Chess Romanticism Part IV (Kolisch)
Welcome to Chess Romanticism part IV where we shall delve into the games of strong Austrian master, Ignatz von Kolisch. This is going to be a bit of a different blog which is mostly focused on Kolisch's games. I'm super surprised about how many thorough and high quality sources have exhausted his biography.
The Austro-Hungarian contributed many works of art to the romantic chess school and like J.H. Blackburne his games shine brighter than any match result or tournament performance. He had great career both in chess and life and felt encouraged to do my digging and researched some great sources for information. batgirl's blog on Kolisch and Silman's article on Kolisch's dazzling combinations and another batgirl blog on Kolisch! Obviously I'd love to see if anyone else on chess.com has produced content on Kolisch, if so, please let me know!
Sadly, I didn't find any notes by the tireless chess researcher Edward Winter. As usual, Wikipedia is pretty pathetic, I only use it to verify facts like birth dates, death dates, and the like. However I did find a Kingpin Magazine Article that was very informative. Chesspedia also gave Kolisch a brief, concise biography.
And as I recommended in my last blog, a great read for everyone regarding chess romanticism is The Great Romantics by Craig Pritchett. It's dazzling games matched only by the beautiful chronological organization of chess players from Andersson to Morozevich.
Ignatz Kolisch: The Life and Chess Career is another crucially important book, especially for chess history nuts such as myself.
So, as you may see, there isn't a whole lot of new information I can provide that the expert chess historian doesn't already know. I'll skip his life and specialize in annotating 10 Kolisch games. Perhaps, this is the most original, helpful way of breathing new life into a surprisingly exhausted biography.
Perhaps my only significant contribution is the following image.
After serious searching, I discovered this rare photo. NOT from Ed Winter! Kolisch is the white grave, far right.
The games
Here he smashes the Russian Illya Shumov in beautiful style,
The classic attack. It's quite simple and doesn't require magnificent explanation but is still a wonderful game to witness unfold.
Next Kolisch obliterates Winawer by going for a vicious endgame attack that is executed in a style which is palatable for the amateur spectator.
Another Anderssen beatdown.
