Szymon Winawer

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Winawer.jpg
Szymon Winawer in the 1880s or 1890s
Association PolandPoland Poland
Born March 6, 1838
Warsaw
Died November 29, 1919
Warsaw
Best Elo rating 2708 (April 1883) ( historical rating )

Szymon Winawer , in German called Simon Winawer , (born March 6, 1838 in Warsaw , † November 29, 1919 in Warsaw) was an important Polish chess player of the 19th century .

Life

Winawer was born in Warsaw in 1838 as the son of a very wealthy Jewish vodka manufacturer. He had nine brothers and a sister. He developed his passion for chess early on in the Warsaw cafés, where he was also noticed by the Russian master player Alexander Petrow and predicted a bright future for him. When Winawer first took part in an international tournament in Paris in 1867 , he immediately won second prize of 800 francs , behind Baron Ignaz von Kolisch , but ahead of players like Wilhelm Steinitz and Gustav Neumann . Apparently he traveled to Paris for business reasons, where he just happened to find an opportunity to play chess.

In 1868, a national tournament with 23 participants was held in Warsaw for the first time, which he won as expected. His great success moved Winawer to regularly take part in all the major chess tournaments of his time from then on. In the 1870s and 1880s, he was considered one of the leading players in the world. After 1883, he took a chess break of nearly ten years to pursue his business. When he returned to the chessboard at the age of 55, he was no longer able to build on his successful time as a top world player. He played his last tournament in Monte Carlo in 1901. His greatest successes are the tournaments of Saint Petersburg in 1875, Paris in 1878, Vienna in 1882 and Nuremberg in 1883. He achieved his best historical rating of 2708 in April 1883. Accordingly, he was overall over one Year in second place in the world rankings.

Winawer's grave in Warsaw

During his stay in St. Petersburg in 1875, he also won a match against Ilya Shumov 5-2. In St. Petersburg he also met Mikhail Chigorin , who at that time still had the level of a café house player. The joint training was fruitful for both. Winawer, despite claiming never to have read a chess book, emerged as an eminent chess theorist. One of the most frequently played variants in the French defense is named after him and Aaron Nimzowitsch : the Winawer variant after 1. e2 – e4 e7 – e6 2. d2 – d4 d7 – d5 3. Nb1 – c3 Bf8 – b4 , which he played in the tournament of London applied it several times in 1883. Winawer also left traces in the Slavic defense of the Queen's Gambit: 1. d2 – d4 d7 – d5 2. c2 – c4 c7 – c6 3. Nb1 – c3 e7 – e5 (the Winawer gambit). At a time when the state of Poland did not exist and Warsaw was part of the Russian Empire as part of Congress Poland , Winawer insisted on participating in tournaments to be seen as a Pole and representative of Warsaw. He died in his hometown at the age of 81.

Others

Paulin Frydman , the son of a sister of Winawer, also became a leading Polish chess master in the 1920s and 1930s, who was awarded the title of International Master by FIDE in 1955 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Szymon Winawer  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chessmetrics Player Profile April 17, 2006 (English).
  2. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , November 12, 2011, p. S10.
personal data
SURNAME Winawer, Szymon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Winawer, Simon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish chess player
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1919
Place of death Warsaw