British chess champion and grandmaster who had a notable victory over a Soviet world championJonathan Penrose, who has died aged 88, won the
British chess championship a record 10 times, and in 1960 was the first English player for 61 years to defeat a reigning world champion. Yet he always remained an amateur, whose chess career was fitted into vacations at Middlesex University, where he lectured in psychology.
Penrose’s special moment came at the Leipzig Olympiad when he resoundingly beat Mikhail Tal in the only game that the USSR gold medal team lost all tournament. He characteristically understated his achievement, describing his feelings as “like playing an Essex v Middlesex county match”.