Raymond Keene - Organisation of Chess Events

Organisation of Chess Events

Keene has worked as a chess organiser. He is the originator and organiser of the annual Staunton memorial chess tournaments, one of the few regular events for masters held in London. The Oxford Companion comments: "By a combination of ability and shrewdness, Keene has attracted considerable sponsorship and has proved himself capable of efficient and rapid organisation of chess events".p196

Keene brought Victor Korchnoi and Garry Kasparov together for their 1983 Candidates' semi-final match in London as part of the 1984 World Championship cycle; the semi-final match between Vasily Smyslov and Zoltán Ribli was also played at the same site. He organised the 1984 Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World match in London within two weeks, enabling the event to go ahead on time after the previous plans had fallen through, described by John Nunn as "a magnificent organisational achievement at such short notice."

Keene has also been involved in organising several World Championship finals matches. He arranged for the first half of the World Chess Championship 1986 return match between Kasparov and Karpov to be played in London. The match however made a loss for the British Chess Federation (BCF) and he resigned from his position in the BCF shortly afterwards. He organised the 1993 PCA World Championship match between Kasparov and Nigel Short in London, for which he was one of the official commentators along with Grandmasters Jonathan Speelman and Daniel King. He was the instrumental force behind 'Brain Games', which organized the World Championship match in 2000 between Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik. Following the match, however, he retained the trophy in lieu of money he believed he was owed by the collapse of Brain Games: Kramnik did not receive it until 2008. Brain Games later collapsed in controversial circumstances.