Jonathan Rowson

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Jonathan Rowson (born 18 April 1977) is Scotland's 3rd chess Grandmaster, after Paul Motwani and Colin McNab, and has played board 1 at recent Chess Olympiads. He made his Scotland debut for the national Primary School team in the match against England in 1988. Although not the best player in his age-group at the time, his progress was rapid and he began competing on the world stage in 1991, winning a silver medal in the European Under 18 Championship in 1995 (behind Robert Kempinski of Poland).

After taking a year out to study chess in the wake of this success, he went to Keble College, Oxford University to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Rowson has an interest in Eastern thought and, following a year at Harvard, was working on a D.Phil thesis on Wisdom.

He came second in the European Under 20 Championship in 1997 and achieved his third and final Grandmaster norm (and with it the title) in the 1999 Scottish Chess Championship. He went on to win the event again in 2001 and 2004, completing a rare double when he went on to become the 2004 British Champion. He defended his British title in 2005 and again in 2006.

In 2006 he married an Indian Lecturer in Law, Shiva, and they set up home in London.

Rowson has written numerous magazine articles and three books on the game - Understanding the Grunfeld (1998), The Seven Deadly Chess Sins (2000), and Chess for Zebras (2005).