Stuart Milner-Barry - Later Chess Contributions

Later Chess Contributions

Nimzo-Indian Defence
Milner-Barry Variation

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 Nc6

He had also continued to play chess, competing in the 1952 and 1956 Olympiads. This 1956 Olympiad trip to Moscow was risky, since Britain and the USSR, which had been allies during World War II, were by then locked into the Cold War, and Milner-Barry's wartime codebreaking knowledge would have been of great interest to the Soviets; the very fact that Britain had broken German codes on a massive scale was kept secret until 1974, when Frederick Winterbotham's book The Ultra Secret was published. He placed second in the British Chess Championship at Hastings 1953 (finishing behind only Daniel Yanofsky), with a score of 8/11; this would be his best result in British Championships.

He was president of the British Chess Federation between 1970 and 1973, competed in the British Championship as late as 1978, and was still competing in club and county-level tournaments and matches into his 80s. His obituary in The Independent recalled his "savagely effective attacking style, honed to perfection through a series of 'serious friendly games' against his old rival Hugh Alexander". In 1972, George Koltanowski wrote that, "his style was very pleasing to spectators because he was always looking for dangerous continuations and quite often he found them!" His name is associated with three chess opening variations:

• Milner-Barry Variation of the Nimzo-Indian Defence (ECO E33): 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 Nc6;
• Milner-Barry Gambit in the French Defence (ECO C02): 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.Bd3 cxd4 7.cxd4 Bd7 8.0-0!? Nxd4 9.Nxd4 Qxd4 10.Nc3;
• Milner-Barry variation in the Petroff Defence (ECO C42): 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Qe2 Qe7 6.d3 Nf6 7.Bg5 Nbd7.