Joseph Henry Blackburne

Joseph Henry Blackburne
Association	United Kingdom
Born	December 10, 1841 Manchester , United Kingdom
Died	September 1, 1924 London
Best Elo rating	2748 (August 1886) ( historical rating )

Joseph Henry Blackburne (born December 10, 1841 in Manchester , † September 1, 1924 in London ) was an English chess master and one of the most outstanding chess players in the second half of the 19th century.

Life

Before starting his chess career, Blackburne worked in a commercial profession. At first he was considered an excellent checkers player. At the age of 18, under the influence of Paul Morphy's successes, he learned the rules of chess, studied Howard Staunton's manual and joined the Manchester Chess Club . In 1861 he lost a game against Louis Paulsen , in which he played blind simul . A short time later, Blackburne himself was able to play ten blind games simultaneously. He became a professional chess player and from then on devoted his whole life to the game. He was soon called "Black Death" because he usually came to play chess in a shabby black suit and an old black top hat. But also because, in the spirit of the romantic chess epoch, he was a feared attacking and combination player and had iron nerves. Apparently he had a fondness for alcoholic beverages.

Blackburne was married. His wife died at the age of 84 on January 23, 1922 in Lewisham (now in London).

successes

	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

Scheme of the Blackburne mate

From 1862 to 1914 he took part in almost all major championship tournaments in the world and achieved good results. In 1872 he took second place behind Wilhelm Steinitz in a tournament in London , also in Vienna in 1873. He won the tournament in Wiesbaden in 1880. His greatest success was the victory in Berlin in 1881 before Johannes Hermann Zukertort and other leading chess masters. Also in London in 1886 he took 1st place after a playoff against Amos Burn . In the Manchester tournament in 1890 he was second behind Siegbert Tarrasch . At the age of 73 he played in the high-level tournament of Saint Petersburg in 1914 and reached the 9th / 10th. Space.

Blackburne also gave blind simultaneous performances on up to 16 boards. The “Blackburne Matt ” with three easy pieces, which first appeared in one of his games, and the Blackburne trap were named after him .

Lots

Zukertort - Blackburne, London 1883

literature

• P. Anderson Graham (Ed.): Blackburne's Chess Games, Selected, Annotated and Arranged by Joseph Henry Blackburne. London 1899 (Reprinted by Dover Publications, New York City 1979, ISBN 0-486-23857-1 ).
• Tim Harding: Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography . McFarland, Jefferson 2015. ISBN 9780786474738 .
• Owen Hindle: JH Blackburne, The Final Years. Nottingham 1998, ISBN 1-901034-11-9 .
• Robert Huebner : The first competition between Blackburne and Steinitz , Caissa. Journal for Chess and Board Game History 1/2016, pp. 5–16.

Web links

Commons : Joseph Henry Blackburne  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Replayable chess games by Joseph Henry Blackburne on 365Chess.com
• Sarah's Chess Journal: Joseph Henry Blackburne: The Black Death of the Chess Players , August 2006 (English article despite the headline)
• Compositions by Joseph Henry Blackburne on the PDB server

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Obituary. In: The British Chess Magazine . of February 1, 1922, p. 50.
2. ↑ Standard Checkmates: Blackburne's Mate. Serverchess, accessed on July 3, 2015 .