Sultan Khan was born in 1903 in
Mitha Tiwana,
Khushab,
Sargodha (then British India, today
Pakistan), to a Punjabi Muslim
Awan family of
pirs and landlords. He learned
Indian chess from his father at the age of nine. By the time he was 21 he was considered the strongest player in Punjab. In the spring of 1929, Sir Umar took him to London, where a training tournament was organized for his benefit. Soon afterwards, he went back to India with Sir Umar. In matches he narrowly defeated Tartakower in 1931 (+4−3=5) and narrowly lost to Flohr in 1932 (+1−2=3). Sultan Khan thrice played
first board for England at
Chess Olympiads. At
Hamburg 1930, there was still no rule that teams must put their best player on the top board, and some teams, unconvinced of his strength, matched their second or even third-best player against him. He scored nine wins, four draws, and four losses (64.7%). At
Prague 1931, he faced a much stronger field. He had an outstanding result, scoring eight wins, seven draws, and two losses (67.6%). This included wins against Flohr and
Akiba Rubinstein and draws with Alekhine, Kashdan,
Ernst Grünfeld,
Gideon Ståhlberg, and
Efim Bogoljubow. Once again, his opponents included the world's best players, such as Alekhine, Flohr, Kashdan, Tartakower, Grünfeld, Ståhlberg, and
Lajos Steiner.
Reuben Fine wrote of him: The story of the Indian Sultan Khan turned out to be a most unusual one. The "Sultan" was not the term of status that we supposed it to be; it was merely a first name. He spoke English poorly and kept score in Hindustani. It was said that he could not even read the European notations. After the tournament [the 1933 Folkestone Olympiad] the American team was invited to the home of Sultan Khan's master in London. When we were ushered in we were greeted by the
maharajah with the remark, "It is an honor for you to be here; ordinarily I converse only with my greyhounds." Although he was a
Mohammedan, the maharajah had been granted special permission to drink intoxicating beverages, and he made liberal use of this dispensation. He presented us with a four-page printed biography telling of his life and exploits; so far as we could see his greatest achievement was to have been born a maharajah. In December 1933, Sir Umar took him back to India. In 1935, he won a match against V. K. Khadilkar, yielding just one draw in ten games. The chess world never heard from him again. ==Later life==