The Döry Defense: A Love Story Told Through Chess
Hello, my friends, welcome back!
The story that follows was born from the desire to make accessible to an international audience a story by the Italian writer and chess player Paolo Delmastro. A very beautiful tale that was published only in Italian and is no longer available today.
I chose to retell and adapt it into a format suitable for a blog, preserving its original spirit and complementing it with historical and cultural context as well as chess references related to the Döry Defense.
It's a tale that weaves together history, memory, and chess in a surprising way.
Between imagination and reality, what remains is the echo of a game and of a bond that transcends time.
Enjoy the reading.
Before you begin, click above. The soundtrack will accompany you throughout the story.
A Love Story Told Through Chess
Table of Contents
Historical Notes
Ladislaus von Döry and the Döry (Vulture) Defense
To my father.
— @DocSimooo
There are stories where reality and fiction come so close that they almost merge.
This is one of them.
It spans different eras, moves through war and human cruelty, yet finds its thread in love... and on a chessboard.
Because some chess moves belong to more than the game: they carry memory, identity, and, above all, love.
It was a beautiful sunny day. David stared into the emptiness at the center of the pool, lost in thought. Water flowed endlessly down the dark walls, disappearing into the deep opening that seemed to have no end. His fingers absent-mindedly traced the letters carved into the bronze: Robert.
The steady sound of the waterfall gently drowned out every other noise, but not the memories.
“Did you lose someone here too?” The older woman’s voice brought him back to the present. She had a sad expression, was dressed with quiet elegance and held seven white roses in her hands.
“My father. I was eight. He worked in the South Tower. He was supposed to return to Italy soon... in time for my birthday.”
“Oh, my dear. I always bring one rose for each letter of my son’s name, Matthew. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I left one for your father today as well. May I?”
David nodded, offering a faint smile of gratitude.
He gently placed the rose in the hollow of Robert's R. Then he rested his forehead against the cold metal, as if trying to give a little warmth back to the name engraved there.
He remained still for a few moments.
Then he felt the need to walk away. He crossed the tree-lined avenue and, almost without thinking, made his way toward Washington Square Park.
The melody of Schubert’s Four Impromptus for Piano filled the ballroom of the Stoll estate in Klosterneuburg. Baron Ladislaus von Döry loved to play it, for the piano solo was demanding and always presented a challenge for him.
A former cavalry officer, a pianist by calling and a chess player by passion, Döry was known in Viennese circles for an eccentric defense against 1.d4: an early knight incursion to e4—a move that deprived White of the center and, above all, of time. A bold choice, often effective in blitz games.
But that evening there was no game to be played. He was there to perform and to say something many were thinking, yet few dared to voice. Someone had to.
The final notes still hung in the air beneath the magnificent frescoed ceiling. The guests applauded enthusiastically. Austrian high society was almost entirely present. People conversed, raised their glasses, and pretended nothing was happening while war tore Europe apart.
“An amazing interpretation,” said the elderly Countess Schmidt, her voice trembling with emotion.
“Thank you, dear Countess. Schubert can be majestic and melancholy at once,” the baron replied with a slight bow. “In some way, he reminds me of our country’s fate.”
“What are you saying, Baron? Our country is experiencing glory unlike anything before,” exclaimed Mr. Graf, nearly jumping and dropping his monocle in surprise.
“Perhaps you mean Germany, Mr. Graf. Austria is something else now, no more than a province annexed to the Reich. We Austrians supply it with material resources and with the young lives of the soldiers—our sons—for a war that could have been avoided.”
“We are uniting the Germanic peoples and laying the foundations for a more prosperous society. We are rooting out Bolshevism and Jewish opportunism,” Mr. Graf replied indignantly, his face now flushed with anger.
“I see our people bent beneath the ambitious plans of a man thirsting for power,” the baron answered calmly, “and I am astonished that Austria’s most influential men fail to see it.”
An icy silence fell over the room.
“Now, if you will excuse me,” the baron concluded, “I must greet the other guests.”
The party continued, and conversations resumed as though nothing had happened... but the die had been cast.
In the park, green lawns opened out around a square dominated by a neoclassical arch. Washington Square was alive with movement: hip-hop dancers surrounded by a small crowd, a rap battle taking place nearby, skaters defying gravity along the handrails of a staircase.
But what immediately caught David’s eye were the marble chess tables set in a quieter corner of the park. Seated there were men of different ages and backgrounds, faces marked by time and by the street, waiting for an opponent willing to challenge them for a few dollars.
David paused. Playing a game would be a good way to feel close to you again, Dad.
He had barely finished the thought when one of the men at the table beckoned him over. A worn backpack lay beside him, along with a rolled-up wool blanket.
“Erwin,” he said, shaking David’s hand. Blitz game, 5+0. A quick draw for colors. David got Black.
1.d4
For a moment, he was a child again.
It’s a strange defense, David, his father used to say. It looks wrong. But it isn’t. The knight on e4 is tricky, it forces your opponent to think, steals time. And in blitz, time is everything.
David played: 1…Nf6.
Then 2.c4 e6 followed.
And 3.Nf3
“Dad, if I get stuck, send me a hint from up there,” David murmured. Then, without hesitation, he pushed the same knight to e4 once more.
Erwin raised an eyebrow, a faint grimace crossing his face, but he needed only a few seconds to find the correct reply. He attacked the overextended, defenseless knight with Nd2. After 4 ...d5 to defend it, he resisted the temptation to immediately simplify. Instead, he bought his queen into play, calmly consolidating the center and preparing to undermine the advanced knight.
David felt the shift at once. The element of surprise was gone.
The middlegame tightened. Under steady, methodical pressure, his position began to crumble gradually. After the necessary exchanges, it was White who held the advantage, pressing decisively on the queenside.
In the end, David extended his hand in resignation.
“Very unusual defense,” Erwin said. “Almost no one here knows it. You didn’t catch me off guard because I faced it just a few weeks ago. Another Italian. Same exact line. Must be pretty common where you’re from.”
“No, not at all,” David replied quietly. “Thanks for the game.”
He walked away with a weight in his stomach.
When he was taken away by the Gestapo officers, his reaction was not one of surprise but of bitterness. Betrayed by his fellow Austrians, and by the poisonous tide of hatred and antisemitism that had quietly taken hold of his country.
The case was tried before a Special Tribunal, without a jury, as it concerned a political crime.
The courtroom was nearly empty. Only the seat behind the defendant was occupied by his wife, Elisabeth, who struggled to conceal her tension, clutching a handkerchief to keep her tears from falling.
His own words were read back to him.
“Baron Döry, do you acknowledge these statements?”
He had nothing left but his integrity to defend.
“Yes. They reflect my convictions, and reality as well. And if you possessed even a shred of honesty, you would release me at once.”
The tribunal found him guilty, and his lawyer’s plea for mitigating circumstances proved useless. The sentence for sedition was death. The date to be determined.
He was taken away without time to say farewell to his wife.
The cell was narrow and bare, with a single window at the far end. He spent his days alone there. Time, at least, he did not lack.
With his fingernails and a spoon, he carved bars of soap into thirty-two beloved pieces. Sixteen of them he darkened by dipping them in his coffee cup. The small table, ironically provided by the prison, served both as a chessboard and a dining table.
He played against himself. It was his only diversion.
The prison director often paused outside the cell, observing discreetly from a distance. One day, through the open peephole, he asked:
“Who’s winning?”
“I believe it will be a draw again,” Döry replied without turning.
The director smiled faintly.
“I always draw when I play myself as well. Care for a game?”
This time he had the prisoner’s full attention.
“Gladly.”
The director signaled to the guard, who unlocked the bars.
Döry turned the board, granting White to his opponent.
The director opened with the queen’s pawn: 1.d4.
And Döry was able to employ that slightly unorthodox defense he had once described in an article for the Vienna Chess Club’s monthly journal. Some called it the Vulture Defense. He firmly believed in the potential of that setup, in which Black physically occupied one of the central squares most coveted by White’s pawns.
The black knight leapt to f6. Then to e4.
The director hesitated. He did not know the line. He was a modest player, but attentive.
The game did not last long. Döry, however, chose not to press too hard.
“Congratulations, Baron. You are indeed as strong as they say,” the director remarked, in a tone that carried more than mere admiration.
It was the beginning of a series of meetings—and of a bond founded on mutual respect. After some time, the director changed the venue of their games. Twice a week, a guard would escort Döry to his office.
One afternoon, the director closed the door and spoke in a low voice.
“Baron Döry, I am Austrian, like you. And I take no pleasure in seeing you face a firing squad.”
Döry looked at him.
“Your wife is doing everything she can to obtain a pardon. She clings to hope, for she does not even know whether you are still alive.”
He remained motionless.
“Your case is… delicate. You are a respected member of the nobility of a country that abolished the death penalty more than a century ago. Executing you would be dangerous—and the Gestapo knows it.”
Silence.
“I promise you I will do what I can to help. And I will inform your wife that you are alive and well.”
And his penetrating eyes conveyed far more than his words.
He walked aimlessly, restless. The noise of the city reached him muffled, as if from far away. Erwin’s words kept echoing in his head:
“Very unusual defense… Almost no one here knows it… I faced it just a few weeks ago. Another Italian. Same exact line.”
His heart quickened.
It can’t be.
His father’s body had never been found—like hundreds of others buried beneath the collapse of the towers.
An Italian in New York playing the Döry Defense.
It was absurd. And yet he could not shake the thought.
He stopped, turned around, then broke into a run back toward Washington Square Park.
He arrived breathless at Erwin’s table. Erwin looked up at him, amused.
“What’s the matter, kid? Want a rematch?”
“Erwin, describe that man to me. The one who played the Döry.”
The other man hesitated. “Friend, do you know how many people I play every day?”
David pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and laid it on the table.
“It’s important.”
Erwin studied it for a moment. Then he understood.
“An older guy. Unkempt. Quiet. Gray hair. Dark eyes. Said he’d seen hell.”
David swallowed.
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”
“Has he come back?”
“A few times. But he never played me again after crushing me with that defense.”
“Where could I find him?”
Erwin shrugged. “Try Union Square. They’ve got marble tables there too.”
Over the next two days, David showed up at Erwin’s park in the morning and at Union Square in the afternoon.
The same question, over and over.
An Italian. Older. The Döry with Black against 1.d4.
Perplexed looks. Heads shaking. A few sympathetic smiles. Word had spread.
By the third day, his determination began to waver.
I’m chasing a ghost, he thought, absent-mindedly playing a Sicilian Najdorf against an Asian opponent.
He felt a tap on his shoulder.
A boy on a skateboard handed him something.
Erwin.
The blood rushed to his temples.
He laid his king down in resignation and hurried once more toward Washington Square Park.
At first it was only a distant echo. Then the bombings grew more frequent and closer. Soon the fighting could be heard in the streets.
It was an afternoon in April. Rifle shots and grenade explosions sounded alarmingly near. The prison guards’ voices were frantic. Then came screams ricocheting through the corridors—in German and in a language he did not recognize—followed by the heavy thud of bodies collapsing to the floor.
And then, at last, silence.
None of the prisoners dared move or make a sound. It was either death or liberation.
Endless minutes passed. Then came the rattle of keys in the locks, the bars opening one by one.
The Russians, Döry thought.
His own cell door swung open.
A soldier in the dust-covered uniform of the Red Army gestured for him to step out, waving his rifle.
In the courtyard, two parallel lines had formed: one of stunned prisoners reclaiming their freedom, the other of guards standing with their hands clasped behind their heads.
Döry caught sight of the director, Franz, being shoved toward a truck. Their eyes met for a brief moment—gratitude in Döry’s, farewell in Franz’s.
He arrived out of breath. In those days, between Union Square and Washington Square Park, he had run his own private marathon.
The man was seated with his back to him, on the White side of the board. The game had not yet begun. Erwin stood up silently and gave David his seat. The older man did not seem to notice.
David stared at him. Faded memories of a child, fifteen long years later.
A deep scar marked the right side of the man’s face, with burn scars trailing down his neck.
“You owe me… three dollars,” the man said without turning. His voice was hoarse.
David sat down.
1.d4, with the right hand. His father had been left-handed. The man’s left hand lay on the table, inert, completely lifeless.
On move three, David did not hesitate. He played his favorite defense.
At the sight of the knight on e4, the man froze for a moment. He lifted his eyes, as if searching David’s face for something. There was only confusion there, exhaustion, a shadow of memory. He seemed lost whenever he wasn’t staring at the board.
David allowed himself a faint smile. He spoke softly.
“It’s a strange defense, you know? It looks wrong. But it isn’t. The knight on e4 is tricky, it forces you to think, steals time. And in blitz, time is everything.”
Something deep resonated within him. Trembling, he leaned forward and slowly lifted his right hand, gently cupping David's cheek.
"It’s called the Döry Defense. It’s our defense, Dad.”
The young man stood and wrapped him in an embrace.
“Dad… I’m here. It’s time to go home.”
Historical Notes
Ladislaus von Döry and the Döry (Vulture) Defense
The Döry von Jobaháza were an ancient Hungarian noble family with a documented presence in Vienna since the 18th century.
Ladislaus (or László) Döry von Jobaháza (1897–1979) was an Austrian nobleman, pianist, and passionate chess player active in the Viennese chess circles of the early 20th century.
His name is associated with the Döry Defense, a rare and provocative line against 1.d4 characterized by the early maneuver …Nf6–e4.
At first glance, the defense appears to violate classical opening principles—central control, rapid development, and king safety. Yet its psychological impact, especially in blitz games, can be deeply unsettling.
Surviving tournament records document Baron Ladislaus von Döry’s participation in Viennese events of the late 1920s, including the 12th Trebitsch Memorial. His games include notable draws against prominent masters such as Savielly Tartakower, Ernst Grünfeld, Rudolf Spielmann, and Hans Kmoch, as well as a victory against Josef Lokvenc.
His estimated historical chess rating, according to EdoChess, was 2312, placing him 253rd in the world in 1928.
In 1937, a thematic tournament in Vienna was dedicated to the Döry Defense, confirming the interest the line had generated in contemporary chess circles.
Ladislaus von Döry also took pleasure in composing chess problems. Here's a beautiful mate in three. Try to solve it 
Beyond chess, Döry was also a musician and a supporter of the Habsburg monarchy. Historical sources indicate that he opposed National Socialism and was sentenced to death in 1943, though the sentence was never carried out.
Franz Schubert (Vienna, 1797–1828) was an Austrian composer and one of the defining voices of early Romanticism.
Though he died at just 31, most likely from complications related to syphilis, he left behind an astonishing body of work. He composed more than 600 songs for voice and piano—lieder, along with symphonies, chamber music, and sacred compositions.
Born into a modest family, Schubert received his first violin lessons from his father and studied organ at his local parish. His extraordinary talent earned him admission as a chorister at Vienna’s Imperial Seminary.
He spent most of his short life in Vienna, devoted almost entirely to composition. Recognition, however, largely eluded him during his lifetime, and he frequently struggled with financial hardship.
Today, his legacy is monumental. Among his most moving works are the Unfinished Symphony and the timeless Ave Maria, here performed by the unforgettable Maria Callas—pieces that continue to echo across centuries.
Paolo Delmastro, La difesa Döry, in Delitto in vetrina – Antologia (Montag Editore, 2020)
Pregartbauer, Manfred. Die Familie Döry von Jobaháza. Grenzwertig.eu, May 2021.
365Chess.com. Ladislaus von Döry – Games.
Chessgames.com. Ladislaus von Döry: Tournament and Game Archive.
Mattoscacco. La difesa Döry (1ª parte). Youtube video lecture (Italian).
Mattoscacco. La difesa Döry (2ª parte). Youtube video lecture (Italian).
