Eugene Beauharnais Cook

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Eugene Beauharnais Cook (born May 19, 1830 in New York City , † March 19, 1915 in Hoboken (New Jersey) ) was an American chess composer .

Life

Cook was born on Pine Street near what is now the Equitable Building . His father was a general, while his mother worked as a translator and writer. Cook received private tuition in Bordentown , New Jersey , until he went to Princeton College at the age of 16 , where he came out best in class. During this time he was particularly interested in mathematical puzzles.

After mental overexertion, Cook had to leave college and remained disabled and ill for a long time . In 1854 he moved with his parents to Hoboken , where his health improved. During this period he began to occupy himself with chess , which he had already learned from his mother at the age of eleven. Cook soon became one of the best players in town, but could not become a master player due to his poor constitution. Instead, he dealt with chess problems and was considered by Howard Staunton to be the most valuable composition writer for the Chess Player's Chronicle .

General Cook, Eugene Beauharnais Cook's father, died in 1864 with little financial means. Cook studied again and received a Master of Arts degree from Princeton in 1868 .

He was also chairman of the figure skating committees . In 1864 he bundled the first 25 rules in figure skating into a competition order.

Cook was active as a mountaineer and hiker in the 1880s. His library contained one of the largest collections of chess books and magazines in the United States.

Chess composition

Cook was composing 655 chess problems by 1897 when an article was written about him. He never took part in tournaments because he was of the opinion that the problems speak for themselves even without tournament success. According to Emanuel Lasker , the term Cook for an incorrectness in a chess problem goes back to Eugene Beauharnais Cook, while Benjamin Glover Laws traces the term back to a saying by Josef Kling .

Works

  • E. B. Cook, W. R. Henry & C. A. Gilberg: American Chess Nuts: A collection of problems, by composers of the western world . Adelmour L. King, publisher. New York 1868
  • The Poetry of Motion in Skating

swell

  • Harrie Grondijs: No Rook Unturned. A Tour Around the Saavedra Study . 2nd edition 2004. ISBN 90-74827-52-7 . Pp. 24-28

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wissen.spiegel.de on figure skating ( Memento from January 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ NY Times, March 20, 1915
personal data
SURNAME Cook, Eugene Beauharnais
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cook, EB
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chess composer
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1830
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1915
Place of death Hoboken, New Jersey