Kenneth Harkness (byname of Stanley Edgar; November 12, 1896 – October 4, 1972) was a
chess
Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...
organizer.
He is the creator of the
Harkness rating system
A chess rating system is a system used in chess to estimate the strength of a player, based on their performance versus other players. They are used by organizations such as FIDE, the US Chess Federation (USCF or US Chess), International Correspon ...
.
Life and career
He was born in
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
,
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
.
He was
Business Manager
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a business manager as "a person who manages the business affairs of an individual, institution, organization, or company".
Compare manager.
Business managers drive the work of others (if any) in order to op ...
of the
United States Chess Federation
The United States Chess Federation (also known as US Chess or USCF) is the governing body for chess competition in the United States and represents the U.S. in FIDE, The World Chess Federation (FIDE). USCF administers the official national Chess ...
from 1952 to 1959.
He was also the editor of ''
Chess Review'', which merged into ''
Chess Life''.
He had lived in
Boca Raton
Boca Raton ( ; ) is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The population was 97,422 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and it ranked as the 23rd-largest city in Florida in 2022. Many people with a Boca Raton Address, ...
,
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
. He became an
International Arbiter in 1972. He was a member of the
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...
Permanent Rules Commission.
Harkness was responsible for introducing
Swiss system tournament
A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...
s to the United States, and also introduced the Harkness rating system, which was a precursor to the
Elo rating
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess or esports. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American chess master and physics professor.
The Elo system wa ...
system.
One method of
tiebreaks in Swiss system tournaments is named after him.
In the Harkness Method, players tied on points are ranked by the sum of their opponents' scores discarding the top score and the bottom score.
For his services, Harkness is in the U.S. Chess
Hall of Fame
A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...
.
With
Irving Chernev, Harkness co-wrote ''An Invitation to Chess.'' He was responsible for a number of the first American
chess rulebooks.
Harkness died on a train in Yugoslavia, on his way to
Skopje
Skopje ( , ; ; , sq-definite, Shkupi) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It lies in the northern part of the country, in the Skopje Basin, Skopje Valley along the Vardar River, and is the political, economic, and cultura ...
to be an arbiter at the
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in FIDE Onli ...
.
Rating system
Harkness devised a rating system that was used by the
US Chess Federation from 1950 to 1960. When a player competes in a tournament, the average rating of his competition is calculated. If the player scores 50% he receives the average competition rating as his performance rating. If he scores more than 50% his new rating is the competition average plus 10 points for each percentage point above 50. If he scores less than 50% his new rating is the competition average minus 10 points for each percentage point below 50.
Bibliography
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See also
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Chess rating systems
References
1896 births
1972 deaths
Chess arbiters
American chess writers
American male non-fiction writers
20th-century chess players
20th-century American male writers
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