Hoffer Leopold (1842 – 1913)

Hungarian-born English chess journalist, player and organizer of chess events.

Hoffer went to Vienna in 1860 and from there to Paris where he was the tournament secretary of the great international tournament of 1867. With the advent of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 he left Paris and came to London in 1870, where he settled for good. According to that dubious source, the Rev. G.A. MacDonnel, on his arrival in England he knew no English but, such were his powers of picking up languages, within a few weeks he was speaking excellent English and making jokes in that tongue. Wilhelm Steinitz helped Hoffer to get established in England, but later they became bitter enemies. Hoffer founded and edited the Chess Monthly (1879-96). It was in this magazine that he conducted a fierce and on occasion libelous campaign against Wilhelm Steinitz. Hoffer was a close friend and supporter of Herman Zukertort and Zukertort’s contributions (1881-8) enriched the magazine. Hoffer wrote for the Standard and the Westminster Gazette and when Wilhelm Steinitz moved to America in 1882, Hoffer took over Steinitz’s chess column in The Field. Here again he wrote vitriolic pieces against his enemies, though not perhaps quite so bitterly as Steinitz had done. Hoffer was extremely industrious.

In spite of a quick, sharp temper and a serious case of snobbery, Hoffer appeared at all tournaments, knew every grand- and no-so-grand master, was friendly and humorous and was Mr. Chess in England. He founded the British Chess Club in 1895 and was its secretary. He regularly acted as umpire and adjudicator of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities annual chess match. He arranged all important English congresses and matches, edited matchbooks on David Janowsky – Frank Marshall and Emanuel Lasker – Siegbert Tarrasch and ran the 1907 Ostend tournament. Whilst at the British Chess Federation congress at Cheltenham in August 1913 he was taken seriously ill and was rushed to London where he was sent to a nursing home but died during an operation at the age of seventy.

Throughout this busy and successful existence, Hoffer carried on a most bitter feud with Wilhelm Steinitz. They wrote unbelievably vicious articles about each other – Hoffer in the Chess Monthly and Steinitz in his International Chess Magazine (1885-91). These exchanges make fascinating reading even 100 years later. Hoffer was an excellent writer on the game. His lack of objectivity where his enemies were concerned was compensated for by the vigor and ease of his language.