Jonathan Penrose OBE

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Simon Rogers
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Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Simon Rogers » Thu Dec 02, 2021 8:12 pm

The sad news has just been announced that Jonathan Penrose died on 30th November at the age of 88.
Jonathan was born on 7th October 1933.
He won the British Chess Championships ten times between 1958 and 1969.
Jonathan became an International Master in 1961 and Grandmaster in 1993.
He was also awarded the title of International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster back in 1983.
RIP

Nick Ivell
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Nick Ivell » Thu Dec 02, 2021 8:19 pm

Very sad news.

I didn't know Jonathan but admired him as a player. Much has been made of his win against Tal; the fact that he nearly beat Fischer is rarely mentioned.

Best player in Britain in the 1960s, no question.

RIP.

Richard James
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Richard James » Thu Dec 02, 2021 8:28 pm

Leonard Barden's obituary in the Guardian here.

Ronnie Burton
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Ronnie Burton » Thu Dec 02, 2021 8:57 pm

Very sad news on British Champion ten times


RIP

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Thu Dec 02, 2021 10:13 pm

This day was always going to come, but truly the end of an era. RIP.

How long did he play correspondence chess for?
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Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Fri Dec 03, 2021 12:20 pm

Penrose had started CC by 1975 and his last active rating was in 1995. ICCF keeps ratings active longer than FIDE as some postal events took years to finish!
JP was rated 2724 in 1993, which is pretty good. He finished 3rd in the 13th CC World Championship, which was won by Mikhail Umansky, a legend in CC.

Mick Norris
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Mick Norris » Fri Dec 03, 2021 1:17 pm

Any postings on here represent my personal views

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John Saunders
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by John Saunders » Fri Dec 03, 2021 1:46 pm

A very sad day for British chess. I can't claim to have known Penrose, though I'm old enough to have seen him play a few times in county matches and the 1969 British Championship when I was nobbut a lad.

Since a lot of people will be writing about Penrose over the next few days, it is perhaps a good idea to republish Leonard Barden's 2009 refutation of the widespread canard that Penrose was an "honorary grandmaster". Penrose was a genuine GM - the real McCoy. Here's the text of what Leonard wrote then on this forum, for the benefit of any prospective obituarist who might come this way via Google...
Leonard Barden on 23 January 2009 wrote:Penrose became a GM and not the inferior honorary version. How it happened is through another of Bob Wade's services to English chess.

In the late 1970s when Jonathan had virtually finished his over the board career I thought my friend and contemporary was worthy of the GM title. This was round about the time when, for a year or two, I was BCF international grader, so i had some status in putting his name forward. I thought that Penrose's performances in the 1961 Enschede zonal and in the 1968 Lugano Olympiad were of norm level and would satisfy the then regulations. Harry Golombek was FIDE delegate, so I put the matter to him. At that time Fide were going back and awarding some titles based on events from 10-25 years previously.

Thinking that Jonathan's case was slightly marginal, I thought it would improve his chances if a second English player was put up for the title. My crafty plan was to appeal to HG's ego by suggesting that he also put up himself on the basis of his result at Venice 1950 (probably close to a GM norm, and Prins who was half a point in front of HG in Venice did get the title using that as one of his norms), the 1951 Bad Pyrmont zonal, and one or two other events which I now forget.

Alas, the members of the qualification committee were in a mean title-giving mood at that time, were offended by England's presumptuous act of putting up two candidates, and turned both applications down, adding cynically that Penrose (by then in his mid-forties and with the fainting episode at Siegen 1970 and his poor result at Nice 1974 in his history) should try to earn it by future achievements.

There the matter rested for some 15 years. For part of that time Ray Keene was Fide delegate and, knowing he didn't rate Jonathan highly, I felt it was pointless to put his name forward again.

In 1992 or 1993 I visited Bob on another matter and found out in the course of conversation that he was then on the Fide qualifications committee. I suggested he put forward Penrose again. Bob agreed at once, and was emphatic that he would only go for the proper title and not for the HGM version which he regarded as inferior and not for players of true GM strength.

I mentioned Enschede and Lugano and Bob immediately went to his tournament collection and picked out the tournament bulletins for both events. We made out the application between us there and then, and Bob took it to the next qualifications committee meeting.

As he told me later, almost all of these eminent people, chosen presumably for their supposed expertise, hadn't heard of Penrose, knew little or nothing of his achievements, or were unsure whether Enschede and Lugano were sufficient. So they turned to Lothar Schmid, who was present and who they regarded as a fount of knowledge and asked "Lothar, what's your opinion?" As a direct contemporary who knew of Jonathan's achievements, a friend of English chess and of Bob, Lothar gave the application lavish praise and it was granted......

I see that Wikipedia and other sources call Penrose HGM or GM emeritus, but they are wrong.
Link to Leonard's original: viewtopic.php?t=632&start=15

I have drawn Peter Doggers' attention to the above and he has kindly amended his Penrose obituary on Chess.com accordingly.
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John Saunders
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by John Saunders » Fri Dec 03, 2021 3:12 pm

Peter Doggers has now further amended his Chess.com obit to include Leonard's inside account of how Penrose came to play what he did against Tal, first posted here 11 years ago.
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John Saunders
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by John Saunders » Fri Dec 03, 2021 4:11 pm

Perhaps it's worth posting the famous Penrose-Tal game, showing the Ojanen-Keres precedent...



Note that Penrose did not follow Ojanen's moves slavishly, for example preferring 15 Qf3 to 15 Kh1, and Tal chose a different minor piece set up to Keres. But credit for the e5, f5 idea goes to Ojanen.
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Andy Stoker
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Andy Stoker » Sat Dec 04, 2021 8:47 am

Penrose's last three games at the 1960 Olympiad were: win vs Euwe (with black), draw vs Gligoric (with black) and win vs Tal. I'd take that.

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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Tim Harding » Sat Dec 04, 2021 12:09 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 12:20 pm
Penrose had started CC by 1975 and his last active rating was in 1995. ICCF keeps ratings active longer than FIDE as some postal events took years to finish!
JP was rated 2724 in 1993, which is pretty good. He finished 3rd in the 13th CC World Championship, which was won by Mikhail Umansky, a legend in CC.
Very sad news. I was privileged to have met Jonathan Penrose on several occasions over a period of nearly 40 years and played him once in an OTB game, as recounted elsewhere in this Forum.

Starting by answering the question about his correspondence play, Jonathan Penrose first played postal in the Britain-Finland friendly match which began on 3 January 1975.
His last ICCF tournament was the 13th World Championship Final (began 1989) where he finished third; it would take me some effort searching old Fernschach result lists to check when his last game ended. I think it was some time before the last game in the event ended, which was 1998.

After that he played one more postal game, in the 1997-98 Ward Higgs inter-county tournament, winning against Ian J. Wallis. He gave me the score of it when I interviewed him for Chess Mail magazine and I am therefore fairly certain that my database has all the postal games he played.

He started 77 games, one of which was cancelled when the opponent withdrew very early.
So his lifetime score in postal was:
Played 76.
Won 46, Drew 26, Lost 4.
The roll of honour of those who won games against him is: Trevor Thomas, Hans Ulrich Gruenberg, Aleksandr P. Korelov and Mikhail Umansky.
The last two were in the World Championship Final.

He was one of the earliest players (after Lothar Schmid, Alberic O'Kelly de Galway and a few others) to earn the grandmaster title in both OTB and postal, and that list is still probably quite short.

I intend to prepare an obituary for my chessmail.com website next week, on one of the world championship free days probably.
Tim Harding
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Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
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Simon Rogers
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Simon Rogers » Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:47 am

Andy Stoker wrote:
Sat Dec 04, 2021 8:47 am
Penrose's last three games at the 1960 Olympiad were: win vs Euwe (with black), draw vs Gligoric (with black) and win vs Tal. I'd take that.
Hi Andy. Is it possible you could post these games on the forum.
Is it possible someone could post Jonathan's near miss against Bobby Fischer.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Mon Dec 06, 2021 10:40 am

The English Federation for Correspondence Chess (EFCC) has announced plans for at least one memorial event.

A partial answer to Simon https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044520

and a bonus

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1586887

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Jonathan Penrose OBE

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Dec 06, 2021 11:20 am

Simon Rogers wrote:
Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:47 am
Is it possible someone could post Jonathan's near miss against Bobby Fischer.
6 f4 against the Najdorf was a Penrose speciality, with him rarely playing anything else against it.

One of his earliest games in the databases is an awful warning to Catalan players that early tactics aren't always avoided by playimg Nf3, g3 and Bg2.



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