Carl August Walbrodt (November 28, 1871,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

– October 3, 1902,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

) was a German

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

master. Walbrodt's parents, along with his older brother, moved from

Wesel Wesel () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the Wesel district. Geography Wesel is situated at the confluence of the Lippe River and the Rhine. Division of the city Suburbs of Wesel include Lackhausen, Obrighove ...

, Rhine Province to Amsterdam shortly before Carl August was born. They then moved back to the Berlin area before he was 10 years old. At that age his father taught him to play chess. When they originally moved to Amsterdam, Walbrodt's parents were very poor, but by 1881, they had acquired enough money to pay for his schooling. By the mid-1890s Walbrodt and his brother owned a small factory making

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

s. In 1890 he took 5th in Berlin (

Horatio Caro Horatio Caro (5 July 1862 – 15 December 1920) was an English chess player. Caro was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, but spent most of his chess career in Berlin, Germany having moved there when he was two years old. He played several m ...

won). In 1890/91, he took 2nd= (3rd after a play-off) in Berlin (

Richard Teichmann Richard Teichmann (24 December 1868 – 15 June 1925) was a German chess master. He was known as "Richard the Fifth" because he often finished in fifth place in tournaments. But in Karlsbad 1911, he scored a convincing win, crushing Akiba Rub ...

won). In 1892 he tied for 4–5th in Dresden (the 7th

DSB Congress The ''Deutscher Schachbund'' (DSB) was founded in Leipzig on 18 July, 1877. When the next meeting took place in the Schützenhaus on 15 July 1879, sixty-two clubs had become member of the chess federation. Hofrat Rudolf von Gottschall became Chairm ...

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 Bresla ...

won). He tied for 1st with

Curt von Bardeleben Curt Carl Alfred von Bardeleben (4 March 1861 – 31 January 1924) was a German chess master, journalist, and member of the German nobility. Biography Curt von Bardeleben started playing chess when he was ten years old and quickly developed into ...

at Kiel 1893 (the 8th DSB Congress). In 1894, he tied for 4–5th in Leipzig (the 9th DSB Congress, Tarrasch won). He took 11th at Hastings 1895. In 1896, he took 2nd behind von Bardeleben and ahead of

Jacques Mieses Jacques Mieses (born Jacob Mieses; 27 February 1865 – 23 February 1954) was a German-born British chess player. He was one of the inaugural recipients of the title International Grandmaster from FIDE in 1950. He became a naturalized British ci ...

in Berlin (''Triangular''), tied for 7–8th in Nuremberg (

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 Cham ...

won), and tied for 6–7th in Budapest (

Rudolf Charousek Rudolf Charousek ( hu, Charousek Rezső; 19 September 1873 – 18 April 1900) was a Czech born Hungarian chess player. One of the top ten players in the world during the 1890s, he had a short career, dying at the age of 26 from tuberculosis. Re ...

and

Mikhail Chigorin Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin (also ''Tchigorin''; russian: Михаи́л Ива́нович Чиго́рин; – ) was a Russian chess player. He played two World Championship matches against Wilhelm Steinitz, losing both times. The last great ...

tied for first). In 1897, he took 2nd behind Charousek in Berlin, and took 5th in Berlin (Bardeleben won). He took 15th in the

Vienna 1898 chess tournament The tournament celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria's accession to the throne of Austria-Hungary. Main organiser was Baron Albert Freiherr von Rothschild who also financed the Vienna tournaments of 1873, 1882, 1 ...

(Pillsbury and Tarrasch won). Walbrodt played 15 matches from 1890 to 1898. The result of his first match, against Karl Holländer (1890), is unknown. He won against

Emil Schallopp Emil Schallopp (1 August 1843, Friesack, Germany – 9 April 1919, Berlin) was a German chess master and author. He became head of the shorthand department of the Reichstag. He wrote many books, including one on the Steinitz– Zukertort 188 ...

at Berlin 1891,

Hermann Keidanski Hermann Keidanski (later Keidanz and Kaidanz; November 4, 1865, – December 1938, Germany) was a German-Jewish chess master. Keidanski was born in Großendorf, West Prussia (now Władysławowo, Poland), he came to Berlin where he parti ...

at Berlin 1891, von Bardeleben at Berlin 1892, Eugene Delmar at New York 1893, Alfred Ettlinger at New York 1893, Andrés Clemente Vázquez at Havana 1893,

Wilhelm Cohn Wilhelm Cohn ( he, וילהלם קוהן, February 6, 1859, Berlin – August 17, 1913, Charlottenburg) was a German chess master. He participated in some strong tournaments. In 1897, he tied for 13-14th in Berlin ( Rudolf Charousek won). In 189 ...

at Berlin 1894, Kuerschner at Nuremberg 1898, Haeusler, drew with

Theodor von Scheve Theodor von Scheve (11 June 1851 – 19 April 1922) was a German chess master and writer. Scheve was born in Cosel in the Prussian Province of Silesia. An army officer by profession, Scheve lived in Breslau, where he co-founded the ''Schachver ...

at Berlin 1891, Mieses at Berlin 1894, and lost to Pillsbury (+0 –2 =1) at Boston 1893, Tarrasch (+0 –7 =1) at Nuremberg 1894, and

Dawid Janowski Dawid Markelowicz Janowski (25 May 1868 – 15 January 1927; often spelled ''David'') was a Polish-born French chess player. The Janowski variations of the Old Indian Defense and of the Queen's Gambit Declined are named after him. Biography B ...

(+2 –4 =2) at Berlin 1897. He was very active in giving simultaneous displays, teaching chess, and attending chess events. Walbrodt also founded two chess clubs and wrote a chess column in the ''Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger'' from about September 1899 until February 1902. According to the Oxford Companion to Chess, he was diagnosed with

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

in the early 1890s. He died from that disease at the age of 30.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walbrodt, Carl German chess players Sportspeople from Berlin People from Wesel Sportspeople from Düsseldorf (region) 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis 1871 births 1902 deaths 19th-century chess players Tuberculosis deaths in Germany