Leonard Barden going strong – at 95!

Leonard Barden's weekly Guardian chess column began in September 1955 and has continued since with no breaks for very close to sixty-nine years. you can still go there and see that he posted a column (on Hans Niemann impressing in London) last Friday.

Leonard's other (daily!) column, in the Evening Standard, began in June 1956 and continued until January 31 2020. A total of 11,599 columns appeared in this newspaper. Leonard's Evening Standard column is quite possibly the longest ever running daily column by a single journalist in any field of journalism. We wrote about the termination of the Standard column at the time in this article. 

We should also remember that Leonard is a longstanding columnist of the Financial Times – and continues providing this prestigious newspaper with regular chess articles. This most recent one is from August 20th, and we count 34 articles Barden articles that were published there this year. 

The Financial Times articles normally go online on Monday lunchtime, Leonard told us, "very occasionally Tuesday or Wednesday, if there's a tournament about to finish, with the shorter print version in the Weekend FT on Saturday. Guardian goes online 8 to 8:15 am Friday morning, with a much shorter print version on Saturday."

Leonard William Barden (photo by Linda Nylind in 2016 for the Guardian) was born on August 20, 1929, in Croydon, London, the son of a dustman, and was educated at Whitgift School, South Croydon, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Modern History.

Barden learned to play chess at age 13 while in a school shelter during a German air raid. Within a few years he became one of the country's leading juniors. In 1946 he won the British Junior Correspondence Chess Championship, and tied for first place in the London Boys' Championship. The following year he tied for first with Jonathan Penrose in the British Boys' Championship, but lost the playoff. Barden finished fourth at Hastings in 1951–52 and fourth in 1957–58.

In 1953 Barden won the individual British Lightning Championship (ten seconds a move), and in the following year tied for first in the British Championship. He did this again in 1958. He represented England in the Chess Olympiads of 1952 (playing fourth board, scoring 2 wins, 5 draws, and 4 losses), 1954 (playing first reserve, scoring 1 win, 2 draws, and 4 losses), 1960 (first reserve; 4 wins, 4 draws, 2 losses) and 1962 (first reserve; 7 wins, 2 draws, 3 losses).

In 1964 Barden gave up competitive chess to devote his time to chess journalism and writing books about the game. He has made invaluable contributions to English chess as a populariser, writer, organiser, fundraiser, and broadcaster. He was a regular contributor to the BBC's Network Three weekly radio chess programme from 1958 to 1963.

In 1980 Leonard Barden published a very popular book (that is still available second-hand). It starts with the basics of how pieces move, discusses traps that novices and more experienced players fall into, and continues by looking at checkmate attacks and endgames. A brief but fascinating IQ chapter looks at a variety of game situations, inviting readers to work out best play. A long chapter follows, looking at games by champions. In that section he writes about the termination of the first Karpov-Kasparov match (1984-85). In his article on Leonard Barden chess historian Edward Winter quotes a passage (from page 84 of the revised 1987 edition), which gives you an impression of Barden's succinct style of writing. 

‘... Karpov began to sit on his lead, just waiting for Kasparov to make a fatal slip. But the match was now into its fourth and fifth month, and Karpov’s strength was ebbing. Kasparov got back to 5-1, then Karpov suddenly lost two games in a row for 5-3 after 48 games. The match was becoming an embarrassment to the Soviet authorities, and play was transferred from the grand Hall of Columns to the Hotel Sport in the suburbs.

After 48 games Florencio Campomanes, President of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), took his controversial and unprecedented decision to annul the match. He made his announcement at a chaotic Moscow press conference where both Karpov and Kasparov declared they wanted to continue to play. Campomanes then led the grandmasters backstage for private discussions after which he confirmed his decision. K and K blamed each other, the chess world was aghast at what was seen as an arbitrary and false conclusion which many thought was made to rescue a tottering Karpov. Objectively, however, it was still much more likely that Karpov would win one game before Kasparov won three, and the defending champion played under a psychological burden in the next K v K series in 1985.’

Winter also includes a historical picture of Leonard Barden and Jonathan Penrose from the Hulton Archive, with permission obtained by Olimpiu G. Urcan (Singapore):

We wish Leonard Barden, who has been a close friend for decades, a very heartfelt Happy 95th Birthday, and look forward to a lot of further informative and entertaining columns. Keep it up, Leonard, at least until you reach a hundred!