| Jim Plaskett | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Harold James Plaskett |
| Country | England |
| Born | 18 March 1960 Cyprus |
| Title | Grandmaster |
| FIDE rating | 2498 (February 2010) |
| Peak rating | 2529 (July 2000) |
Harold James Plaskett (born Dkeliah, Cyprus, 18 March 1960) was British Chess Champion in 1990, awarded the International Grandmaster title in 1985, and is also a writer, blogger, sometime explorer/cryptozoologist and legal campaigner. Married in 1995 to writer Fiona Pitt-Kethley, they have a son, Alexander, born 1996, and live in Cartagena, Spain.
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Generally known in the chess world as 'Jim', he has written nine chess books and also one quasi-autobiographical one, Coincidences. For some years in the 1990s he was chess columnist at The New Statesman.
He appeared unsuccessfully several times on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and then drew on his experiences to write a defence of contestant Charles Ingram, who along with two supposed accomplices had been found guilty of cheating to win the £1 million top prize.
This essay led to an article by Bob Woffinden in The Daily Mail of 9 October 2004 - Is The Coughing Major Innocent?, and also prompted a reconsideration of the case in The Guardian Comment is free blog on 17 July 2006 from Jon Ronson - Are the Millionaire three innocent?[1] Woffinden and Ronson had both been initially sceptical.[2][3][4][5]
Plaskett may also be heard at Episode 29 of The Pod Delusion podcast being interviewed by political blogger, Mark Thompson, who was himself led by Plaskett´s essay to take an interest in the case of The Millionaire Three.[6]
Plaskett finally got into the hotseat on 21 January 2006, becoming the third person to reach £125,000 without using any of his lifelines en route to winning £250,000.[7] He was accompanied by friend and fellow Grandmaster Stuart Conquest.
He also 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.[8]
His brother, Allan, invented the snickometer device which is used globally to assist in umpiring decisions in cricket.
Karl Shuker, another Briton with an interest in both cryptozoological expeditions and unusual phenomena, had previously reached the same £250,000 figure when a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.