The Birthday Blitz – John at Fifty
25.04.2005
– Today John Nunn turned fifty. To commemorate this there was a weekend blitz in London's beautiful Home House, with most of the top British players. Afterwards, at a sumptuous dinner, the veteran captain of the English team summed up John's career in a memorable speech. We bring you pictures and a transcription.
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Nigel Davies:
A busy person’s opening system
Players with interests and commitments away from the chess board often find it difficult to compete against those with more study time. Their opponents come to the board armed with the latest theory and can bash out moves well into the middle game. On this DVD Nigel Davies addresses this issue by demonstrating a simple and easy to learn opening system designed for the busy person.
More information...
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The John Nunn 50th Birthday Blitz
On Monday, April 25, 2005 John Nunn turned fifty. John is quite well known
to regular visitors to the ChessBase news page. He did a PhD in algebraic topology
after becoming the youngest Oxford undergraduate since Cardinal Wolsey in the
15th century. At the same time he became a grandmaster, and in the course of
his career a world champion problem solver, problem composer, author, publisher,
science writer, and too many other things to mention here. For anyone who doesn't
know the details we link you to our pre-congratulatory
story. It contains pictures of the infant Nunn and two helpmate
problems depicted in the picture above.
To celebrate the actually birthday there was a blitz tournament in London
with many of England's top players, all friends of "the Doctor". For logistical
reasons it was held on Saturday the 23rd, and it was something we could not
miss. We arrived at the elegant Home
House, just a short stroll from Hyde Park and Oxford Street, to find the
event in full swing.
Top British players taking part in a 16-round blitz tournament in London
The beautiful ambience of a fashionable hotel, restaurant and staging center
The entrance stairway of Home House
Michael Adams (right), the eventual winner, blitzing the competition
Talented youngster Luke McShane, here against Murray Chandler
John Nunn in his game against Danny King
Still going strong at 49!
GM Daniel King with a new haircut that for the first time shows his ears
John's friend and business associate Murray Chandler
The strongest player in sight: Mickey Adams
Ali Mortazavi, a strong player who is successful in business
Above is the final result of the John Nunn Birthday Blitz. It was won by Michael
Adams with 13 out of 16, followed by Luke McShane with 12½ points, Mark Hebden
with 10½, Conquest with 10 and Nunn and King with 9½. The first prize was £1000,
2nd was £750, 3rd £500, 4th £250 and 5th £100.
Birthday Dinner
After the blitz there was a sumptuous dinner in the Home House restaurant,
with a Jerusalem artichoke soup. The main ingredient has nothing to do with
Jerusalem and little in common with artichokes, being a type of sunflower.
But the soup is delicious.
The John Nunn birthday dinner at Home House
Grandmasters and old friends of the Doctor
David Norwood and Michael Adams share about four glasses of red wine
Melanie Buckley and Peter Wells
Dr Helen Milligan, astrophysicist, with Murray Chandler, chess player
The Speech
 David
Anderton, a strong chess player who has captained the English team
since the dawn of time, knows John Nunn better than anyone else. During the
dinner David spoke about John and the times they had been through together.
We have transcribed his remarkable speech – the video of it (and the
blitz tournament) will be included in a future issue of ChessBase Magazine.
When John invited me to say a few words tonight, it was clear that my speech
must be short (but not too much Short); and that it must not sound like a chess
obituary, because we come to praise Nunn, not to bury him.
You have, John, attained a significant milestone. If you take man's span as
three-score years and ten, and translate that into the equivalent of a week,
you've just reached midnight on Friday. Some of us are well into Sunday, and
others are living beyond their allotted span. But at least you, John, have
the weekend to look forward to.
You and I go back a long way. It was still Tuesday when we first met. In 1975
you started playing for the England team, and joined what one arbiter described
as my bunch of monsters. In fact it was O'Kelly who said, "Why can't you get
them to cut their hair?" And I said, "Well, you remember what happened to Samson."
We have enjoyed both the bronze age and the silver age of chess together.
I think that my worst moments as England's captain were first of all when Jon
Speelman invited a Swiss spectator to do something that was anatomically impossible;
and secondly when Tony Miles sealed the move "Resigns" against Portisch, and
it was up to me to retrieve the scoresheet without revealing the sealed move,
which I singularly failed to do.
But that wasn't quite as bad as the famous situation with Father Bill Lombardy,
who was playing in an Icelandic tournament, and he was completely lost, and
he sealed his move. Next morning his opponent turned up with the arbiter, but
no Father Lombardy. When they opened up the scoresheet there was written the
famous resigning move, which was "Good morning, a**hole."
Perhaps the worst event, however, was in 1990 at the Reykjavik summit, when
at last we beat the USSR team at a senior level. The celebrations began somewhat
prematurely, and they continued until the end of the event. After I had settled
the bill for the damage to the hotel, I still had to get the team back to London.
They fell into three categories. First of all category one, the majority, were
suffering from a colossal hangover. Secondly there was Mikhail Suba, who wanted
to explain his games to anybody who would listen. And the third group was the
sober triumvirate of Nunn, Speelman and Mestel doing self-helpmates in thirteen
moves.
I think the best moment was our first Silver in Thessaloniki in 1984, when
John scored ten out of eleven, for a rating performance of 2868 – and won the
problem solving competition on his day off. This was probably your best performance,
John. But it has to stand with your result in the World Cup in the late 1980s,
when you were sixth in the overall standings in a series of events in which
not everybody played, utilising a waiting system that was devised by you and
understood by nobody else.
You have made a number of excursions into administration, one of which was
when we served together on the FIDE Experts' Commission, with Kasparov and
Timman. I well remember one meeting when I prepared an agenda, item one of
which was "Apologies". When we started the meeting Kasparov immediately said:
"But I have nothing to apologise for!" I'm not sure that FIDE would accept
that that is still the case.
John, you have truly been a chess multi-talent: grandmaster extraordinaire,
lucid and popular author (in fact so popular that when your book Pawnless
and Pieceless Endgames was announced, the chess world flocked to buy it).
Finally of course you are one of the Three Gambiteers, a leading publisher.
We your friends celebrate your past successes and urge you to fresh heights
in the years to come. Can I ask you all to be upstanding and drink a toast
to John. The Doctor!
John Nunn and his wife Petra
Report and pictures: Frederic Friedel
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