Paul Felix Schmidt

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Paul Felix Schmidt (born November 7 . Jul / 20th August  1916 greg. In Narva (now Narva ); † 11. August 1984 in Allentown (Pennsylvania) ) was a Baltic German chess player .

Life

Schmidt was the son of a Baltic German ophthalmologist. He learned chess at an early age and was considered one of the best players in Estonia in his youth . In 1935 he won an international tournament in Tallinn (German Reval ). In 1936 he played a match against Paul Keres in Pärnu, a draw 3.5: 3.5 (+3 = 1 −3). In 1937 he won in Pärnu ahead of Paul Keres, Salo Flohr and Gideon Ståhlberg . In the same year he played at the 1937 Chess Olympiad in Stockholm for Estonia on the second board (behind Keres), at the 1939 Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires he won bronze with Estonia. In 1936 and 1937 he won the Estonian individual championship.

At the end of 1939 the family moved to the German- occupied Reichsgau Wartheland . Schmidt, who settled in Bromberg , first studied chemistry in Gdansk , then in Heidelberg , where he also received his doctorate . Schmidt took part in various tournaments in Germany and the territories occupied during the war : in 1940 he came second in the German championship in Bad Oeynhausen . In 1941 (also in Bad Oeynhausen) he got first place with Klaus Junge and defeated him in the subsequent playoff. In the same year, he and Alexander Alekhine won the chess championship in the Generalgouvernement in Krakow / Warsaw . In 1943 he was third in Salzburg and second in the Greater German Championship in Vienna .

After the end of the war, Schmidt first came second behind Efim Bogoljubow in Kassel in 1947, later he reached 50% of the points (6th place) in the Hastings tournament in 1948/49, which was won by Nicolas Rossolimo . In the Hoogovens tournament in 1949 he was shared second (with Tjeerd van Scheltinga ) behind Savielly Tartakower , but his chess career was over in 1950. He last took part in the German championships in Bad Pyrmont in 1949 (3rd – 5th place) and 1950 (9th – 10th place) and then decided to move to the USA . He lived and worked as a chemist in Philadelphia . His best historical rating was 2696. He achieved this in December 1943 and was thus ranked 9th on the (historical) world best list.

Schmidt was named International Master by the World Chess Federation FIDE in 1950 (when the title was first awarded) .

Works

  • Chess masters think , Dietmannsried-Allgäu 1949.

literature

  • Alfred Diel : Paul Schmidt - A chess master from the Baltic States , in: Kaissiber 18, (Nordwalde) March – June 2002, pp. 68–70.
  • Michael Negele: Masterful things from the retort , in KARL 1/2016, pp. 34–39.
  • AJ Gillam : Paul Felix Schmidt , Nottingham: The Chess Player, 2017, ISBN 978-1-911444-00-8 .
  • Eva Regina Magacs, Michael Negele: Paul Felix Schmidt. A winning formula . Exzelsior-Verlag, Berlin 2017. ISBN 978-3-935800-08-2 . (Biography in English and German. Eva Regina Magacs is the daughter of Paul Felix Schmidt)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the baptismal register of St. John's Church in Narwa (Estonian: Narva Jaani kirik)
  2. ↑ Paul Felix Schmidt's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
  3. ↑ German individual championship 1940 in Bad Oeynhausen on TeleSchach (cross table and games)
  4. ↑ German individual championship 1941 in Bad Oeynhausen on TeleSchach (cross table and games)
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Paul Felix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Baltic chess player
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Tallinn
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1984
Place of death Allentown