| July 1999 | Newsletter of the British Chess Federation | Online Edition |
The doyen of the endgame study, John Roycroft, celebrates his 70th birthday on July 25th. In an interview given to ChessMoves, he looked back on his life and achievements so far. These include having a page devoted to him in the Soviet chess magazine Shakhmaty v SSS, winning a game against the late Hungarian GM Laszlo Szabo, and completing an endgame study 40 years after starting it. John is also the author of Test Tube Chess, long-serving editor of the magazine EG, and holds regular endgame study circle meetings at his house in Northwest London.
John was born in Alperton, Wembley, in 1929, to an English mother and Irish father. He was the middle son of three. When World War II broke out, the family was living in Brighton, but they decided to move to John's aunt's house in North Wales to be out of danger. John's uncle taught him and his elder brother Francis how to play chess, but Francis "never took to it". There were no opportunities for John to play chess at school until 1942, when he had moved again to Richmond, Surrey. "There was chess at the local school and there were also two or three chess books in the local WH Smith's," John said. "One was Cunnington's Lessons in Pawn Play. I found it quite easy to master king and pawn against king. I was the only one at the school who could do that. It got me interested in the endgame. My father bought me Chess - An Easy Game, which had some endgame studies in it. Eventually I went to public school, Malvern College, and I was captain of the chess team."
Although John was a very strong chess player, he gave up competitive chess in the mid-seventies. "I had never really been ambitious at over-the-board chess. Matches were in the evenings and I began to get tired. I didn't enjoy it any longer. Also, EG was taking more and more of my time." In his playing days John had won a number of best game and brilliancy prizes. The first best game prize was for a win against Michael Franklin in the London Boys' Championship of 1947. But the best game John ever played was against Szabo in a simul at the Gambit chess rooms. Szabo only lost two games in that event; one of which was John's. "It must be very rare for a grandmaster to lose a game after getting three pawns to the seventh rank - not at the same time, of course!"
John worked for an insurance company for seven years and then as a systems engineer with IBM for 26 years before taking early retirement in 1987. He is married to Betty, a keen sculptor, and they have two grown-up children, Jonathan and Katherine. John and Betty both joined the Quakers after they were married. Betty has not been converted to the joy of endgame studies, however, and John admits that there are almost no female endgame study composers in the world. Amongst the people who have attended John's endgame study circle meetings in the past are GM John Nunn, IM Colin Crouch, BCM problemist David Friedgood and BCF International Director David Sedgwick. The endgame study circle meetings began in 1965, just before the first issue of EG appeared in July of that year. The meetings used to be in Wigmore Street in central London, but they moved to John's house after he retired. Meetings still coincide roughly with the publication date of the magazine, which is a quarterly. "If we have a dozen people, it's a good evening. If we have more, Betty is worried." John's wife prepares some food and participants have the choice of bring a bottle of wine, bringing a copy of the latest EG or paying £5. Attendance at your first meeting is free.
On the wall of John's living room there is an unusual demonstration board which is used for the study circle. He designed it himself. The magnetic pieces are red on one side and yellow on the other, so you can just flip a piece over. The squares are slightly different shades of aquatic blue. IBM's design department made the board for him. "The pieces have to stand out from the squares," John said. "I've been to chess shops and seen expensive brown boards with brown pieces, and wondered why they are like that."
John's fascination for endgame studies has also led to a deep love for the former Soviet Union, Georgia in particular. Shakhmaty v SSSR featured him in a 1976 issue. John now owns a complete run of that magazine from 122, having recently purchased a large quantity of older bound copies from a Ukraine player, at great expense. As chairman of the FIDE Studies Subcommittee, John has visited the former Soviet Union several times. He is so enthusiastic about Georgia and the surrounding region that he harbours dreams of being invited to become joint president of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia - bringing harmony to countries that are in a state of continuous conflict with each other. John initially learnt Russian so that he could read Soviet chess magazines, and his unsuccessful forays with a dictionary led to an evening class which resulted in an 'A' grade at A-level. "If I were going to learn another language, it would be Georgian," he said.
It was at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, in 1998, waiting for visa problems to be resolved, that John solved a problem of his own that had been ignored for decades. John composed a study in 1958 with rook against two bishops and a pawn, but in the airport he discovered to his horror that there was a flaw in it, an alternative move that could be played. He altered the study, and it is now watertight, he says. "I haven't composed more than 20 endgame studies. All my energies go into the magazine."
EG is published by Arves in the Netherlands and an annual subscription costs £12. For information about the magazine or the endgame study circle, John can be contacted by e-mail at roycroft@dcs.qmw.ac.uk.