Games - Raymond Keene

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	Games - Raymond Keene

Raymond Dennis Keene (born 29 January 1948) is an influential figure in the chess world off the board, bringing many notable chess events to London. He is also the author of a significant number of chess books, including a well respected treatise on Nimzowitsch titled Aron Nimzowitsch: A Reappraisal, and a chess book claimed to have been authored over a weekend!

Career

After education at Dulwich College and Trinity College, Cambridge (where he studied modern languages), Keene rose to prominence in the chess scene in the early seventies. He won the British Chess Championship at Blackpool in 1971. At that time the UK had no Grandmaster chess players, and its best known player was the highly respected Jonathan Penrose (who famously beat Mikhail Tal in 1960). Keene was one of the first group of British players to achieve the necessary norms to become a Grandmaster - being pipped to the post by Tony Miles (Anthony John Miles - deceased 2001) to the title of first British Grandmaster in 1976.

Keene's playing style tended toward to strategically original and positional. Favouring hypermodern openings such as the Modern Defence, he introduced a few interesting novelties. His style of play was strongly influenced by Nimzowitsch, and thus his adoption of Indian-type openings and positions (especially the Nimzo-Indian defence and the King's Indian Defence). As a player, Keene had some success in Europe and on the local tournament circuit.

However, it is not as a player Keene is best known, but as a chess activist (possibly politician is a more accurate reflection). His contributions to the organisational side of chess contrast with the mire of politicking and back-biting that overshadowed his successes. His on-going "war" with individuals within the English Chess Federation and past friends gain much press attention.

Keene is responsible for many notable chess events:

He was Viktor Korchnoi
's second during his World Championship match against Anatoly Karpov
in Manila 1978 - the match that brought hypnotism, mirrored glasses and yogurt as headline items in the spy-vs-spy encounter very thematic of the cold war period.
He brought Viktor Korchnoi and Garry Kasparov
together for the famous 1983 Candidates semi-final match in London. Putting Kasparov back on track to challenge Karpov for the World Title after Kasparov had defaulted the Los Angeles match. This match was a pivotal moment in Kasparov's destiny to be World Champion.
He arranged for the first half of the 1985 World Championship return match between Kasparov and Karpov to be played in London. That match finally cemented the 1984 World Championship debacle.
After years in the wildnerness outside of FIDE, Keene was the instrumental force behind 'Brain Games', which organised the Kasparov vs Vladimir Kramnik
match which resulted in the former losing his title. His involvement with Brain Games has attracted some controversy, with alleged financial irregularities highlighted repeatedly in Private Eye.

Keene remains the chess correspondent of The Times newspaper, and will probably remain influential in the chess world for the years to come. He is also known as "The Penguin", because of his physical resemblance to the bird, and as a comparison to Batman's nemesis - amusingly, one of his publishers is Penguin Books.

Keene often sports a bow tie at public events.

Keene occasionally appears on television, most notably as main presenter of Duels Of The Mind, a series which aired on the UK ITV network. In the series Keene, along with South African author and civil rights campaigner Donald Woods, discussed and analysed what were, in his opinion, the twelve best games of chess.

Raymond Keene is active member of the www.chessgames.com chess database and community, he has also written an extensive catologue of books.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Raymond Keene ]

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