IM Mike Basman (1946-2022)

Mike Basman (1946-2022)

The death of IM Mike Basman is a sad loss to the chess world. I didn't know him well, despite meeting him a few times, reviewing one of his books, and corresponding with him. As a junior around 1990 I watched him play at the British Championship. But Basman contributed significantly to my chess education. That probably wasn’t unusual among players of my generation.

Once you've seen his games you never forget them. Around 1970 he was one of the most promising players in Britain. He never won the British Championship, though he came close in 1973, losing a playoff to William Hartston. Nor did he progress to grandmaster level. Yet his fantastic creativity always remained. Hans Ree once suggested that he adopted zany openings like 1 g4, the Grob, to camouflage his limitations as a player. I'm not so sure. The opening experiments began early in his career, starting with Dutch Leningrad setups with ...f5, ...g6, ...Nh6-f7 and ...c6 or even ...c5 (or equivalent as White); see Matthew Sadler's tweet tweet They seemed part of his creative vocation.

1 g4, 1 h3 and so on are undeniably bad openings. But as Matthew Sadler says: https://twitter.com/gmmds/status/1585713294945316864?s=20&t=bCRBXKaQdvQavpJFE0ibQw There’s more in the book Study Chess With Matthew Sadler.

It’s fair to say that one of his wacky ideas has become engine-approved: 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 h4, named by Carsten Hansen the Basman-Williams Attack.

Basman is also famous for his contribution to junior chess in England, mainly as an organiser and also as a coach. I used his book Chess Openings, which teaches ‘normal’ principles (borrowable online here ).

Basman’s greatest innovations were in pre-computer chess technology. I read many books using his magnetic hook-a-book chess set. This simple device does what it says on the tin: hooks over your chess book and always stays in place. It's portable and means you don't have to glance continually from book to board.

Then there were Basman's little Turnover Chess books. In a pocket-size format with many diagrams, one booklet per game, these enable the reader to follow the moves without a diagram, testing ourselves at each diagram. This was cheap as well as distraction-free learning and entertainment. Here are the details.

Best of all were Basman’s Audio Chess cassettes. This by now almost obsolete form of recording provided exciting, new material in the 1980s. The presenter would dictate the moves which the listener played over on a real chessboard. It was the perfect vehicle for active learning as listeners were invited to think for themselves. I still hear Basman’s voice: ‘now switch off and consider this position’.

I loved Basman’s Polish Defence tape (1 d4 b5). Having discarded that opening I still adapted the ideas in move-orders like 1 Nf3 Nf6 2 g3 b5, or 1 d4 d5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 g3 b5. Other Basman tapes included one on the ‘Macho Grob’ and another on the Sicilian line 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Bc5.

It wasn’t all unorthodox openings, or all Basman. I first learned the Nimzo Indian from Plaskett’s tape. Box-sets on the King’s Gambit (by Jonathan Kinlay) and the Closed Sicilian were other favourites. Simon Webb, author of the famous Chess for Tigers, contributed ‘Swindle Your Way to Success’. The young Andrew Martin produced tapes like ‘Train Yourself’. I studied rook endgames listening to the gravelly tones of David Hooper. The best analytical content was probably in the cassettes by grandmaster Michael Stean, best known as the author of Simple Chess. Happy days.

I read quite a few chess books as a junior but I collected Basman’s audio chess cassettes even more avidly. When a chess content provider starts to market distraction-free ‘retro’ podcasts to listen to actively with a chess set and no screen or engine, we’ll be able to say again that Basman was far ahead of his time. All his innovations had one thing in common: encouraging players to think for themselves, or forcing opponents to do so.