Kenneth Harkness (byname of Stanley Edgar;[1][2] November 12, 1896 – October 4, 1972) was a chess organizer.[3] He is the creator of the Harkness rating system.[4]
Life and career
editHe was born in Glasgow, Scotland.[3] He was Business Manager of the United States Chess Federation from 1952 to 1959.[3] He was also the editor of Chess Review, which merged into Chess Life.[4]
He had lived in Boca Raton, Florida. He became an International Arbiter in 1972. He was a member of the FIDE Permanent Rules Commission.[3][4]
Harkness was responsible for introducing Swiss system tournaments to the United States, and also introduced the Harkness rating system, which was a precursor to the Elo rating system.[3] One method of tiebreaks in Swiss system tournaments is named after him.[4][3] In the Harkness Method, players tied on points are ranked by the sum of their opponents' scores discarding the top score and the bottom score.[4][3] For his services, Harkness is in the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame.[3]
With Irving Chernev, Harkness co-wrote An Invitation to Chess. He was responsible for a number of the first American chess rulebooks.[4]
Harkness died on a train in Yugoslavia, on his way to Skopje to be an arbiter at the Chess Olympiad.[4][3]
Rating system
editHarkness devised a rating system that was used by the US Chess Federation from 1950 to 1960. When a player competes in a tournament, the average rating of his competition is calculated. If the player scores 50% he receives the average competition rating as his performance rating. If he scores more than 50% his new rating is the competition average plus 10 points for each percentage point above 50. If he scores less than 50% his new rating is the competition average minus 10 points for each percentage point below 50.[5]
Bibliography
edit- Harkness, Kenneth (1956), The Official Blue Book and Encyclopedia of Chess
- Harkness, Kenneth (1967), Official Chess Handbook, McKay
- Harkness, Kenneth (1945), An Invitation to Chess, McKay
- Harkness, Kenneth (1970), Official Chess Rulebook, McKay
- Harkness, Kenneth (1950), Invitation to Bridge, McKay
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Chess Life, March 5, 1955, page 4
- ^ "Shady Side: The Life and Crimes of Norman Tweed Whitaker, Chess Master", p. 232, ISBN 0-939433-57-5
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Kenneth Harkness - chess organizer". gambiter.com. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Kenneth Harkness". World Chess Hall of Fame. March 23, 2017. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
- ^ (Harkness 1967:185–88)
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