John Dudley Taylor (1934-2021)

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John Saunders
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John Dudley Taylor (1934-2021)

Post by John Saunders » Mon Dec 06, 2021 1:15 am

I heard the sad news today that John D Taylor died on Thursday 2 December 2021, aged 87. I never met John in the flesh but he was an assiduous reader of chess magazines and I had the pleasure of exchanging emails with him from time to time as he enjoyed my many journeys down memory lane in magazine articles and was sometimes able to fill in facts and details that had escaped me. Occasionally I was able to return the favour by reuniting him with the score of a game he had played but mislaid decades before.

I doubt John Taylor's name is well-known to many contemporary players - I don't think he had been active as a player for some time - but he achieved a number of notable successes in his younger days. He won the 1955 British Under-21 Championship - a hastily-rearranged double-cycle all-play-all of only seven players which turned into a two-horse race between John and another strong chess player called Tom Landry, who later became better known for his feats on the draughts board. John came out on top by half a point. He proceeded to Caius College, Cambridge, and played in three Varsity matches, winning on top board in 1958. He appeared on the 1958 BCF National List at 3a - equivalent to 209-216 in the later three-digit scale - which means he was ranked 13th= with 23 other players in the UK at the time. In 1965 he won the prestigious Battle of Britain chess tournament.

Perhaps John's finest hour came in the 1963/64 Hastings Challengers. He scored a relatively modest 4/9 but his one win came against a reigning world champion, Nona Gaprindashvili - a curious parallel with the recently-deceased Jonathan Penrose and his defeat of reigning champ Tal a few years earlier. (Hope Nona doesn't sue me for mentioning this - I'd better append some evidence...)



John came across as a self-effacing man and revealed nothing of his later chess career or himself. From what I can glean online and in other chess sources, he worked in the coal/smokeless fuel industry and lived in Wakefield, Nottingham, Derby and Burton at various times. He played for Yorkshire on a high board in the early 1970s and I think he was a member of Burton CC some years ago. Hopefully other members of the forum can fill in the gaps I have left. His gentlemanly nature and affability shone through in his emails and I shall miss receiving them. R.I.P.
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Leonard Barden
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Re: John Dudley Taylor (1934-2021)

Post by Leonard Barden » Mon Dec 06, 2021 9:52 am

A few months ago I asked John Taylor about his win against Nona, and he wrote to me:

" If I remember rightly it was my only win since I drew most of my games. Nona evidently completely under-estimated me on the evidence of those earlier games - and I didn’t start the game well. She must have switched off when I played an early Nh5 only to be forced back to f6 immediately. But the finish of the game was much better! ....I don’t recall Nona saying anything either before, during or after the game. Perhaps she knew little English. She wasn’t especially gracious when she resigned; indeed towards the end of the game when it was clear to her and the spectators that her position was lost she ‘sacrificed’ her Queen for no compensation at all and then pushed all her remaining pieces into the centre of the board.

I seem to recall that the Hotel had a table tennis table in the basement and that she seemed lively enough when playing - and playing well in the defensive style that Hugh Alexander used to use. Her results in that tournament and a year later show that she really could play chess. She demonstrably underestimated me and after a serious positional blunder that lost her a pawn and compromised her position on the Queen’s side there was little she could to save the game."

I agree completely with John Saunders above-John Taylor was a charming and wise gentleman who in old age was still very alert with his chess skills. Several times he spotted inaccuracies in my Guardian articles which I and other readers had failed to notice. Like JS, I will miss him.

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John Saunders
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Re: John Dudley Taylor (1934-2021)

Post by John Saunders » Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:25 pm

Since writing the above I have learnt that John Taylor read the Andrew Roth article in the Guardian about the Gaprindashvili vs Netflix lawsuit, and he himself had spotted a glaring error in the Gaprindashvili's lawyers' submission, para 21, which I reproduce below...
Lawyers representing Gaprindashvili v Netflix, on 16 September 2021 wrote:21. Gaprindashvili’s notable successes against men began with her successful entry into the Challengers Section of the Hastings International Chess Congress in England in 1963, which she won, defeating male players Heinrich Juhe, Ove Kinnmark, John Taylor, Dragoljub Baretic, and Henry Catozzi.
Note his name in bold: the lawyers cite John Taylor as one of the players who lost to Nona Gaprindashvili. But he didn't - he won. I wonder if Netflix know that.
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Mike Alderson
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Re: John Dudley Taylor (1934-2021)

Post by Mike Alderson » Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:44 am

Dave Pickering of the Burton Chess Club has provided reminiscences of John, together with a correspondence win against A R B Thomas, which can be seen at https://derbyshirechess.chessck.co.uk/Obituaries