Jim Plaskett- a colourful chess personality
The word Chess player usually connotes an introverted, aloof person, with little contact with the outside world. But, look at the grandmaster playing on the white side of the game in the Corrchegimmik. He is 64-year-old James (Jim) Plaskett. He was born in the UK. He along with his wife, a poet, migrated to Spain and has been living there for the past 20 years.
He was so good at General Knowledge that he won £250,000 in the contest 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' Its Indian version is the famous Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC). He didn't use any lifeline till the 7th round.
"People love adventures. Each game of chess is one such adventure. The feeling is like that of the cabin boy going on a ship for the first time on a voyage to a place he has never been before."
Plaskett's adventurous spirit is not limited to the chess game. He undertook a three-week expedition in the waters off the Bermudan coast in search of the "Giant Octopus" - a legendary sea monster of enormous size, known by its Norwegian name the 'Kraken.' It is a Cryptid - an animal that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, but whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated by science.
He authored a semi-autobiographical book titled Coincidences, besides 9 chess books. An endgame study he made was named after him as Plaskett's puzzle. In his book, Revelations of Chance, the author Prof Roderick Main, has devoted an entire chapter on Plaskett, titled Multiple Synchronicities of a Chess Grandmaster.