John Littlewood (chess player) once a month in the English Chess Federation magazine. His brother Norman also played in four Olympiads, and his son Paul, an International Master, won the British Chess Championship in 1981. Littlewood lived in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, and had seven children and eight grandchildren. John Littlewood (chess player) John Eric Littlewood (25 May 1931 – 16 September 2009) was for many years a leading British chess player and took the title of national senior champion in 2006. Perhaps his most famous game was the one he lost against the world champion Mikhail Botvinnik at the Hastings International Chess Congress 1961/2. Littlewood
White and Black in chess first player as well as second ... this was a common fad in his day, which persisted with a great number of players, as a study of the "Chess Players' Chronicle" and other magazines shows. In the Immortal Game (Anderssen-Kieseritzky, offhand game, London 1851), one of the most famous games in history, Anderssen had the Black pieces but moved first. He also took the Black pieces but moved first in the sixth, eighth, and tenth games of his famous 1858 match against Paul Morphy. Each of those games began 1.a3 e5 2.c4, when Anderssen was effectively playing the Sicilian Defense