Chess Personalities

Louis Charles de La Bourdonnais was born in the Isle Bourbon (La Reunion) in 1797 into a wealthy family. His grandfather, Bertrand-Francois Mahe de La Bourdonnais (1699-1753), was the governor of Mauritius (La Reunion) and a French naval commander. He was sent to the Lycee Henri IV in Paris, where in 1814, he learned chess.

German Diplomat, chess historian, theoretician and one of the  famous member of the ‘Berlin Pleiades’ under Ludwig Bledow. He never played in a tournament or in a formal match but in a serie of offhand games he beat Howard Staunton in 1844 and 1853, few times Adolf Anderssen between 1845 and 1850 and Johann Löwenthal

German player, chess theoretician, composer and journalist. One of the founders of the Western German Chess Union (1861). Organizer the Leipzig Congress of 1894. Winner of German Congresses at Dusseldorf in 1862, 1863 and 1864, Aachen 1868, and the Congress of the Western German Union at Hamburg in 1868. One of the founders and the

Belgian chess journalist in the Nation Belge and strong chess amateur. International Arbiter in 1952. Life member of FIDE. Chemical engineer. Lancel was probably better known to be the founder of the famous L’ Echiquier in February 1925, a monthly magazine, whose contributors are notables like Alexander Alekhine, Thomas Rayner Dawson and Savelly Tartakower. He

German chess player and composer. A teacher of mathematics. He was a member of the Berlin Pleiades. Best results: Winner of a row of matches, including the match with Adolf Andersen 4-1. Chairman of the Berlin chess club in 1836 he founded 10 years later the first and famous German chess magazine Chairman of the

Australian Master and national champion from 1932 to 1934 and 1939 to 1945. Koshinsky was born in Russia and for a few decades he actively ran chess in Australia as represented it to FIDE and was elected FIDE Vice President in 1962. He also participated in the Olympiads of 1964, 1968 and 1970.

Russian Commissar for War in the first Bolshevik Government and later a Commissar for Justice in the USSR. Krylenko may have done more than anyone else to popularize chess. As Chairman of the chess section of the All-Union Council for Physical Recreation, he was largely responsible for persuading the Soviet Government to sponsor chess and

Austro-Hungarian chess player, born in Pressburg. Kolisch was one of the strongest players of the 1860’s and he achieved a number of victories, some of which included: a win against Bernhard Horwitz +3-1=0 in Manchester, 1860; a crushing victory against Thomas Barnes +10-1 in London, 1860 and a draw in an endless match with Louis

Dutch businessman (CEO of  SWIFT, Belgacom and later of Czech Telecom) and chess patron. He graduated in 1963 from the Municipal University of Amsterdam with a degree in Economic Sciences In 2002 he set up the Eurotel tournament, which resulted in the historical signature of the ‘Prague Agreement’ between Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and FIDE with

Well known German chess journalist, book author, and photographer who lives in Berlin. The author of more than 20 chess books over World Champions, Olympiads, tournaments etc. The translator of 50 chess books (Karpov, Korchnoi, Smyslov, Jussupow, Dvoretsky, Suetin, Neistadt, Nesis etc.) from Russian to the German language. Organizer of the Millennium tournament 1996 in