Henry Edward Bird

Henry Bird is a redirect to this article. For other people, see Henry Bird (disambiguation) .

Henry Edward Bird, 1877
Association	United Kingdom
Born	July 14, 1829 Portsea , United Kingdom
Died	April 11, 1908 London
Best Elo rating	2635 (September 1875) ( historical rating )

Henry Edward Bird (born July 14, 1829 in Portsea , Hampshire , † April 11, 1908 in London ) was one of the best English chess players of the 19th century .

He took part in the first modern chess tournament in London in 1851 , but was eliminated in the first round with 1.5: 2.5 against Bernhard Horwitz . In 1858 he played a few games with Paul Morphy . He later lost competitions against world chess champions Wilhelm Steinitz (1866, at 5: 7, canceled with 5 draws when Bird had to travel to the USA for professional reasons) and Emanuel Lasker (1890, result: 3.5: 8.5 and 1892, result: 0: 5). Despite these failures, he was highly valued in the chess scene for his original style of play.

Bird received the first beauty prize in chess history in New York in 1876, namely a silver cup for his game against James Mason .

Bird, who was an accountant by profession , also appeared as the author of several popular chess books, including Chess masterpieces (1875) and Chess history and reminiscences (1893). There are also some chess problems from him.

The Bird opening ( 1. f2 – f4 ) is named after him. In the Spanish game , too , a variant (1. e2 – e4 e7 – e5 2. Ng1 – f3 Nb8 – c6 3. Bf1 – b5 Nc6 – d4 ) is called Bird Defense .

Web links

• Playable chess games by Henry Edward Bird on chessgames.com (English)
• Compositions by Henry Bird on the PDB server