Horatio Caro

Horatio Caro, around 1905
Association	England
Born	Newcastle upon Tyne July 5, 1862
Died	London December 15, 1920
Best Elo rating	2676 (October 1893) ( historical rating )

Horatio Caro (born July 5, 1862 in Newcastle upon Tyne , † December 15, 1920 in London ) was an English chess player and chess theorist.

He lived in Berlin and was a member of the Berlin Chess Society . In 1890 he drew attention to himself when he won a tournament game against the future world champion Emanuel Lasker in just 14 moves.

Caro appeared on the international tournament arena even before the turn of the century : He finished 9th at the international tournament in Berlin in 1897, and a year later he took part in the great Austrian Kaiser jubilee tournament in Vienna (17th place).

In 1904 he became 1st Berlin Master. In the same year he took part in the 14th Congress of the German Chess Federation in Coburg , but only finished 11th there. At a championship tournament in Barmen in 1905 he came in 7th and was able to leave Rudolf Spielmann and Aaron Nimzowitsch , who were at the beginning of their careers, behind.

Caro played competitions against the best chess masters of his time and proved to be surprisingly more successful than in his tournaments: He drew twice (1892 and 1903) against Curt von Bardeleben . The first competition ended 3: 3 (+2 = 2 −2), the second 4: 4 (+4 = 0 −4) and just lost to the Polish world class player Szymon Winawer with 2.5: 3.5 (+2 = 1 −3) and against Jacques Mieses with 4.5: 5.5 (+3 = 5 −4), both in Berlin 1897. In 1905 he won a match against the German champion Moritz Lewitt with 6.5: 5.5 ( +4 = 5 −3), also held in Berlin.

Today he is best known for his analysis of the later so-called Caro-Kann Defense (1. e2 – e4 c7 – c6 ), which he published in 1886 in the chess column of the Daily Rundschau . It was the Pole Szymon Winawer who was the first to introduce this move into tournament practice, namely as early as 1883, but it was only the theoretical basis provided by Caro and Kann that this defense, which is so popular today, was established (it was last introduced at the highest level by Magnus Carlsen used in the 2nd game of his 2013 World Championship fight against Viswanathan Anand ).

A variant in the English opening is also named after Caro and Kann , namely the structure 1. c2 – c4 Ng8 – f6 2. Nb1 – c3 c7 – c6 3. e2 – e4 d7 – d5 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jeremy Gaige : Chess Personalia: A Biobibliography . McFarland & Company, July 1987. ISBN 978-0899502939 , page 64.