defunct wakkipedia.com Internet site of useless information. His latest publication is A Brief History of Puzzles: 120 of the World's Most Baffling Brainteasers from the Sphinx to Sudoku (2019). On 2 April 2013 it was reported that Hartston had "perfected" a formula for predicting the winner of the Grand National horse race, in a study commissioned by bookmaker William Hill. The story of the winning formula has since been widely thought to be an April Fools joke for which many have fallen. In 2013 Hartston and his friend Josef Kollar became regular 'viewers' on the Channel 4 programme Gogglebox. Personal life Hartston was the first of three British chess champions to be married to Woman Grandmaster Dr Jana Bellin (née Malypetrova) (January 1970 in Cambridge}. With his second wife, Elizabeth Bannerman (1978) he has two sons, James and Nicholas. Bibliography The Grunfeld Defence (1971), B. T. Batsford The King's Indian Defence (1973) (L. Barden, with W. Hartston and R. Keene), B. T. Batsford Karpov-Korchnoi, 1974 (1977) (W. Hartston and R. Keene), Tony Earl Books, The Benoni (1977), Batsford, How To Cheat At Chess (1977) The Battle of Baguio City: Karpov-Korchnoi 1978 (1978) Penguin Book of Chess Openings (1978) Soft Pawn: The Uncensored Sequel (1980) London 1980: Phillips and Drew Kings Chess Tournament (1980) (with Stewart Reuben) Teach Yourself Chess (c. 1980, later editions 1992, 1997) Psychology of Chess (1984) (W. Hartston and P. C. Wason), Facts on File, The Ultimate Irrelevant Encyclopaedia (1984) The Kings of Chess (1985) Chess - The Making of the Musical (1986) (Hartston and Tim Rice), Pavilion Books, Drunken Goldfish and Other Irrelevant Scientific Research (1988) How was it for you, Professor? (1992) The Guinness Book of Chess Grandmasters (1996) Teach Yourself Better Chess (1997) The Book of Numbers: The Ultimate Compendium of Facts About Figures (2000) What Are the Chances of That? (2004) What's What - The Encyclopedia of Quite Extraordinary Information (2005) The Encyclopedia of Useless Information (2007) The Things That Nobody Knows (2011) Even More Things That Nobody Knows (2015) Allen & Unwin, Sloths (2019) A Brief History of Puzzles: 120 of the World's Most Baffling Brainteasers from the Sphinx to Sudoku" (2019)The Encyclopaedia of Everything Else'' (2022) Hartston has also written various technical chess books under his full name of William R. Hartston or William Roland Hartston. Notes External links "William Hartston" by Edward Winter 1947 births Living people Sportspeople from London