We remember IM Michael Basman who passed away on October 26th, 2022 from pancreatic cancer in St. Helier Hospital in Carshalton aged 76 years. The funeral service was attended by a number of Michael’s chess contemporaries including IM David Levy plus many of his UKCC “family”.
His Legacy(s)
Without any doubt Michael contributed a huge amount to English chess as a player but especially as an organiser of junior chess and as an innovator in the world of chess publishing. Apart (!) from those achievements he was an extremely strong player, played and popularised unconventional openings and had a enormously fertile chess mind for the middlegame. He scored considerable chess success (some would say) despite being handicapped by off-the-wall openings that a modern day chess engine would not be complimentary about.
Talent
The sixth world champion, Mikhail Botvinnik declared Michael to be a huge talent following their 76 move hard-fought draw at the Hastings International tournament of 1967. Michael thrived in English chess at a time when Jonathan Penrose was nearing the end of period of domination to be taken over by Bill Hartston and Ray Keene. This was the generation prior to but overlapping with “The English Chess Explosion”. More details of notable games will be found further down.
Early Years and Family
Michael John Basman was born on Saturday, March 16th 1946 in St. Pancras, Camden, London and was therefore a “Baby Boomer”. His Armenian father, John Onik Basman (originally Basmadjian) had married Bridgette Bettina Marks and Michael was the third of four siblings, Jeannette Baynes (Michael called her Janny), Rosemary Moore and Robert Moore (who died on June 3rd 2022 four months prior to Michael aged 74). Michael is survived by his ex-wife, Rosemary Moore, his son Antranig and his grandson.
John Basman left the family home (Glebelands Farm, Claygate) quite early and Charles Moore entered their lives as an informal Step Father. In the very early years Michael had singer Cleo Laine as a babysitter Cleo living nearby in Southall, Middlesex.
Following school Michael graduated from The University of Leeds with a degree in history then earning a scholarship to study medicine in Yerevan within the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. This proved to be a dead end career choice since Michael discovered an aversion to blood and all things medical. He stayed on in Yerevan where he played chess winning local events and he met his future wife Berdjouhi Kuiumdjian (divorced in 1986) and they had their son, Antranig.
Early Chess Career
1973 saw Michael’s best ever placing in the British Championships in Eastbourne. After two weeks Michael tied for first place with Bill Hartston on 8.5/11. Bill won the six game play-off sponsored by Cutty Sark Scotch Whisky.
Audio Chess
A year or so earlier in late 1974 Michael hit upon the idea of analysing students games via compact Philips type audio cassettes. The student would submit a game or two and Michael would arrange for a tutor to analyse the game and send (by Royal Mail) to the student the cassette tape for a modest fee. This was way ahead of its time and he formed a company called “Audio Chess” based at his home at 7 Billockby Close, Chessington, Surrey, KT9 2ED.
Michael added to his product range by selling pre-recorded C60 cassettes with chess coaching advice, mostly on openings but also endgame technique, middlegame strategy and eventually all manner of titles. A huge variety of players recorded tapes for Michael resulting in a library of more than 100 titles. The very first pair of tapes were by Michael himself. “Black Opening” covered Michael’s interesting variation of the Sicilian Defence called the Basman Variation in those days (but in the 2020s) it might be known as the Paulsen-Basman Variation or more controversially the Basman-Sale Variation:
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cd: 4. Nd4: Bc5!?
His “White Opening” was much quieter: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 anything almost 3. Be2
(British Land) UK Chess Challenge
Wey Valley Chess
Together with UKCC stalwart Pat Armstrong, Michael took over the running of Wey Valley Junior Chess from Keith Powell in the 1986. Wey Valley is actually located near Farnham (was Hampshire, now Surrey) and this was an organisation for primary school chess in Surrey. At the time the Surrey County Chess Association (SCCA) did not take much interest in junior chess and largely left things up to Mike and Pat. Sadly there were territorial disputes with the Coulsdon Chess Fellowship run by ex-Reverend Howard Curtis (we suggest that don’t look him up in a public location!).
Mike and Pat took Wey Valley Junior Chess from strength to strength and established after-school and lunchtime clubs in many Surrey schools which helped to build-up the strength of the Surrey junior teams to a dominating position. Mike and Pat employed many, many tutors in the Surrey area with possibly the highest number of school chess clubs per square mile of any county in England. Their success in EPSCA competitions was marked and Mike added sponsorship to EPSCA from Audio Chess. Mike and Pat ran Wey Valley until 2019 and is now run by Emma-Jane Billington-Philips.
The Inland Revenue and the Customs & Excise Years
It would be fair to say that Mike had a “laissez faire” attitude towards financial matters. He was not interested in making himself rich or hoarding cash (contrary to detractors who thought they knew him better). He was generous with money, always paid his helpers well and on time and generally preferred cash transactions. Indeed at the end of each Gigafinal and Terafinal Mike would summon helpers to him to form a queue where he would hand them wads of cash from a battered Sainsbury’s bag that certainly was a “bag for life”!
Following separation from his wife Mike moved into a second-hand caravan located in a nearby field. At one point that caravan was in a Leatherhead Sports Centre car park to facilitate daily ablutions.
Mike ran the UKCC business from his personal bank account and did not register for VAT. He explained his reasoning to me that he paid enough VAT when he bought stuff and did not owe Customs and Excise any more. In fact it all ought to have balanced out! Consequently UKCC ran successfully and had a turnover way in excess of that required for VAT registration.
Eventually and inevitably Her Majesties’s Revenue & Customs became aware of UKCC and several difficult meetings took place. The rest is painful history for Mike and his UKCC family with it coming to a head at the Terafinal of 2016. Michael was declared bankrupt unable to meet the liability of £300,000. He nearly lost the family home but chess friends from all round the world rallied round and made donations to help avoid this catastrophe.
Unavoidably, the business was sold by an HMRC type auction for £25,000 to Alex and Sarah Longson who have taken it from strength to strength and are current curators of this gem of junior chess in England.
Despite all of this we cannot and should not forget the legacy created by Mike for junior chess in England. He was a true hero.
An interesting article from chess.com
Confessions of a Crooked Chess Master – Part 1 from Kingpin
Confessions of a Crooked Chess Master – Part 2
From Chessgames.com:
“Michael John Basman was born in St Pancras, London, England. He was awarded the IM title in 1980 and having dual nationality won the Erevan Championship whilst living there in the early 1970s. He was also a pioneer in the production of audio tapes for chess.
He is noted for his use of unorthodox flank openings, such as 1.g4, 1.h3, 1.e4 g5, etc. He expanded on the work of Henri Grob with his book on the topic of 1.g4, The Killer Grob.
He created the UK Chess Challenge, a tournament for juniors of all standards and ages progressing over four stages.”
These stages become well-known as the Schools Stage, The Megafinal stage, The Gigafinal Stage and the Terafinal.
Being the constant innovator Mike introduced the 3,2,1 (as opposed to 1,1/2, 0) scoring system to junior chess to reward children for playing games even if they lost. This was welcomed up and down the country.
MJB won the ECF President’s Award in 2013.
In the last few years Mike recently received a “bursary” from FIDE as a tribute towards FIDEs more senior players.
Obituaries and Sundry Articles
Here is Mike’s wikipedia entry
Here is an obituary from The New York Times
Chessbase GmbH produced this obituary written by Diana Mihajlova
Pete Doggers wrote this obituary for chess.com
and one from IRLChess is here
We have this obituary from The UK Chess Challenge web site.
David Rowson wrote this obituary for the Kingston Chess Club web site
And from behind a paywall we have this obituary courtesy of The Daily Telegraph.
Mike wrote this article (Chess Scenes at a Death Bed) about his brother Robert Moore, a former member of Chertsey and Addlestone chess clubs who was wheelchair bound sadly following a suicide attempt.
Games
Here are his games
Here is one of Mike’s most famous games. The theme of this one must surely be “Patience is a Virtue” !
Publications
Michael was both extremely prolific and innovative with his huge catalogue of publications.
By this time Michael had moved away from main stream publishers and branched out on his own self-publishing (via Audio Chess) a range of teaching materials for children:
Michael’s final publication was published in April 2022 and was a record of a talk at Kingston Chess Club in 2022 about Henry Bird:
