Professor Jack Good

[Simon Spivack]

I see some references to chess in the following obituary. Can anyone flesh these out? The instances are:

A statistician by training and a county chess champion

I presume the county is Cambridgeshire for:

Good graduated in 1938, and the next year won the Cambridgeshire chess championship.

In 1941 Good was interviewed by Hugh Alexander, the reigning British chess champion, for a job in the "Civil Service", and on May 27 1941 – the day the Bismarck was sunk – found himself installed at Bletchley Park.

Note that the error of his date of birth in today's newspaper has been corrected in the online edition. A quick glance hasn't revealed any other significant differences.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituar ... -Good.html

[John Saunders]

Jack Good was a pretty good chessplayer. Around 1954, he had a BCF grade of 3a, which is equivalent to 209-216. I've found four of his games on my database, all wins from the 1950s - amongst his victims Michael Franklin and Oliver Penrose. In 1938 he debuted for Cambridge on board seven in the Varsity chess match. On board one for his team was David Bernard Schultz, who later changed his name to Scott (Prof. DB Scott is a name familiar to those who, like me, peruse post-war chess reference material - he too was a very good player). The Dictionary of National Biography gives a bit more background to the relationship between Jack Good, Hugh Alexander and Bernard Scott:

"Alexander and Good were acquainted through their interest in Chess, though Good was not of the caliber of Alexander, except when playing "five minute" chess. While the interview did not reveal directly the type of work which Good was to undertake, Bernard Scott, a friend of Good's, who was interviewed at the same time, had guessed the reason for the interest in their mathematical backgrounds. Scott had gone so far as to suggest that Good downplay his student style of dress by putting his collegiate scarf inside his coat instead of wearing it in the common non-chalant style! Alexander met Good at the railroad station on the day he reported to Bletchley Park, and while walking across the fields to the main building, told Good of the work of the "school". Coincidentally that was the day (27th May 1941) that the Royal Navy sank the German Battleship Bismark."

By the way, Max Newman (1897-1984), mentioned in the Telegraph obit of Jack Good, was also a Cambridge chess player of an earlier vintage (early 1920s) who in 1973 became Jonathan Penrose's step-father when he married Margaret Penrose, widow of Prof. Lionel Penrose. (again, my source is the DNB)

Back to Jack Good... he also played in the 1939 and 1940 Varsity matches (the second was an unofficial wartime match - he played on board 1). He lated played for Cheltenham in the National Club - a very strong club indeed in the late 1940s and early 1950s - and also the Civil Service. I've no doubt Leonard Barden will have more light to shed.