Paul Motwani (born 13 June 1962) is a Scottish

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 ...

grandmaster. He was the first Scottish player to become a grandmaster.

Chess career

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 ...

and raised in

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

, he became World Cadet (Under 17) Champion in 1978, and won the first of his seven

Scottish Championship The Scottish Championship known as the William Hill (bookmaker), William Hill Championship for sponsorship reasons, is the second tier of the Scottish Professional Football League, the league competition for men's professional association footb ...

titles that year. He was a secondary school

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

teacher at St Saviour's RC High School in Dundee for a number of years after studying

and

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

at the

University of Dundee The University of Dundee is a public research university based in Dundee, Scotland. It was founded as a university college in 1881 with a donation from the prominent Baxter family of textile manufacturers. The institution was, for most of its ...

. In 1990, he took time out to pursue his final Grandmaster norm. Motwani has been a regular member of the Scottish

Olympiad An olympiad (, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the Ancient Olympic Games, ancient and Olympic Games, modern Olympic Games. Although the ancient Olympics were established during Archaic Greece, Greece ...

, never having had a performance

rating A rating is an evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of a metric (e.g. quality, quantity, a combination of both,...). Rating or rating system may also refer to: Business and economics * Credit rating, estimating the credit worthiness ...

below 2500. He made his first two Grandmaster norms at the

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. ** Spain and Portugal en ...

and

1988 1988 was a crucial year in the early history of the Internet—it was the year of the first well-known computer virus, the Morris worm, 1988 Internet worm. The first permanent intercontinental Internet link was made between the United State ...

Olympiads, then faced a race against time to achieve his third before the first one expired in 1991. (Although norms now last a lifetime, 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 ...

rule in place at the time saw them expiring after five years.) He just failed to reach the required number of points in a hastily organised tournament in Dundee days before the deadline. Ironically, FIDE changed the rules shortly after this, and reset the expiry time for norms at six years. He duly achieved his final norm in 1992, and starred in a

Grampian Television Grampian Television was the original name of the Channel 3 service for the north of Scotland founded in 1961 and which, decades later, was merged with the Central Belt channel STV. The northern region's coverage area includes the Northern Isle ...

documentary called "The Grandmasters of Dundee" along with Colin McNab, who had also achieved the title by then. Motwani is a regular contributor to ''Scottish Chess'' (the magazine of

Chess Scotland Chess Scotland is the Sport governing body, governing body for chess in Scotland. It was formed in 2001 with the merger of the Scottish Chess Association (SCA) and the Scottish Junior Chess Association (SJCA). It is one of the oldest national che ...

), ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

'' (for whom he writes a weekly column) and has written for many other chess publications. He has written five chess books - ''H.O.T. Chess'', ''C.O.O.L. Chess'', ''S.T.A.R. Chess'', ''Chess Under the Microscope'' and ''The Most Instructive Games of the Young Grandmasters''. His writings are known for his use of acronyms to remember key concepts and some of the non-chess 'general puzzle' content (including 'Mr Fab' the alien).

Personal life

Motwani is of Scottish and Indian descent. He currently lives in Belgium with his wife Jenny and son Michael. He teaches

third grade Third grade (also 3rd Grade or Grade 3) is the third year of formal or compulsory education. It is the third year of primary school. Children in third grade are usually 8–9 years old. Examples of the American syllabus In mathematics, student ...

and organizes an

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

chess club A chess club is a club formed for the purpose of playing the board game of chess. Chess clubs often provide for both informal and tournament games and sometimes offer league play. Traditionally clubs play over the board and face to face chess a ...

at St. John's International School in

Waterloo, Belgium Waterloo (; ; ) is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in Wallonia, located in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium, which in 2011 had a population of 29,706 and an area of . Waterloo lies a short distance south of Brussels, and immedia ...

and teaches mathematics in the Musica Mundi School in Waterloo, Belgium. His favorite number is the

prime A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

Bibliography

* * * * *

References

External links

* *
Paul Motwani at 365Chess.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Motwani, Paul Scottish chess players Chess Grandmasters World Youth Chess Champions Sportspeople from Dundee Chess players from Glasgow 1962 births Living people British chess writers Chess Olympiad competitors People educated at St Saviour's Roman Catholic High School Alumni of the University of Dundee Sindhi people Scottish people of Indian descent