Hermann Clemenz

Hermann Karl Eduard Clemenz (born January 23, 1846 in Dorpat , Livonia Governorate , † March 28, 1908 ) was a Baltic chess player and journalist .

Life

Clemenz attended the Dorpater Gymnasium and was enrolled as a lawyer at the university there between 1867 and 1877. From the late 1860s to around 1880, he was considered one of the strongest players in Russia . Andreas Ascharin , one of Clemenz's chess partners since high school, described his style of play as follows: “Speculative by nature, not losing his self-control even in excitement, he was just as adept at finding the right path through the labyrinth of intricate combinations To use the enemy's nakedness and to exploit the gained advantage until the final victory, when he knew how to find ways and means, even in the greatest distress, to prolong the resistance and to make the triumph of the enemy more difficult ”.

Together with Ascharin and Friedrich Amelung , Clemenz founded a chess club in Dorpat. At the end of 1869 he traveled to Saint Petersburg , where he successfully played hundreds of games with various opponents. He also played up to six games at the same time à l'aveugle several times and changed a game with Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolajewitsch . In 1877 he took part in a tournament there with the participation of Michail Tschigorin , Emanuel Schiffers and other players. In the match of five games against Simon Alapin , he had to be satisfied with 1½ points. From 1879 to 1882 and again from 1884 to 1890 Clemenz was a member of the St. Petersburg Association of Friends of the Chess Game. In early 1881 he came third in a tournament behind Chigorin and Alapin. Since then, he has almost completely withdrawn from match practice. In the correspondence battles Saint Petersburg - London 1886/1887 and Saint Petersburg - Paris 1894 he was a member of the gaming committee. In 1901 he was third in a tournament with only one lost game and one point behind Grigori Helbach and Sergei Lebedew.

Clemenz was employed by Governor General Kryschanowski in Orenburg and as a tutor in Kazan . Since 1881 he has been editing the chess column in "Revaler Observer", which is considered the oldest chess column in the Baltic States. Then he became co-editor and head of the chess column in the “St. Petersburg Herald ” .

The Clemenz opening , which begins with the move 1. h2 – h3, is named after Hermann Clemenz .

Game example

Clemenz - Eisenschmidt, 1862

	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

Position after 24.Ne6 #

The following game with Friedrich Eisenschmidt, played in Dorpat on May 20, 1862, was printed in "Samoutschitel schachmatnoi igry" by Schiffers and many other chess books. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Bc5 6. d4 exd4 7. cxd4 Bb6 8. 0–0 d6 9. Nc3 Bd7 10. e5 dxe5 11. Re1 Nge7 12. Ng5 Be6 13. Bxe6 fxe6 14. Nxe6 Qd6 15. Nxg7 + Kf8 16. Qg4 Bxd4 17. Ne4 Qb4 (17.… Qg6 would have been much better) 18. Ne6 + Ke8 19. Nf6 + Kf7 20. Ng5 + Kf8 The next move to a3 is the bishop the preparation for the "problem-related suffocated mate" serves. 21. Ba3 Qxa3 22. Qe6 Nd8 23. Qf7 + Nxf7 24. Ne6 # 1: 0

literature

• Chess Yearbook for 1899/1900 , Veit & Comp., Leipzig 1899, p. 117
• J. Dlugolenski, W. Sak: Ljudi i schachmaty: stranizy schachmatnoi istorii Peterburga-Petrograda-Leningrada . Lenizdat, 1988, ISBN 978-5-289-00137-5 , p. 61.

Web links

• Entry in Edo Historical Chess Ratings (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schach-Humoresken , Riga 1894, p. 18.
2. ^ David Hooper and Ken Whyld , The Oxford Companion to Chess , Oxford University Press, 2nd edition 1992, ISBN 0198661649 , p. 81.
3. ↑ Baltic chess players . Issue 7, 1900, p. 326.