James Plaskett

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H. James Plaskett (born Cyprus, March 18, 1960) was British Chess Champion in 1990, awarded the International Grandmaster title in 1985, and is also a writer, sometime explorer and campaigner for justice.

Married in 1995 to writer Fiona Pitt-Kethley, they have a son, Alexander, born 1996, and live in Cartagena, Spain.

He organised and led a 1999 National Geographic expedition to Bermuda to follow up reports of octopus giganteus near the island, but was unsuccessful in filming it.

He appeared, unsuccessfully, on the UK version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and drew on his experiences to write a vigorous defence of Charles Ingram, his wife, Diana, and Tecwen Whittock, who were found guilty in April 2003 of conspiring to help Ingram win the £1 million top prize by coughing to signal the right answers [1]. This essay led to an article by Bob Woffinden in The Daily Mail of October 9th 2004 - "Is The Coughing Major Innocent?", and also prompted a reconsideration of the case in The Guardian of July 17th 2006 from an initially sceptical Jon Ronson http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jon_ronson/2006/07/could_the_who_wants_to_be_a_mi.html

He has written a number of chess books and also one on coincidences. 'Coincidences' (Tamworth Press, Sept 2000). See also http://james-plasketts-coincidence-diary.blogspot.com/

He finally made it into the hot seat in Jan 2006, http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2913 scooping £250,000. -[2] [3]. Curiously, he was not the first Briton with an interest in both cryptozoological expeditions and unusual phenomena to reach that figure (See Karl Shuker).

His brother, Allan, invented the snickometer device which is used globally to assist in umpiring decisons in cricket.