Michael Bent

Charles Michael Bent (* 27 November 1919 in Southsea; † 28 December 2004) was an English chess study composer

Chess composition of endgame studies
Bent has composed more than 1000 endgame studies since the early 1950s. The book The Best of Bent contains 288 of them. Many of his creations have been honoured with prizes. From 1975 to 1985 he was head of the studies section of the British Chess Magazine.

Life

Bent also took part in various sports such as half marathons and tennis. After the Second World War, he worked for a time in rubber plantations in Malaya. He was married to Viola. He last lived in Inkpen Common (Berkshire).

He died in an accident in 2004.

Source: Germain Wikipedia

Infos by Dutch Website ARVES.org:

Mike Bent was a prolific composer of endgame studies. He edited the British Chess Magazine study column for ten years and contributed articles to EG (the links to his EG articles can be found on Wikipedia).

In 1993, he published "The Best of Bent" together with Timothy Whitworth.

As John D. Beasley wrote in his obituary in BESN 2005a:

"We knew him as a study composer, but he was much more: a tennis player good enough to compete at junior Wimbledon,

an athlete able to run a half-marathon in his seventies,

a knowledgeable and enthusiastic fell walker,

a skilled boyhood carver of model battleships (he was from a naval family, a career denied to him by seasickness),

the owner of a splendid collection of Malayan butterflies assembled during some postwar years as a rubber planter,

a lifelong lover of word play and word puzzles, a talented writer "

REMEMBERING (CHARLES) MIKE BENT (27-XI-1919 28-XII-2004)

BCN remembers Mike Bent who passed away on Tuesday, December 28th 2004.

Charles Michael Bent was born on Thursday, 27th of November 1919 and in that year Charles was the fifth most popular boy’s name.

He was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire.

In 1939 he was living at 5, Ashburton Road, Gosport with his mother Eileen B. Bent (née Hill) and was a Sub Lieutenant in the Royal Navy.

He wrote “Best of Bent: Composer’s Choice of His Chess Endgame Studies, 1950-93” 

He died in Swindon on the 28th of December, 2004 having last resided in Hungerford, RG17. Whilst writing the Studies column for British Chess Magazine he resided at “Black Latches”, Inkpen, Newbury, Berkshire.

The C. M. Bent Memorial Composing Tourney was held in 2006-07.

From British Chess Magazine, Volume XCV (95, 1975), Number 1 (January), page 22 we have a charming introduction to CMB from the retiring editor of the Studies column, Roycroft

“A studies article without a diagram? Yes, and without an apology either. Instead this introduced my successor, Charles Michael Bent, who is as remarkable without the chessboard as he is with it. Now since, as at May 1974, he has composed the total, rarely exceeded by anyone, of 670 studies (of which only 375 have been published), and about 600 problems (one tenth published), his other achievements and activities, insofar as he can be persuaded to talk about them, are worth recounting.

Michael Bent has a passion for all-the-year-round tennis, and loves the country life. Walking and climbing, all-forms of do-it-yourself, word-play nabla/del, puzzles, conjuring and listening to music make the mixture extraordinarily rich. Yet if there was a single word to characterise him it would be simplicity (his choice), with (my addition) a strong and individual sense of humour.

Physically he is a lean, balding 54-year-old as fit as most men half his age. He played at Junior Wimbledon before the War and only three of four years back won the singles tennis championship of his half of Berkshire. He is a modest and delightful companion, and to visit him and his wife Viola, to whom he credits responsibility for the serenity of his condition and surroundings, is a relaxing pleasure I always look forward to in my own hustled and tense London-centered existence.

In his own words he was never really a player of chess at all, but first sight of problems (during the war) and endings (just after it) acted like fireworks on a dark night and lit an imagination which still lacks basic technical knowledge. So, artistic rather than ‘scientific’, have never knowingly composed a didactic study. Am told my ‘style’ is easily recognised. Am aware, but perfectly content, that I compose much that the expert will easily solve, in the hope that the less initiated may be entertained and as attracted as I was in the beginning.

There is a feast, including many surprises, in store for you and me, at the hands of your new chess-chef, ‘CMB of the BCM’.”

From British Chess Magazine, Volume 125 (2005), Number 2 (February), page 98 we have a brief obituary from John Beasley :

“Charles Michael Bent died just over a month after his 85th birthday. Mike Bent had long been Britain’s leading composer of endgame studies, he was a witty and entertaining writer on the subject (and on many others), and the pleasure he gave was rightly acknowledged by the granting in 2001 of one of the BCF President’s Awards for services to chess.

BCM published his first study in 1950 and one of his last 50 years later, and he was our endgame study columnist from January 1975 to March 1985. There will be a steady flow of quotations in Endgame Studies during the coming months. John Beasley”

The Studies column was taken over in April 1985 by Paul Lamford.

Michael Bent was educated at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, but had to leave the Navy because of chronic sea-sickness. He served in the Rifle Brigade in the Second World War and afterwards became a rubber plant in Johore, where he survived several terrorist attacks. How now lives with his wife in a Berkshire Village.

Apart from Chess, Michael Bent has other recreations, including wood carving, stamp collecting, composing crossword puzzles and butterfly collecting. His butterfly collection included 500 Malayan specimens. He is also a strong tennis player. Thirty-one years after playing at Wimbledon as a junior, he won the Newbury and District singles title in 1967.”