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Malik Mir Sultan Khan (1905 – 25 April 1966) was the strongest chess master of his time from Asia. A servant from British India, he travelled with Colonel Nawab Sir Umar Hayat Khan ("Sir Umar"), his master, to Britain, where he took the chess world by storm. In an international chess career of less than five years (1929–33), he won the British Championship three times in four tries (1929, 1932, 1933), and had tournament and match results that placed him among the top ten players in the world. Sir Umar then brought him back to his homeland, where he gave up chess and returned to his humble life. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld have called him "perhaps the greatest natural player of modern times".〔David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, ''The Oxford Companion to Chess'' (2nd ed. 1992), Oxford University Press, p. 402. ISBN 0-19-866164-9.〕 Although he was one of the world's top players in the early 1930s, FIDE, the World Chess Federation, never awarded him any title (Grandmaster or International Master). ==Chess career== Sultan Khan was born in United Punjab, British India, where he learned Indian chess from his father at the age of nine.〔〔Anne Sunnucks, ''The Encyclopaedia of Chess'', St. Martin's Press, 1970, p. 443.〕 Under the rules of that game at the time, the laws of pawn promotion and stalemate were different, and a pawn could not move two squares on the first move.〔 By the time he was 21 he was considered the strongest player in the Punjab.〔 At that time, Sir Umar took him into his household with the idea of teaching him the European version of the game and introducing him to European master chess.〔〔 In 1928, he won the all-India championship, scoring eight wins, one draw, and no losses.〔〔〔Raymond Keene, writing in Harry Golombek (editor), ''Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess'', Crown Publishing, 1977, p. 313. ISBN 0-517-53146-1.〕 In the spring of 1929, Sir Umar took him to London, where a training tournament was organised for his benefit.〔〔 Due to his inexperience and lack of theoretical knowledge, he did poorly, tying for last place with H. G. Conde, behind William Winter and Frederick Yates. After the tournament, Winter and Yates trained with him to help prepare him for the British Chess Championship to be held that summer.〔 To everyone's surprise, he won.〔〔〔Philip W. Sergeant, ''A Century of British Chess'', David McKay, 1934, pp. 278–79, 331–32.〕 Soon afterward, he went back to India with Sir Umar.〔〔 Returning to Europe in May 1930, Sultan Khan began an international chess career that included wins over many of the world's leading players.〔 His best results were second to Savielly Tartakower at Liège 1930; third at Hastings 1930–31 (+5-2=2) behind future World Champion Max Euwe and former World Champion José Raúl Capablanca; fourth at Hastings 1931–32; fourth at Bern 1932 (+10-3=2); and a tie for third with Isaac Kashdan at London 1932, behind World Champion Alexander Alekhine and Salo Flohr.〔 Sultan Khan again won the British Championship in 1932 and 1933.〔〔Sergeant, pp. 279–81, 331.〕 In matches he narrowly defeated Tartakower in 1931 (+4-3=5) and narrowly lost to Flohr in 1932 (+1-2=3).〔 Sultan Khan thrice played first board for England at Chess Olympiads. At Hamburg 1930, there was still no rule that teams must put their best player on the top board, and some teams, unconvinced of his strength, matched their second or even third-best player against him.〔Coles, pp. 42–43.〕 He scored nine wins, four draws, and four losses (64.7%).〔Árpád Földeák, ''Chess Olympiads 1927–1968'', Dover Publications, 1979, p. 50. ISBN 0-486-23733-8.〕〔Coles, p. 18.〕 At Prague 1931, he faced a much stronger field.〔Coles, p. 67.〕 He had an outstanding result, scoring eight wins, seven draws, and two losses (67.6%).〔〔Földeák, p. 72.〕 This included wins against Flohr and Akiba Rubinstein, and draws with Alekhine, Kashdan, Ernst Grünfeld, Gideon Ståhlberg, and Efim Bogolyubov.〔 At Folkestone 1933, he had his worst result, an even score, winning four games, drawing six, and losing four.〔Földeák, p. 92.〕〔Coles, pp. 18, 120.〕 Once again, his opponents included the world's best players, such as Alekhine, Flohr, Kashdan, Tartakower, Grünfeld, Ståhlberg, and Lajos Steiner.〔Coles, p. 120.〕 Reuben Fine wrote of him:〔Reuben Fine, ''Lessons From My Games'', New York, 1958, pp. 24–25, quoted in Edward Winter, (Sultan Khan (2003) ).〕 The story of the Indian Sultan Khan turned out to be a most unusual one. The "Sultan" was not the term of status that we supposed it to be; it was merely a first name. In fact, Sultan Khan was actually a kind of serf on the estate of a maharajah when his chess genius was discovered. He spoke English poorly, and kept score in Hindustani. It was said that he could not even read the European notations. After the tournament (1933 Folkestone Olympiad ) the American team was invited to the home of Sultan Khan's master in London. When we were ushered in we were greeted by the maharajah with the remark, "It is an honor for you to be here; ordinarily I converse only with my greyhounds." Although he was a Mohammedan, the maharajah had been granted special permission to drink intoxicating beverages, and he made liberal use of this dispensation. He presented us with a four-page printed biography telling of his life and exploits; so far as we could see his greatest achievement was to have been born a maharajah. In the meantime Sultan Khan, who was our real entrée to his presence, was treated as a servant by the maharajah (which in fact he was according to Indian law), and we found ourselves in the peculiar position of being waited on at table by a chess grand master. In December 1933, Sir Umar took him back to India.〔〔Sunnucks, p. 444.〕〔Reuben Fine, ''The World's Great Chess Games'', Dover, 1983, p. 181. ISBN 0-486-24512-8.〕 In 1935, he won a match against V. K. Khadilkar, yielding just one draw in ten games.〔〔Coles, p. 11.〕 The chess world never heard from him again.〔〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mir Sultan Khan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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