Maecenas

Andrew Paulson, an American who lives in London, has been responsible for a remarkable chess revolution over the past year. He commissioned a YouGov study which showed that more than 600 million people worldwide regularly play chess. Paulson proceeded to raise sponsorship funds to stage two of the best chess tournaments ever held in London — and all within a matter of months. These were the London Grand Prix and the Candidates qualifier, to determine the challenger for the world title match which starts in a few weeks. Almost every grandmaster from the current elite — Carlsen, Kramnik, Svidler, Ivanchuk, Gelfand — was present in one or both of these two extraordinary competitions. Only Anand was absent, but that was unsurprising, since they were designed to identify his challenger.
 
Paulson’s next exploit was to decide at the last minute to stand as the new president of the English Chess Federation. His victory last Saturday was a landslide against the incumbent president, Roger Edwards, of 169 votes to 106.