Ponziani Opening
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Ponziani Opening
The Ponziani Opening is a chess opening that begins with the moves: :1. e4 e5 :2. Nf3 Nc6 :3. c3 It is one of the oldest chess openings, having been discussed in the literature by 1497. It was advocated by Howard Staunton, generally considered the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, in his 1847 book ''The Chess-Player's Handbook''. For some decades, it was often called "Staunton's Opening" or the "English Knight's Game" as a result. Today, it is usually known by the name of Domenico Lorenzo Ponziani, whose main contribution to the opening was his introduction, in 1769, of the 3...f5 The opening is now considered inferior to 3.Bb5, the Ruy Lopez, and 3.Bc4, the Italian Game, and is accordingly rarely seen today at any level of play. Black's main responses are 3...Nf6, leading to play, and 3...d5, leading to play. Ponziani's countergambit 3...f5!? was successfully played in the grandmaster game Hikaru Nakamura– Julio Becerra Rivero, US Championship 2007. Magnus ...
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Domenico Lorenzo Ponziani
Domenico Lorenzo Ponziani (9 November 1719 – 15 July 1796) was an Italian law professor, priest, chess player, composer and theoretician. He is best known today for his chess writing. Life Ponziani was born in Modena in 1719. In 1742 he graduated in law at the University of San Carlo and was admitted to the College of Advocates in 1745. He was Professor of Civil Law at the University of Modena from 1742 to 1772 when he retired taking a pension and the title of honorary professor. In 1764 Ponziani took orders as a priest and in 1766 he became a canon in the Modena Cathedral. He became Vicar General in 1784, received the title of Protonotary Apostolic, and was made Vicar Capitular in 1785. Ponziani died in Modena and is buried in the Modena Cathedral. Chess writing Ponziani was friend with fellow Modenese chess players and writers Ercole del Rio and Giambattista Lolli Giambattista Lolli (1698 – 4 June 1769) was an Italian chess player and one of the most importan ...
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British Chess Magazine
''British Chess Magazine'' is the world's oldest chess journal in continuous publication. First published in January 1881, it has appeared at monthly intervals ever since. It is frequently known in the chess world as ''BCM''. The founder and first general editor of the magazine was John Watkinson (1833–1923). He had previously edited the ''Huddersfield College Magazine'', which was the ''British Chess Magazine''s forerunner. From the beginning, the magazine was devoted to the coverage of chess worldwide, and not just in Great Britain. ''BCM'' is an independent and privately owned magazine; it is not owned or run by the former British Chess Federation (now the English Chess Federation), with which its name was occasionally confused, apart from the period August 1981 – July 1992. Apart from being given a new look, the reloaded January 2016 ''BCM'', now in collaboration with Chess Informant, offers more content, more pages and more writers, among them some of the top UK c ...
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Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch (; 5 March 1862 – 17 February 1934) was a German chess player, considered to have been among the strongest players and most influential theoreticians of the late 19th and early 20th century. Life Tarrasch was born in Breslau, in what was then Prussian Silesia and now is Poland. Having finished school in 1880, he left Breslau to study medicine in Berlin and then in Halle. With his family, he settled in Nuremberg, Bavaria, and later in Munich, setting up a successful medical practice. He had five children. Tarrasch was Jewish, converted to Christianity in 1909, and was a patriotic German who lost a son in World War I, yet he faced antisemitism in the early stages of the Third Reich. Chess career A medical doctor by profession, Tarrasch may have been the best player in the world in the early 1890s. He scored heavily against the ageing World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz in tournaments (+3−0=1) but refused an opportunity to challenge Steinitz for the world titl ...
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John Herbert White
John Herbert White (22 February 1880 – 18 November 1920, London, England) was co-author with Richard Clewin Griffith of the first three editions of the famous chess opening treatise ''Modern Chess Openings''. It was first published in 1911 and is still in print. Griffith and White explained in the preface to the first edition that "the many recent master tournaments have rendered necessary an up-to-date book on the Openings" and that "the book is intended to be a guide for match and tournament players". The fifteenth edition, by American grandmaster Nick de Firmian, was published in 2008. The book is commonly referred to as ''MCO'' today. White was the Secretary of the Hampstead Chess Club. He died in 1920 in a bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. B ... accide ...
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Richard Griffith (chess Player)
Richard Clewin Griffith (22 July 1872 in London – 11 December 1955 in Hendon, London) was an English chess player, author and editor. He was educated at Charterhouse School. He won the British Chess Championship in 1912 at Richmond, at his only appearance in the event. Also in 1912, he was the original co-author with John Herbert White of the famous chess book, ''Modern Chess Openings'', which has gone into many editions up to the present day. He was the editor of the ''British Chess Magazine'' from 1920 to 1937, and again for some months in 1940. During World War II Griffith was the honorary treasurer of the British Chess Federation, and a member of its council and executive. By profession, he was a metallurgist for an assaying company. References *''British Chess Magazine'', ''passim'', particularly obit., Jan 1956, pps27-28. *''The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Unive ...
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Modern Chess Openings
''Modern Chess Openings'' (usually called ) is a reference book on chess openings, first published in 1911 by the British players Richard Clewin Griffith (1872–1955) and John Herbert White (1880–1920). The fifteenth edition was published in 2008. Harry Golombek called it "the first scientific study of the openings in the twentieth century".Harry Golombek (editor-in-chief), ''Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess'', Crown Publishers, 1977, p. 202. . History Although Bilguer's ''Handbuch des Schachspiels'' was more authoritative at the time ''MCO'' was first published, it was last published between 1912 and 1916, and was becoming outdated by the 1930s. ''MCO'' was popular with English-speaking players and has continued to be updated throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, with fifteen editions from 1911 through 2008. Early editions were small enough to fit in a pocket (the first edition was 190 pages), but later editions grew and the fifteenth and most recent version is 768 ...
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Frank Marshall (chess Player)
Frank James Marshall (August 10, 1877 – November 9, 1944) was the U.S. Chess Champion from 1909 to 1936, and one of the world's strongest chess players in the early part of the 20th century. Chess career Marshall was born in New York City, and lived in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from age 8 to 19. He began playing chess at the age of 10, and by 1890 (aged 13) was one of the leading players in Montreal. He won the 1904 Cambridge Springs International Chess Congress (scoring 13/15, ahead of World Champion Emanuel Lasker) and the U.S. Congress in 1904, but did not get the national title because the U.S. champion at that time, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, did not compete. In 1906 Pillsbury died and Marshall again refused the championship title until he won it in competition in 1909. In 1907 he played a match against World Champion Emanuel Lasker for the title and lost eight games, winning none and drawing seven. They played their match in New York City, Philadelphia, Washingto ...
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Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker (; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Champion in history. In his prime, Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players in history. His contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents. Recent analysis, however, indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified many of them. Lasker knew contemporary analyses of openings well but disagreed with many of them. He published chess magazines and five chess books, but later players and commentators found it difficult to draw lessons from his methods. Lasker made contributions to the develop ...
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World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013. The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 match between the two leading players in the world, Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort. Steinitz won, becoming the first world champion. From 1886 to 1946, the champion set the terms, requiring any challenger to raise a sizable stake and defeat the champion in a match in order to become the new world champion. Following the death of reigning world champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946, FIDE (the International Chess Federation) took over administration of the World Championship, beginning with the 1948 World Championship tournament. From 1948 to 1993, FIDE organized a set of tournaments to choose a new challenger every three years. In 1993, reigning champion Garry Kasparov broke away from FIDE, which led to a rival claimant to the title of W ...
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Wilhelm Steinitz
William Steinitz (born Wilhelm Steinitz; May 14, 1836 – August 12, 1900) was an Austrian and, later, American chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first official World Chess Champion. He was also a highly influential writer and chess theoretician. When discussing chess history from the 1850s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz could be effectively considered the champion from an earlier time, perhaps as early as 1866. Steinitz lost his title to Emanuel Lasker in 1894, and lost a rematch in 1896–97. Statistical rating systems give Steinitz a rather low ranking among world champions, mainly because he took several long breaks from competitive play. However, an analysis based on one of these rating systems shows that he was one of the most dominant players in the history of the game. Steinitz was unbeaten in match play for 32 years, from 1862 to 1894. Although Steinitz became "world number one" by winning in the all-out attacking style that was c ...
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Carl Schlechter
Carl Schlechter (2 March 1874 – 27 December 1918) was a leading Austro-Hungarian chess master and theoretician at the turn of the 20th century. He is best known for drawing a World Chess Championship match with Emanuel Lasker. Early life Schlechter was born into a Catholic family in Vienna. He is sometimes deemed to be Jewish, although others dispute this. He began playing chess at the age of 13. His first and only teacher was an Austria-Hungarian chess problemist, Dr. Samuel Gold. From 1893 onwards he played in over 50 international chess tournaments. He won or shared first at Munich 1900 (the 12th DSB Congress), Coburg 1904 (the 14th DSB Congress), Ostend 1906, Stockholm 1906, Vienna 1908, Prague 1908, Hamburg 1910 (the 17th DSB Congress), and thrice in the Trebitsch Memorial in Vienna (1911, 1912, 1913). Schlechter played several matches. He drew with Georg Marco (+0 −0 =10) in 1893, drew with Marco and Adolf Zinkl both (+4 −4 =3) in 1894, drew with Dawid Jano ...
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Tassilo Von Heydebrand Und Der Lasa
Tassilo, Baron von Heydebrand und der Lasa (known in English as Baron von der Lasa, 17 October 1818, Berlin – 27 July 1899, Storchnest near Lissa, Greater Poland, then German Empire) was a German chess master, chess historian and theoretician of the nineteenth century, a member of the Berlin Chess Club and a founder of the Berlin Chess School (the Berlin Pleiades). His name is usually abbreviated as "von der Lasa", as this is how he signed his letters. However both contemporary and more recent writers have used other abbreviations, such as "von Heydebrandt" (which is a misspelling) and "Der Lasa". The Prussian King (later Emperor) William I made a joke out of the confusion by saying, "Good morning, dear Heydebrand. What is von der Lasa doing?" Von der Lasa was born 17 October 1818 in Berlin. He studied law in Bonn and Berlin. From 1845 he was a diplomat in the service of Prussia. His career took him to Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Rio de Janeiro, among other places. ...
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