At the chessboard, and perhaps in life, too, Michael Basman favoured adventure over caution. An unorthodox and at times devastating tactician capable of troubling the world’s finest, he was summed up by chessbase.com as “an uncompromising, inventive player with his own original style adopting controversial, eccentric moves instead of following standard chess theory”.
William Hartston, with whom he tied for the 1973 British Championship before losing in the play-off, regarded Basman as “the most creative chess player of his generation”.
The two rivals became great friends, despite having got off to a shaky start on their first meeting at an under-14 championship when Hartston took exception to Basman smoking throughout the game and stubbing out his cigarettes in a skull-shaped ashtray.
“Our respective chess styles also differed greatly as mine always strived for correctness and traditional values while Basman’s became progressively more imaginative and outrageous,” Hartston said. “But I began to understand and admire his style. His passion for chess was perhaps the greatest and most inspiring I have ever encountered.” To the British grandmaster Raymond Keene, who served as chess correspondent of The Times for 35 years, Basman was simply “the most important person in British chess”, not only for his prowess at the board but also for his role as the creator of the UK Chess Challenge, an annual tournament for juniors of all standards that he began in 1996. With more than 50,000 children entering every year, it is one of the largest junior chess tournaments in the world and the primary breeding ground for future British champions. However, Basman’s administrative qualities did not necessarily match his enthusiasm. For years he failed to collect VAT on the organisation’s transactions and when the tax authorities came calling he ignored them, hoping they would go away. He was held personally liable for the back taxes due, which resulted in him being declared bankrupt in 2017.
Nevertheless, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) called him the “guru of the English chess scene” and Sarah Longson, the former British women’s chess champion who took over from Basman as director in 2016, said: “He believed that young minds should be encouraged to be rational, compassionate and creative and that through chess he could help develop these traits in the next generation.”
Michael John Basman was born in St Pancras, London, in 1946, the third of four children of Bridget (née Marks) and John Basmadjian, an Armenian immigrant who changed the family name to Basman. His babysitter was Cleo Laine, before she found fame as a jazz singer. After graduating from Leeds University he briefly lived in Yerevan, where he learnt Armenian. Back in Britain, he worked as a computer programmer at an early government information technology centre in Chessington, Surrey. Colleagues recalled that he would pile printouts around his desk in an attempt to conceal the pocket chess set that was absorbing him rather more than his work.
Emerging as one of the strongest homegrown players of the era, he starred in the England team who won bronze in the 1967 World Student Championship and a year later was selected for the England team in the Chess Olympiad in Lugano, where he played the Soviet Union’s former world champion Vasily Smyslov. When he offered Smyslov a draw and received no reply, he leant across the board, grabbed his opponent by the lapels and repeated the offer rather more loudly. It was declined and Smyslov went on to win the game.
He set up his own business called Audio Chess, in which he provided analysis of games for students via cassette tapes. He also became a prolific writer of chess books, advocating such unusual openings as the St George, the Grob, the Borg and the Creepy Crawly. One of his books was titled The Killer Grob and those who followed his unconventional approach to the game were known as “the Basmanics”.
His maverick ideas also permeated the mainstream. Two weeks before his death he had the pleasure of seeing the world champion Magnus Carlsen join the ranks of the “Basmanics” when he adopted one of his extravagant openings by playing “the killer Grob”. Although a Basman favourite, the chess.com report of the game noted that it was “an opening ploy not recommended for anyone else in the world”.
He was divorced from his wife Rosemary and is survived by their son, Antranig Basman, a mathematician and software developer.
“All I wanted to do was spread my love of chess to everyone,” he recently told the British grandmaster Simon Williams. “I also want people to look at things differently. That’s what I always did and what I want people to continue doing when I’m gone.”
Michael Basman, chess player, was born on March 16, 1946. He died of cancer on October 26, 2022, aged 76