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Adolf
Anderssen was a famous German
chess master, one of the
most renowned of the classic masters of 19th century chess. He had a long and distinguished chess career, at times
considered the leading player in the world, and world famous
for his sparkling play even today. Anderssen
was the 10th unofficial world champion from 1851-1858 and later became the 12th unofficial world champion,
holding the crown for a second time from 1862-1866.
Anderssen was
born in Breslau,
Germany (now
Wrocław,
Poland) in 1818. He lived
in the city of his birth for most of his life, never
married, living with and supporting his widowed mother and
his unmarried sister. Anderssen graduated from the public
gymnasium in Breslau, then
attended university where he studied mathematics and
philosophy. He graduated, and took a position at the Friedrichs-Gymnasium as an instructor in 1847 (27 years of
age)
and later Professor of Mathematics. Anderssen lived a quiet,
stable, responsible, respectable, middle-class life. His
career was teaching math, while his hobby and passion was
playing chess.
When Anderssen
was nine years old, his father taught him how to play. Anderssen said that as a boy, he learned the strategy of the
game from a copy of
William Lewis's book Fifty
Games between Labourdonnais and McDonnell (1835). Anderssen
was not a
chess prodigy; his progress
was deliberate, and by 1840 at age twenty-two, he had not
yet surpassed German masters such as
Ludwig Bledow,
von der Lasa, and
Wilhelm Hanstein.
In 1848
Anderssen drew a match with the professional player
Daniel Harrwitz. On the
basis of this match and his general chess reputation, he
received an invitation to represent German
chess at the world's first international chess tournament,
London 1851. Anderssen was reluctant to accept the
invitation, as travel costs were a substantial issue to his
limited pocketbook. However,
Howard Staunton offered to
pay Anderssen's travel expenses out of his own pocket if
necessary, should Anderssen fail to win a tournament prize. This was a generous offer, and Anderssen made the trip. At
that tournament, Anderssen defeated
Lionel Kieseritzky,
József Szén, Staunton, and
Marmaduke Wyvill, winning
the tournament to everyone's surprise.
Anderssen was
celebrated as well for two of his casual chess games in
which he was victorious through combinations involving heavy
sacrifice of the pieces. In the first, called the "Immortal Game", as white
against Kieseritzky in
1851, he sacrificed a
bishop, both rooks, and finally his queen. In the second
played in
Berlin, in the year
1852, as white against
Jean Dufresne, the total
sacrifice was more modest, but still exceeded a queen and a
minor piece. That game has since been called the "Evergreen Game".
For the next
few years he was considered by many people to be the world's
premier player, but as he needed to earn for living, he had
to go back for teaching again after the competition. Then in
1858 he was beaten by the American star
Paul Morphy in a famous
match held in Paris, France, losing by a score of two wins
versus Morphy's seven, with two draws. Anderssen
played the curious initial move of 1. a3 in the match
against Morphy, and this opening move is now referred to as
"Anderssen's
Opening." The opening has never been popular in
serious competition.
Three years
after being defeated by Morphy, Anderssen came back and won
London 1862, the first international round-robin event (in
which each participant plays a game against all the others)
with a score of twelve wins out of thirteen games, losing
only to
John Owen.
This victory gave him the unofficial title of world
chess champion for the second time, as Morphy had since
retired from serious chess.
In 1866 he
played and lost a close match (6-8-0) with young
Wilhelm Steinitz (30
year-old). The match introduced a number of new ideas to the
field of
chess strategy. A few
modern writers say that after the match Steinitz was the
world champion, but the players themselves did not make any
such claim, nor did anybody else at the time. Later
Anderssen lost a second match against Steinitz.
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""Anderssen was honest and
honorable to the core.
Without fear or favor he straightforwardly gave his
opinion, and his sincere disinterestedness became so
patent....that his word alone was usually sufficient to
quell disputes...for he had often given his decision in
favor
of a rival..."
– Wilhelm Steinitz (about
Anderssen) |
Anderssen's
greatest chess achievement came late in his life, when he
won Baden-Baden 1870, the strongest tournament ever held up
to its time. He finished first ahead of his old nemesis Steinitz, as well as the great players
Gustav Neumann and
Joseph Henry Blackburne.
Still playing
strongly, Anderssen's last major victory was placing second
at Leipzig 1877, at the age of fifty nine. Two years later,
he died. The Deutsche Schachzeitung noted his death in 1879 with a nineteen page
obituary. |
