Shortly afterwards he found a sponsor in the form of computer company Psion and played Garry Kasparov at a simultaneous exhibition in 1995.

At sixteen he became the youngest ever Briton to achieve the title Grandmaster, gaining the three results required ("norms") in tournaments in Germany, Iceland and the Politiken Cup in Copenhagen, Denmark.

McShane led the 2002 British Championship in Torquay, and was in a good position in the final round before blundering and losing to the tournament's winner, Ramachandran Ramesh.

He played for England in the Chess Olympiad in Bled, scoring 6½/11 points, and won the silver medal at the World Junior Championship in Goa.

In 2009/10 he tied for first through fifth place with Eduardas Rozentalis, Pavel Ponkratov, Radosław Wojtaszek and Igor Lysyj at the 39th Rilton Cup in Stockholm.

He won the 136-player Kuppenheim tournament in 2003 ahead of Vladimir Epishin and former German blitz champion Robert Rabiega, finishing with a score of 50½/53 points.

In the January 2011 rating list, he briefly topped Nigel Short to become the UK's second highest ranked player after Michael Adams.

[8] He then followed up with wins against Alexander Morozevich and Vladimir Kramnik, his combative performances rewarding voters of the online poll responsible for securing his wildcard place, ahead of Alexei Shirov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

McShane's finish placed him ahead of the highly rated Jan-Krzysztof Duda and David Navara, with the total number of participants being in excess of one thousand.

A brief increase in his chess activity occurred when he subsequently left his job, but he was forced to decline his invitation to the 2011 British Championship when he later returned to full-time employment.