in the world list.