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James Plaskett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 legal campaigner.
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 several times on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. On the first occasion he failed to pass the "fastest finger" qualifying round, but drew on his experiences to write a defence of Charles Ingram, his wife, Diana, and Tecwen Whittock, who had been 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 Comment is free blog on July 17th 2006 from an initially sceptical Jon Ronson [2]
At last, in Jan 2006, [3], he won £250,000. [4] [5].
Karl Shuker, another Briton with an interest in both cryptozoological expeditions and unusual phenomena, had previously reached the same figure.
He has written a number of chess books and also one on coincidences (Coincidences, Tamworth Press, Sept 2000).
His brother, Allan, invented the snickometer device which is used globally to assist in umpiring decisions in cricket.
- FIDE rating card for Jim Plaskett
- James Plaskett at ChessGames.com