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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
17 February 2025
The death was recently announced of International Arbiter Stewart Reuben (1939-2025), whom many readers will have met at international senior tournaments or at British chess events over the past 60 years.
We first met Stewart in November 1966 when competing in the 2nd Islington Open tournament. Stewart was really the pioneer of organising weekend Swiss tournaments in Britain.
In 1972 the year of the Fischer boom, his now multi-section Islington Open had to be split between two successive weekends and entries for the novices tournament were so big that it was split into two sections of about a hundred players each, one of which was run by me.
Stewart went on to play many roles in British chess organisation and in FIDE. He was an International Arbiter who sat for many years on the Rules Commission and as a player he was a Candidate Master, indicating that his peak rating was between 2200 and 2299. He is also said to have been a formidable poker player.
In recent years we met Stewart several times at senior championships, the last being the 2024 World Senior Teams in Krakow where, as usual, we had a few good chats. For many years Stewart was the organiser for British senior teams until he retired a couple of years ago and handed that role over to Nigel Povah.
Stewart died on a cruise in the Caribbean which is how he would have wished to go, rather than disrupting a chess tournament. He had survived at least one previous scare that he told us about, when he had to be airlifted off a ship for emergency treatment.
There are many tributes to Stewart on the English Chess Forum already and doubtless numerous obituaries have been published online and in print. We shall miss you, Stewart.
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