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Daniel King (chess player)

British chess player

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ726972 ↗
Source-derived summary

Daniel John King (born 28 August 1963) is an English chess grandmaster, writer, coach, journalist, and broadcaster.

Chess career

King achieved the International Master title in 1982 and the Grandmaster title in 1989. He won minor tournaments around the world and recorded promising results at some prestigious events; for example, 4th= at Bern 1987, 4th= British Championship 1987, 1st= (with Boris Gelfand) at the Sydney Open 1988, 5th= London 1988, 2nd= Dortmund 1988 and 2nd (after Bent Larsen) London 1989. At the Geneva Young Masters in 1990, he shared first place with the Australian Ian Rogers.

King later pursued a media career as presenter, commentator, reporter and analyst, and this likely affected his playing career by limiting the opportunity for dedicated research and study. Nevertheless, he has played professionally for more than 20 years at a high level, including the top leagues of the Bundesliga and 4NCL. In 1996, he won the Bunratty Masters, an Irish tournament with an impressive list of previous winners, including John Nunn, Sergei Tiviakov and Peter Svidler.

King represented England at the European Team Chess Championship (Haifa 1989) and at the Reykjavik Visa Chess Summit of 1990, the latter being the scene of a victory over the strong Soviet team and a team silver medal.

King is usually known as 'Dan' or 'Danny'. He has coached some of the UK's brightest chess prospects and has written more than 15 chess books on topics ranging from the preparatory Winning with the Najdorf to the self-tutoring How Good is your Chess? and Test Your Chess.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Daniel King (chess player)” as british chess player. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Daniel, King and chess.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1963, 1982, 1989, 1987—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1963-08-28. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Daniel, King and chess providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Daniel King (chess player)”, the useful work is to connect “british chess player” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q726972. VIAF identifies the subject as 6969094. The Library of Congress control number is no94019603. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1982, 1989 and 1987.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Daniel King (chess player)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.