LEONARD BARDEN (born Aug-20-1929, 95 years old) United Kingdom [what is this?] Leonard William Barden was born in Croydon, London, England. He finished with an even score (+1 =7 -1) at Hastings (1951/52). In 1952, he tied for first at Paignton, ahead of Daniel Yanofsky. At Bognor 1954, he finished first ex aequo with Alberic O'Kelly de Galway. He was joint British champion with Alan Phillips in 1954. He finished fourth with a +1 score, behind only the three grandmaster participants, at Hastings (1957/58). He tied for first with Jonathan Penrose at the 1958 British Championship, but lost the playoff. Barden played in four Olympiads from 1952 to 1962, but shifted emphasis to writing, grading, and junior chess. As of December 2024, his weekly chess column has been published in The Guardian for over 69 years and in the Financial Times for 50 years. A typical Barden column not only contains a readable tournament report, but is geared toward promoting the game. His London Evening Standard column began in June 1956, and was published daily, firstly in print and subsequently online, until January 31, 2020. It is by far the world's longest running daily chess column by the same author, having run for 63 years, 7 months and 27 days. In September 2024, FIDE named Barden "Best Journalist." Barden is the author or co-author of 25 chess books. On chessgames.com, he is User: roberts partner, an allusion to the game Fischer / Barden vs Penrose / Clarke, 1960. Wikipedia article: Leonard Barden FIDE 100 Awards make history https://www.fide.com/news/3223 Last updated: 2025-02-18 07:34:51

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page 1 of 9; games 1-25 of 221  Game   Result Moves Year Event/Locale Opening 1. Young vs L Barden 0-1 20 1945 corr C58 Two Knights 2. L Barden vs M Dent 1-0 24 1946 British Boys Ch C62 Ruy Lopez, Old Steinitz Defense 3. Rossolimo vs L Barden 1-0 54 1949 Southsea E67 King's Indian, Fianchetto 4. G Thomas vs L Barden   ½-½ 26 1949 Southsea C64 Ruy Lopez, Classical 5. L Barden vs P Wallis   0-1 36 1949 Southsea C02 French, Advance 6. L Barden vs J M Aitken   1-0 50 1949 British Championship C99 Ruy Lopez, Closed, Chigorin, 12...cd 7. W Fairhurst vs L Barden   1-0 32 1949 British Championship D50 Queen's Gambit Declined 8. Bogoljubov vs L Barden   ½-½ 24 1950 Southsea D02 Queen's Pawn Game 9. Golombek vs L Barden ½-½ 25 1950 Southsea D34 Queen's Gambit Declined, Tarrasch 10. J M Aitken vs L Barden   ½-½ 24 1950 Southsea C89 Ruy Lopez, Marshall 11. Tartakower vs L Barden 1-0 28 1950 Southsea E20 Nimzo-Indian 12. L Barden vs E Klein   1-0 43 1950 British Championship C41 Philidor Defense 13. E A Isles vs L Barden   1-0 34 1950 British Championship D13 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav, Exchange Variation 14. L Barden vs C H Alexander   1-0 40 1950 British Championship C84 Ruy Lopez, Closed 15. L Barden vs Milner-Barry   0-1 80 1950 British Championship C64 Ruy Lopez, Classical 16. S Fazekas vs L Barden   0-1 38 1950 British Championship A06 Reti Opening 17. L Barden vs R Broadbent   0-1 36 1950 British Championship C27 Vienna Game 18. L Barden vs J H Donner   1-0 32 1950 British Univ - Dutch Univ C12 French, McCutcheon 19. L Barden vs Rossolimo 0-1 38 1950 Hastings 1950/51 B85 Sicilian, Scheveningen, Classical 20. O'Kelly vs L Barden 1-0 28 1950 Hastings 1950/51 E01 Catalan, Closed 21. L Barden vs W Adams 1-0 27 1950 Hastings 1950/51 C57 Two Knights 22. J Penrose vs L Barden   ½-½ 37 1951 Hastings 1950/51 B59 Sicilian, Boleslavsky Variation, 7.Nb3 23. L Barden vs A Phillips   ½-½ 64 1951 Hastings 1950/51 E02 Catalan, Open, 5.Qa4 24. Unzicker vs L Barden 1-0 20 1951 Hastings 1950/51 D07 Queen's Gambit Declined, Chigorin Defense 25. A R Thomas vs L Barden   ½-½ 40 1951 Hastings 1950/51 C50 Giuoco Piano  page 1 of 9; games 1-25 of 221

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< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 5 OF 5 ·  Later Kibitzing> Apr-25-22    Albertan: Magnus Carlsen “unlikely” to defend crown,but questions remain: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2... Apr-29-22    Albertan: Poland’s Duda wins in Oslo while tired Carlsen fades at finish: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2... May-08-22    Albertan: England Children Sweep Gold Medals And World Titles In Rhodes: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2... May-21-22    Albertan: Chess:Carlsen goes head to head with Ding Liren as World top two meet: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2... May-27-22    Albertan: Ramesh Babu Praggnanandhaa reaches final at 2 am on day of his exams: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2... Jun-05-22    Albertan: Carlsen recovers in Stavanger while seven-year-old eyes Expert record: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2... Aug-20-22    Nosnibor: Happy 93rd Birthday Leonard. Aug-20-22    Granny O Doul: Yes, keep knocking them out! Oct-03-23    offramp: Probably plays about a hundred bullet games every day and other blitz games so he has been playing since he was 10 so 84 (active years) x about 30,000 (number of days) x 100 (games a day) comes to about 257,544,000 games which means that Mr Barden is a Record Breaker! Oct-03-23    HeMateMe: Isn't there a Lenard Barden that's also a Bridge expert, writes Bridge columns in newspapers? Oct-03-23    offramp: Also I reckon Mr Barden plays about 100 games of bullet Contract Bridge every day so that's roughly 250,000,000 Bridge games. He's another RECORD BREAKER! Oct-03-23    roberts partner: offramp is ridiculously flattering, those numbers are nonsense. I don't play bridge at all, and bullet is much too fast for me. On average, I play two or three 3+2 blitz daily on lichess, most unrated and anonymous but very occasionally rated as roberts partner where I am around 2050. Oct-03-23    perfidious: <roberts partner>, I was loath to reveal your identity, though I have long known it and avoided giving anything away. While a fine player, you have bequeathed a great legacy in your writings. Glad you are still with us! Oct-04-23    HeMateMe: I play 3/2 blitz occasionally on Lichess. I find it an excellent site, none of the delays/cancellations that ruined chess.com (for me). Oct-04-23    Cassandro: Yes, lichens is by far the best site for online chess. And you never know, apparently you may even get to play against a living legend like the highly esteemed Leonard Barden there! Arguably the best chess columnist ever. Koltanowski's long-span column in the SF Chronicle was pretty awesome too. Dec-20-23    Richard Taylor: I look at Leonard Barden's chess column in the NZ Listener. I also have seen it in the Guardian. I have old Guardian going back to the 80s and some of the problems I failed to solve. But in the last 10 years I have solved most of the problems. Recently I solved a really difficult one, a mate in 5. (A composed puzzle). I had looked at it desultorily, then decided to really concentrate and solved it! It was a beautiful puzzle....there was another about a month before that also had a beautiful solution that took me long time to solve. I found that if I am relaxed and alert and I focus (used to do them in coffee bars etc)... Also good was that book on Chess that came out in 1978 with pictures of famous grandmasters and handy hints etc etc.... I was looking at it the other day as I had forgotten when Kasparov was born and knew he was in it...Murray Chandler showed many games by Kasparov (and others including one by myself, a win in the Senior (top) level NZ Correspondence Chess in the 1980s... I look forward to the puzzle and hope that it will keep going. So my appreciation to Leonard Barden and the interesting insights and information in his columns... Dec-20-23    Richard Taylor: I see a game with Fairhurst who moved to NZ and played at the Howick-Pakuranga Chess Club. I saw him there. Sarapu had given a lecture using a game by Rubinstein re the two Bishops then Fairhurst later chose to do a lecture on the two Bishops! Aug-20-24    Nosnibor: Happy 95th Birthday Leonard! Aug-20-24    Stonehenge: Happy Birthday :) Aug-20-24    Sally Simpson: Yes. Happy Birthday. Jon Levitt has posted on FaceBook that a few 'Barden's Babes' junior spotted and encouraged by Leonard will now be OAP's. Of course his best and well documented 'spot' was in the Guardian on the 24th February 1975 advising the chess world to keep an eye out for 11 year old Gary Wainstein predicting he was a future world champion. Aug-20-24    Muttley101: I see praise for Barden's chess column, which is of course entirely justified, just mentioning that he wrote an endgame book, which imho was not only good, but stood out because of his inclusion of endgames with more than one piece, rather than the classical approach of single-piece endings. Also, he contributed to the Batsford book on the King's Indian, and although these opening books are now outdated, this was one of the many outstanding Batsford books and one I still cherish. Excellent author. Aug-20-24    vonKrolock: His column, an invaluable source of information in a pre-internet and databases world, appeared in Portuguese in the Brazilian weekly "Opinião" in the early 1970s: In general it consisted of a Game, text and related comments; and a Problem (without spoilers, some Classic; mostly a #3 or #4). Many happy returns, Sir!! Aug-20-24    Williebob: It is wonderful to see such longevity in such a generous and talented exponent of chess. Happy Birthday! Dec-23-24    FSR: I just revised the Wikipedia article on Barden, at Barden's request. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona... Mar-14-25    Sally Simpson: In the 16:40 at Cheltenham a horse called 'Bardenstown Lad' is running at 33-1 and I've stuck 50p e/way on it. (paying out at 1-4 places) Jump to page #    (enter # from 1 to 5) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 5 OF 5 ·  Later Kibitzing>

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