Leonard William Barden (born 20 August 1929, in South Croydon, London) is an English chess master, writer, broadcaster, journalist, organiser and promoter. The son of a dustman, he was educated at Whitgift School, South Croydon, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Modern History. Barden learned to play chess at age 11 while in a school shelter during a World War II German air raid. Within a few years he became one of the country's leading juniors.Anne Sunnucks, The Encyclopaedia of Chess, St. Martin's Press, 1970, p. 20. . Barden represented England in four Chess Olympiads. He played a major role in the rise of English chess from the 1970s. Barden is a chess columnist for various newspapers. His column in London's Evening Standard was the world's longest-running daily chess column by the same author.
Early life Barden was born in South Croydon on 20 August 1929. His father ran a business which collapsed during the Great Depression, and eventually found employment as a dustman. Leonard attended Whitgift School when it was a grammar school, before it reverted to independent status in 1946.
Playing career
Junior results In 1946, Barden won the British Junior Correspondence Chess Championship, and tied for first place in the London Boys' Championship. The following year he tied for first with Jonathan Penrose in the British Boys' Championship, but lost the playoff.Harry Golombek, Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess, Crown Publishers, 1977, p. 25. .
British results Barden finished fourth at Hastings in 1951–52.Sunnucks, pp. 20, 189.Reg Cload and Raymond Keene, Battles of Hastings: A History of the Hastings International Chess Congress, Pergamon Chess, 1991, p. 127. . In 1952, he won the Paignton tournament ahead of the Canadian future grandmaster Daniel Yanofsky. Barden captained the Oxfordshire team which won the English Counties championship in 1951 and 1952. In the latter year, he captained the University of Oxford team which won the National Club Championship, and he represented the university in the annual team match against the University of Cambridge during his years there. In 1953, Barden won the individual British Lightning Championship (ten seconds a move). The following year, he tied for first with the Belgian grandmaster Albéric O'Kelly de Galway at Bognor Regis; was joint British champion, with Alan Phillips; and won the Southern Counties Championship. Barden finished fourth at Hastings 1957–58,Sunnucks, pp. 20, 195.Cload and Keene, p. 128. which Chessmetrics ranks as his best statistical performance.Player Profile: Leonard William Barden. chessmetrics.com. Retrieved on 22 December 2024. In the 1958 British Chess Championship, Barden again tied for first, but lost the playoff match to Penrose 1½–3½.David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed. 1992), Oxford University Press, p. 29. .
Chess Olympiads Barden represented England in the Chess Olympiads at Helsinki 1952 (playing , scoring 2 wins, 5 draws, and 4 losses), Amsterdam 1954 (playing first reserve, scoring 1 win, 2 draws, and 4 losses), Leipzig 1960 (first reserve; 4 wins, 4 draws, 2 losses), and Varna 1962 (first reserve; 7 wins, 2 draws, 3 losses). The latter was his best performance by far.Árpád Földeák, Chess Olympiads 1927–1968, Dover, 1979, pp. 201, 204, 220, 222, 289, 292, 313–14, 317. .Barden Chess Olympiad Statistics. OlimpBase.org. Retrieved on 22 December 2024. In a team competition such as the Chess Olympiads, the "first reserve" is the player whose rank on his team is one below the number of players who play in a match (e.g., the number five player in a situation where only four players play in any given match). The first reserve thus only plays in matches where one or more of his team's top players does not participate.
Morphy number Barden has a Morphy number of 3 by six different routes. He drew with Jacques Mieses in the Premier Reserves at Hastings 1948–49.Barden's comments to Tim Harding, Playing the Morphy Number Game , chesscafe.com, 2010. Mieses drew with Henry Bird in the last round of Hastings 1895,Horace F. Cheshire (editor), The Hastings Chess Tournament 1895, Dover, 1962, pp. 323–24. and Bird played a number of games with Paul Morphy in 1858 and 1859.Macon Shibut, Paul Morphy and the Evolution of Chess Theory, Dover, 2004, pp. 234–35, 262. . Mieses also beat Louis Paulsen at Breslau 1889. Morphy and Paulsen played at least 11 games against each other in 1857. Barden also played four opponents of James Mortimer: Edward Sergeant,Cross-table of 1948 BCF Premier Tournament. BritBase Chess. Retrieved on 22 December 2024.Mortimer played Edward Sergeant at the London 1906-07 and London 1908-09 tournaments. Gino de Felice, Chess Results, 1901-1920, McFarland & Co., 2006, pp. 281, 282. . Savielly Tartakower, Sir George Thomas,Cross-table of 1949 Southsea Tournament. BritBase Chess. Retrieved on 22 December 2024.Mortimer played Sir George Thomas in the Canterbury 1903 and Brighton 1904 tournaments. Gino de Felice, Chess Results, 1901-1920, McFarland & Co., 2006, pp. 26, 37. and Eugene Znosko-Borovsky. Mortimer reportedly played Morphy many games in Paris during the 1850s and 1860s.Taylor Kingston, Morphy Numbers Revisited: The Mortimer Effect. chesscafe.com. Published 1 October 2014. Retrieved on 22 December 2024.Chess Monthly, September 1892, p. 66.British Chess Magazine, July 1971, p. 249.
Chess organisation, broadcasting, writing In 1964, Barden gave up most competitive chess to devote his time to chess organisation, broadcasting, and writing about the game. He has made invaluable contributions to English chess as a populariser, writer, organiser, fundraiser, and broadcaster."Much of the credit for attracting and keeping sponsors over the past several years must go to Leonard Barden for the effort he puts into his two columns in nationwide newspapers, The Guardian and The Financial Times." Murray Chandler and Raymond Keene, The English Chess Explosion: From Miles to Short, Batsford, 1981, p. 95. . The authors call Barden "the 'guardian' angel of the Swiss circuit". Id. at 71.
He was controller of the British Chess Federation Grand Prix for many years, having found its first sponsor, Cutty Sark whisky. He was a regular contributor to the BBC's Network Three weekly radio chess programme from 1958 to 1963. His best-known contribution was a consultation game, recorded in 1960 and broadcast in 1961, where he partnered Bobby Fischer against the English masters Jonathan Penrose and Peter Clarke. This was the only recorded consultation game of Fischer's career. The game, unfinished after eight hours of play, was adjudicated a draw by former world champion Max Euwe.Robert G. Wade and Kevin J. O'Connell, Bobby Fischer's Chess Games (2nd ed. 1973), Doubleday, p. 206. .John Donaldson (chess player) and Eric Tangborn, The Unknown Fischer, International Chess Enterprises, 1999, pp. 67–71. . Barden gave BBC television commentaries on all the games in the 1972 world championship. From 1973 to 1978 he was co-presenter of BBC2's annual Master Game televised programme.
Chess columns Barden is a record-holding chess columnist, both for a weekly column and a daily column.
He was hired by The Manchester Guardian in 1955 to replace Julius du Mont. His weekly column has been published in The Guardian since September 1955 (for 69 years and 3 months as of December 2024) and in the Financial Times since March 1974 (for 50 years and 7 months as of December 2024). A typical Barden column not only contains a readable tournament report, but is geared toward promoting the game.Chandler and Keene, p. 67.
His daily column was published, firstly in print and subsequently online, in the London Evening Standard column from June 1956J.H. van Meurs (ed.), British Chess Federation Year Book 1956/57, 1956, p. 70. until 31 January 2020.Chess with Leonard Barden (January 31, 2020) It is by far the world's longest running daily chess column by the same author, the previous record having been set by George Koltanowski in the San Francisco Chronicle: 51 years, 9 months, and 18 days, including posthumous articles.Edward Winter, Chess Note 4841. Chesshistory.com. Dated 8 February 2007. Retrieved on 22 December 2024.Edward Winter, Chess Note 5267. Chesshistory.com. Dated 8 November 2007. Retrieved on 22 December 2024. Barden's column ran for 63 years, 7 months and 27 days, which exceeds the world record of 45 years and 240 days (as of 28 February 2019) that Guinness World Records recognizes for Lam Shan Muk of Hong Kong, a daily commentator for the Hong Kong Economic Journal.Longest serving daily newspaper columnist. Guinnessworldrecords.com. Retrieved on 22 December 2024.
In 2024, FIDE, the world chess federation, gave Barden a "FIDE 100 Award" for "Best Journalist".
Books Barden has written the following books:
A Guide to Chess Openings (1957) How Good Is Your Chess? (1957) The Elements of Chess (with J. du Mont, 1958) Chess (1959) An Introduction to Chess Moves and Tactics Simply Explained (1959) Modern Chess (with Wolfgang Heidenfeld, 1960) 30th U.S.S.R. Chess Championship: Erevan, Armenia, November–December, 1962 (1963), The Ruy Lopez (1963) The Guardian Chess Book (1967) An Introduction to Chess (1967) The King's Indian Defence (1968) The Grunfeld Defence (1968) An Introduction to Chess (1970) How to Play the Endgame in Chess (1975) The Batsford Guide to Chess Openings (with Tim Harding, 1976) Chess: Master the Moves (1977) Guide to the Chess Openings (with Tim Harding, 1977), Leonard Barden's Chess Puzzle Book (1977) (a collection of his Evening Standard columns) The Master Game (with Jeremy James, 1979) Play Better Chess with Leonard Barden (1980) Nigel Short, Chess Prodigy: His Career and Best Games (with David Short and G.S. Botterill, 1981) Openings for the Club Player (with Tim Harding, 1987) Chess Openings for the Average Player (with Tim Harding, 1998) Batsford Chess Puzzles (2002) Chess 80 Classic Problems: One Move and You're Dead (with Erwin Brecher, 2009).Author: Leonard Barden. WorldCat. Retrieved on 22 December 2024.
Barden's earliest literary credit is for proofreading "R.P. Michell: A Master of British Chess" by J. du Mont, published by Pitman in 1947.
Role in "English Chess Explosion" Barden played a key role in the rapid advance of English chess in the 1970s and 1980s from also-rans to Olympiad silver medal winners.Stuart Milner-Barry wrote in the foreword to The English Chess Explosion: From Miles to Short that the "English chess explosion" occurred because "the fruits were being reaped of the unobtrusive but devoted spade-work in junior training pioneered by Barden, Wade and many others." Chandler and Keene, p. 7. Barden "has been involved in junior training and sponsorship for over a decade, and ... was the first to predict the English chess explosion." Id. at back cover. His involvement began in 1971 when he noticed that Tony Miles and Michael Stean were both likely contenders for the 1973 world junior (under-20) championship, but that the only way for a country to have two representatives was to host the event. Barden knew the financier Jim Slater, who offered to co-sponsor the event, which was staged at Teesside. Miles and Stean won the silver and bronze medals there.Kažić, B.M., International Championship Chess: A Complete Record of FIDE Events, Pitman Publishing, 1974, pp. 285–86. ISBN 0-273-07078-9. Miles won the championship the following year.Chess Informant, Volume 18, Šahovski Informator, 1975, p. 258. Slater also agreed to Barden's proposal that he should finance special coaching by Bob Wade for the five best teenage prospects. They all became grandmasters.