Stewart Reuben, who died on February 4 aged 85, was England’s outstanding chess organiser of the 20th century, and played a key role in the chess explosion of the 1970s.
Reuben’s special brainchild was the weekend Swiss tournament, where sophisticated pairing rules enabled large numbers to take part. The 1973 London congress, at the height of the Fischer boom, had around 2,000 entries, and the intense competition produced a battle-hardened young generation who, in the 1970s and 1980s, made England the No 2 chess nation after the Soviet Union.
Reuben organised and directed numerous major international tournaments, including the 1986 and 1993 world championships. The former, in London, overlapped with the BCF congress in Southampton, but Reuben was unperturbed, controlled both events, and even provided running commentaries on the play.
FIDE, the global chess body, awarded him the titles of International Arbiter and International Organiser, while top players also appreciated Reuben’s skills. Hikaru Nakamura last week called him “one of the greats in chess who many have never heard of”, while Malcolm Pein, the ECF International Director, described him as “a life-long innovator, the most successful and influential organiser in English chess history”.
Reuben was always approachable and ready to give friendly advice, as well as being a lively raconteur with a stream of anecdotes. He was an expert player, who once drew with Bobby Fischer in a blitz game and halved with David Bronstein in a classical tournament, but he was even better at poker, where he was a very successful professional who also wrote several books.
Reuben held numerous key posts for the English and British Chess Federations and for the global body Fide, and was an authority on chess rules. In his final decade he became ECF Director of Senior Chess, where his teams and players won medals in world and European competition. A legend.
©The Financial Times Ltd | Published February 11th 2025 | Article by Leonard Barden
Photograph showing Stewart at the 2008 BCC with GM Arkell and IA McFarlane by Stephen Connor