The Prince of Analysts

The Major Georg Marco was born on September 29, 1863 in Czernowitz, Romania, later moving to Vienna and becoming secretary of the Viennese Chess Association. He was a professional chess player and journalist.

In tournament play Marco debuted in Dresden 1892 and he participated regularly in important competitions up till Pistyan 1922. In match play his best results were drawing twice with Schlechter.

Despite being a strong chess player, Georg Marco will be remembered as “The Prince of Analysts.” He has quite a high reputation as an annotator and his notes are by turns poetic, logical and accurate; his annotations are often of greater significance than the games themselves! His books about Vienna 1898, Vienna 1903, Barmen 1905, Ostend 1906 and especially Carlsbad 1907 (together with Schlechter) are classics! In addition he also commented the Lasker-Tarrasch match for the World Chess Championship in 1908 and the Baden-auf-Wien Gambit Tournament of 1914. From 1898 to 1916 he was the editor of the Vienna Chess News.

Among his colleagues Marco was humorously called “the strongest chess player in the world” because of his over 300 pounds!

Georg Marco passed away on August 29, 1923.

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