Malik Mir Sultan Khan was the strongest chess master of his time from Asia.
Background
Sultan Khan was born in United Punjab, British India, where he learned Indian chess from his father at the age of nine. Under the rules of that game at the time, the laws of pawn promotion and stalemate were different, and a pawn could not move two squares on the first move. By the time he was 21 he was considered the strongest player in the Punjab. At that time, Sir Umar took him into his household with the idea of teaching him the European version of the game and introducing him to European master chess. In 1928, he won the all-India championship, scoring eight wins, one draw, and no losses. From this particular point of view, Sultan Khan's transition to western chess is similar to that of Philipp Stamma; who only after his arrival to Europe got acquainted with the western rules.
Career
Mir Sultan Khan`s career began in the spring of 1929, when a training tournament was held for his benefit, though he fared poorly in it. William Winter and Frederick Yates, prominent English chess players, took to training him for the upcoming British Chess Championship, which he ended up winning to everyone`s astonishment. During his stay at England, he won the British Chess Championship for the year of 1929, 1932 and 1933 and played for England in the Chess Olympiads of 1930, 1931 and 1933. He rose to the top of the chess world, in less than four years. He has played with the world`s great masters, such as Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Aaron Nimzowitsch, and Akiba Rubinstein. He was among one of the few players who had a plus record against Capablanca. He also had an addition record against Frank Marshall and Savielly Tartakower. The most notable victory made by him was the game that he won against former world champion Capablanca at the Hastings tournament of the year 1930.
Mir Sultan Khan never finished lower than fourth in any chess tournament he participated in. In spite of the fact that he always lost to William Winter who usually finished last. At that time Sultan Khan was one of the strongest chess players in the world in spite of being defeated by William Winter. Sultan Khan was about 2550 in strength according to the modernistic rating system, and was easily a grandmaster. For this it can be concluded that Sultan Khan was the first ever Asian grandmaster of chess. Mir Sultan Khan died of Tuberculosis in Sargodha, Pakistan in the year 1966. Despite his great contributions to chess, Sultan Khan was not awarded the Grandmaster title, which was instituted about 15 years after his active period, although several other retired players were awarded the title. He is revered as one of the first great Chess players produced by the Indian subcontinent.
In the brief but impressive career of Mir Sultan Khan, he became one of the top chess in the world, playing on even terms with the best players in the globe.