Editing Nigel Short (section)

== World Championship candidate ==

Short's arrival on the [[World Chess Championship]] title began in earnest in 1985 when he narrowly qualified from the [[Biel]] [[Interzonal]] to become Britain's first-ever [[Candidates Tournament|candidate]]. He needed a playoff to advance past [[John van der Wiel]] and [[Eugenio Torre]] for the last berth, after the three had tied in regulation play. But the [[Montpellier]] Candidates Tournament brought Short little success, as he scored 7/15 to finish in 10th place. In the next cycle, he again qualified by winning the 1987 [[Subotica]] Interzonal with [[Jon Speelman]]. The Candidates stage had by this time reverted to its traditional match format: Short defeated [[Gyula Sax]] (+2=3) in [[Saint John, New Brunswick|Saint John]], Canada, in 1988,<ref>{{cite news |last=Goodman |first=David |date=25 January 1988 |title=Short Wins Again To Seize 2-0 Lead; Seirawan Loses To Speelman |url=https://apnews.com/article/c6ff0908e69130871a23c9d003d0693e |work=[[Associated Press]] |access-date=5 March 2015}}</ref> but then unexpectedly lost (−2=3) to Speelman in London.<ref name="time">{{cite magazine |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,979248,00.html |title=Playing With His Fingertips |last=Hillenbrand |first=Barry |date=20 September 1993 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |access-date=5 March 2015}}</ref>

Short's next attempt proved his most successful. He defeated [[Mikhail Gurevich (chess player)|Mikhail Gurevich]] in the last round of the [[Manila]] Interzonal and finished equal third with [[Viswanathan Anand]], behind [[Vassily Ivanchuk]] and [[Boris Gelfand]], qualifying him as a Candidate for the third successive time. Meeting Speelman again in the 8/Final, in London, he tied a close match (+2-2=4) before edging his older opponent 1.5-0.5 in the tie-break. The 1/4 final, against Gelfand, in Brussels, was a bloodthirsty affair in which Short eventually prevailed (+4-2=2). In the semifinal, in 1992, the Englishman overcame former World Champion [[Anatoly Karpov]] (+4−2=4) in a match that was described as "the end of an era". In the final, in [[San Lorenzo de El Escorial]], Short defeated Dutchman [[Jan Timman]] (+5−3=5) to earn the right to meet defending World Champion Garry Kasparov.<ref name="time" /> The [[King walk]], perhaps the most famous in recent history, where Nigel Short defeated Jan Timman in Tilburg in 1991, was voted as one of the hundred greatest chess games in a list compiled by FM Graham Burgess, and GMs John Nunn and John Emms.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DnXeaag4YPY | title=A Short King Walk - Nigel Short vs Jan Timman 1991 | website=[[YouTube]] | date=28 March 2017 }}</ref>