Jonathan Penrose

Jonathan Penrose (Chess Olympiad Leipzig 1960)

Jonathan Penrose OBE (born October 7, 1933 in Colchester ) is an English chess master . He was considered the best English chess player in the 1960s and early 1970s. He is the brother of the two well-known mathematicians Oliver Penrose and Roger Penrose and the son of the scientist Lionel Penrose .

successes

Tournament player

Penrose won the British Individual Championship ten times between 1958 and 1969 and played nine times for the English team at Chess Olympiads between 1952 and 1974 . In 1960 he won against the world chess champion Michail Tal at the Olympics in Leipzig , which was also the only losing game that the Soviet team had to accept at the tournament. At the Chess Olympiads in Varna in 1962 and in Lugano in 1968 , he achieved the second-best individual result on the first board. In 1973 he took part with the English team at the European Team Championship in Bath . In 1961 he was awarded the FIDE title of International Master , in 1993 he was awarded the title of Grand Master by FIDE on an honorary basis. He is the last living honorary grandmaster.

His Elo rating is 2405 (as of October 2014), but he is listed as inactive because he has not played a rated game since 1979. It reached its highest Elo rating of 2,450 in July 1971. Its highest historical rating before the Elo was introduced was 2610 in February 1969.

Game example

Penrose Valley

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

End position after 39. g3

Here the victory of Penrose against the reigning world champion Tal at the Chess Olympiad 1960 in Leipzig.

Penrose Valley 1-0

Leipzig, November 8, 1960

Benoni Defense , A65

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c5 4. d5 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. Bd3 Bg7 8. Nge2 0-0 9. 0-0 a6 10. a4 Qc7 11. h3 Nbd7 12. f4 Re8 13.Ng3 c4 14. Bc2 Nc5 15. Qf3 Nfd7 16. Be3 b5 17. axb5 Rb8 18. Qf2 axb5 19. e5 dxe5 20. f5 Bb7 21. Rad1 Ba8 22. Nce4 Sa4 23. Bxa4 bxa4 24. fxg6 fxg6 25.Qf7 + Kh8 26.Nc5 Da7 27.Qxd7 Qxd7 28.Nxd7 Rxb2 29.Nb6 Rb3 30.Nxc4 Rd8 31.d6 Rc3 32.Rc1 Rxc1 33.Rxc1 Bd5 34.Nb6 Bb3 35.Ne4 h6 36. d7 Bf8 37. Rc8 Be7 38.Bc5 Bh4 39. g3 1-0

Correspondence chess

Penrose largely withdrew from local chess in the 1970s and has been primarily active in correspondence chess since then . With the English team he won the gold medal at the 9th Correspondence Chess Olympiad, and has been the ICCF Grand Master in correspondence chess since 1983 .