Anthony John Miles (23 April 1955 - 12 November 2001) was an English chess Grandmaster.

As an only child, Miles was born in Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham. He began to learn chess in his early years and progressed continuously to the national level, becoming U14 and U21 British champion in 1968 and in 1971.

At the Teesside World Junior Chess Championship of 1973 he won a silver medal, though this was his first important attempt in the international field. Both he and his compatriot, Michael Stean beat Alexander Beliavsky, the winner of the tournament.

In the following year he studied maths at the University of Sheffield, but finally he decided to choose professional chess. He received his MA degree from the University in respect of his chess achievements in 1975, despite the fact that he had not completed his studies.

In 1976, Miles became the first UK-born 'over-the-board' chess Grandmaster.

He achieved stunning results in the 1970s and 1980s. His successes had a good effect on English chess because many strong players emerged after that who also became grandmasters. Raymond Keene, Michael Stean, John Nunn, Jonathan Speelman and a number of others followed his example. In the meantime Miles improved to become a world class player and beat such high rated opponents like the former world champions: Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal and Boris Spassky.

At the 1980 European Team Championship in Skara, he defeated the reigning World Champion, Anatoly Karpov, using such an unorthodox opening as the St. George Defence (1. d4 a6). Three years later Miles triumphed against Karpov in a part of BBC's Master Game series, although the match was available only for the viewers of the co-producing German television network, due to the strike of the BBC technicians.

Miles won the British championship only once, in 1982, when the event was held in Torquay. He was on top of his career in the middle of the 1980s. According to Chessmetrics historical rating he achieved his highest score in January 1984, when he stood on the 18th place of the world ranking list with 2699 points. This excellent result was connected to the Tilburg Tournament of 1984, when he emerged from a very strong field and won the event. In the following year his victory was not so spectacular at the same competition, still, it was a great success as he tied for first with Robert Hübner and Viktor Korchnoi. In the following years he also achieved gorgeous performances. During this period Nunn was his main rival in the country and both of them competed for being the Best Player of the United Kingdom, regularly leapfrogging each other in the world ranking list. Nigel Short and Speelman would soon join them, establishing the most powerful English National Team ever.

Regarding the world championship tournaments, Miles never advanced from the Interzonal events to the Candidate stage, so he lost the opportunity to become the first British chess player to achieve this. Short achieved this title instead, in 1985.

He represented the English team at the 1984 and 1986 Chess Olympiads. On both occasions, in Thessaloniki and also in Dubai, he helped the national team to silver medals.

He did not lose nor win a game against Garry Kasparov, as their encounter ended by 5½–5½ in Basel, 1986. After the match Miles described Kasparov as "a monster with a thousand eyes who sees all" (other sources talk about 22 or 27 eyes.)

Following his mental breakdown in 1987 he moved to the United States, finishing last at the 1988 US Championship. However, he did not retreat after his failure, but continued to play chess overseas and achieved brilliant results. In 1991, Miles played in the Championship of Australia, however, not much later he returned to the UK, representing his country again.

In 2001, he played in the British championship in Scarborough but he withdrew before the final round, referring to health problems. Before his death he achieved two draws in the Four Nations Chess League. He participated in a number of chess competitions during his career, including the tiring weekend tournaments.

The Miles Variation of the Queen's Indian Defence is named after him (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. Bf4).

Miles suffered from diabetes, which probably also contributed to his death due to heart failure which happened on 12th November 2001.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org; http://www.chessmetrics.com