Bernhard Horwitz

Submitted by billwall on Tue, 05/20/2008 at 4:03pm.

Bernhard Horwitz (1807-1885) was a German-born painter (specialized in miniatures) and chess study composer. In 1845, he settled in England and began teaching chess. In 1846, he lost an unofficial world championship match with Howard Staunton, losing 14 games, winning 7, and drawing 3. He won the first study-composing chess tournament, held in 1862. Along with Josef Kling, he wrote Chess Studies and End-Games in 1851, reprinted in 1884 with 208 endgame studies. He was one of the Berlin Pleiades. He lent his name to the Horwitz Bishops, which are two bishops working in tandem on adjacent diagonals.

Here is one of the games the Horwitz beat Staunton. Horwitz threatened a back rank mate that Staunton missed.

» posted in Chess Players

| 859 reads | 7 comments |

2 votes:

Comments:

by chessghost - 2 months ago
Kangar, Perlis Malaysia

Member Since: Oct 2007
Member Points: 24

Nice.

by ProteusIQ - 3 months ago
Arusha Tanzania

Member Since: Feb 2008
Member Points: 189

it was kinda weird game! Like you could see what they wanted to do! Missing calculation would be so hard since its so clear up! Knight moving freely down without thinking of stopping it! and well!! I dont know, Perhaps I am too much!

Thank you for sharing such wonder article!

by God2 - 3 months ago
Malaysia

Member Since: Feb 2008
Member Points: 1082

very nice!

by batgirl - 3 months ago
NC United States

Member Since: Jun 2007
Member Points: 3005

"I don't recall seeing many awful blunders like this by Kasparov or Topolov or the likes."

Yes, no modern player of Kramnik's calibre would ever, say, miss mate in 1.

by wawapz - 3 months ago
Ontario Canada

Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 24

It's common to see debates about how masters of old would stack up against today's best. I don't recall seeing many awful blunders like this by Kasparov or Topolov or the likes. I think today's players are a little sharper than in the past.

(Kasparov did miss a draw in a game he resigned to Deep Blue, but it wasn't obvious like this)