Daniel King

• Name — Daniel King • Birth Name — Daniel John King • Born — 28 August 1963 • Birthplace — Beckenham, England • Country — England • Title — Grandmaster (1989) • Peak Rating — 2560 (July 1990) • Peak Ranking — No. 65 (July 1990) • Fide Id — 400068

King achieved the International Master title in 1982 and the Grandmaster title in 1989. He won minor tournaments around the world and recorded promising results at some prestigious events; for example, 4th= at Bern 1987, 4th= British Championship 1987, 1st= (with Boris Gelfand) at the Sydney Open 1988, 5th= London 1988, 2nd= Dortmund 1988 and 2nd (after Bent Larsen) London 1989. At the Geneva Young Masters in 1990, he shared first place with the Australian Ian Rogers. King later pursued a media career as presenter, commentator, reporter and analyst, and this likely affected his playing career by limiting the opportunity for dedicated research and study. Nevertheless, he has played professionally for more than 20 years at a high level, including the top leagues of the Bundesliga and 4NCL. In 1996, he won the Bunratty Masters, an Irish tournament with an impressive list of previous winners, including John Nunn, Sergei Tiviakov and Peter Svidler. King represented England at the European Team Chess Championship (Haifa 1989) and at the Reykjavik Visa Chess Summit of 1990, the latter being the scene of a victory over the strong Soviet team and a team silver medal. King is usually known as 'Dan' or 'Danny'. He has coached some of the UK's brightest chess prospects and has written more than 15 chess books on topics ranging from the preparatory Winning with the Najdorf to the self-tutoring How Good is your Chess? and Test Your Chess.

King writes regular columns in CHESS magazine ("How Good Is Your Chess?") and Schach 64, the leading journals of the UK and Germany (he speaks German fluently). From 2006 to 2012, he co-hosted a regular Monday chess column with Ronan Bennett in The Guardian, which sought to be instructive, rather than topical. Through test positions taken from actual games, their amateur and expert assessments of the possible continuations were discussed and compared. Nigel Short's column was axed to make way for the style-shift, and this change was debated in chess circles. Since 2010, King has served as a main commentator/presenter at ChessBase and has hosted the commentary at the London Chess Classic tournament. He runs the PowerPlayChess Youtube Channel which is regularly updated with new chess-related content including chess puzzles and analysis of high-level games. In 2016, chess historian Edward Winter ranked him as one of the top six English-language internet chess commentators on major matches and tournaments. He lives in Teddington, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.