Gunnar Gundersen (11 March 1882 in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

– 9 February 1943 in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

) was an Australian

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

master. Born in Bordeaux, France, he was raised in Melbourne, Australia, where his Norwegian father was the Scandinavian consul. Gundersen started to play chess at his first year of study at Melbourne University in 1902. He would eventually become a professor of mathematics at the same university. He participated in the

Mannheim 1914 chess tournament The 19th DSB Congress (''19. Kongreß des Deutschen Schachbundes''), comprising several tournaments, began on 20 July 1914 in Mannheim. Germany declared war on Russia (on August 1) and on France (August 3), Britain joining in the next day. The cong ...

(the 19th

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 Ch ...

, ''19. Kongreß des Deutschen Schachbundes''), scoring 2.5/10 in the Main tournament (''Hauptturnier A'') before the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

stopped the event on 1 August 1914. The ''Morning Post'' of 14 September gave an account of the Australian, Gundersen. "There was a hurried pro-rata distribution of the prize-fund, in which those who happened to be present participated, and Mr. Gundersen himself succeeded in getting away to Christiana ow Osloat a cost of semi-starvation and extraordinary fatigue, for the train was six days on what should have been a 36 hours' journey, and during that time he had only two meals and ten hours sleep". Gundersen won the Victorian State Championship in 1907, 1908, 1912, 1913, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1922 and 1929; won the Pietzcker Christmas Tournament in Melbourne in 1925/26 and 1926/27; and won the

New Zealand Chess Championship The New Zealand Chess Championship is an annual open tournament played to determine the country's chess champion. It is organised by the New Zealand Chess Federation. The first installment of the championship was held in Christchurch in 1879, and ...

at Wanganui 1929/30 and Napier 1931/32.

References

External links

Gunnar Gundersen at 365Chess.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gundersen (chess player), Gunnar 1882 births 1943 deaths Australian chess players Norwegian emigrants to Australia Norwegian expatriates in France Chess players from Melbourne