Fritz Giegold

Fritz Emil Giegold (born March 2, 1903 in Leupoldsgrün ; † November 13, 1978 there ) was a German chess composer .

Chess composition

In 1916 Giegold's first chess problem was published in the Hofer Anzeiger . In 1926 and 1948 he was the Bavarian problem master . A little later he was awarded first and third prizes in the Upper Franconian problem tournament in Selb . In 1931 he was able to win four out of six prizes in the Upper Franconian problem tournament in Michelau . He was awarded the badge of honor of the Upper Franconian Chess Association. From 1948 until his death he was responsible for the chess corner of the Frankenpost . In 1949 he became the Bavarian problem master. In total he wrote about 850 chess problems, which often appeared in daily newspapers.

In the Hammelburg internment camp , where he was the "camp chess master", Giegold staged loyalty tournaments in 1947, which were well received.

Since his tasks were mostly visually appealing and puzzling, Giegold contributed a lot to the popularization of chess composition and was nicknamed "Rätselonkel". His tasks were also popular with the solvers. In 1960, Ado Kraemer characterized Giegold as a "problem composer who is currently the strongest and most witty interpreting the moment of the riddle in the chess problem."

Fritz Giegold
The World, 1956

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Mate in 4 moves

Solution:

First you have to give the black king a space so that there is no stalemate . Everything is based on pressure to act .
1. Ba5 – e1 Kc6 – b6
2. Be1 – f2 Kb6 – a7 or Kb6 – c6
3. Ne3 – c4 d5xc4
4. d4 – d5 mate
2.… Kb6 – a5
3. Kc8 – b7 Ka5 – b4
4. Bf2– e1 matt

the surprising runner maneuvers of the first two trains are called in the chess problem back position .

However, the entire idea was anticipated by Alexander Galizki in 1893 .

Chess player

Giegold also played tournament chess quite passably. At the age of 18 he became a member of the Hof 1892 chess club , of which he later became an honorary member. In 1925 he became Upper Franconian chess master , and in the following years he became city master of Hof several times. Occasionally he lost a game because he avoided the pragmatic continuation in a winning position and instead looked for a "nice" winning move. After the Second World War he shifted his focus to chess composition.

Private

Giegold worked as a trained banker before he switched to the textile industry in 1934, where he worked as an accountant until his retirement in 1968.

As a good sports shooter, Giegold received the golden badge of honor from the Frohsinn shooting club in Leupoldsgrün. He was also known as a mushroom connoisseur who studied the relevant specialist literature.

Giegold remained a bachelor.

literature

• Fritz Giegold, Walther Horwitz: Magic on the chessboard . European publisher, Vienna 1962
• Herbert Engel, Karl-D. Schulz: Fritz Giegold - 200 problematic ideas and ideas . feenschach-Verlag, Wegberg 1982.
• Herbert Engel: Problem collection by Fritz Giegold . Hof, December 1985.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schach-Echo , January 5, 1955, p. 16
2. ↑ according to Herbert Engel: Fritz Giegold . In: Engel 1985. pp. 2–3 (not numbered)

Web links

• Compositions by Fritz Giegold on the Schwalbe's PDB server
• Die Schwalbe , Issue 200, April 2003 Calendar sheet for the 100th birthday