Curt von Bardeleben
No one writes any books about Curt von Bardeleben. There are volumes on Lipschütz and Leonard, and players like Burn and Blackburne have gone far from unnoticed the last decades. Neumann, Hirschfeld and Suhle? It’s just to get the recently published book on them with 711 games included.
But no one writes about Curt von Bardeleben, and that is maybe surprising. Jaques Mieses stated in 1939 that von Bardeleben at his best was one of the strongest players of all time. At least he sure knew how to play chess, and had some very good results especially in the 1880s.
von Bardeleben was born in 1861 and started playing chess when he was ten years old. He showed early promise, and already during his school days he was considered to be the strongest player in Weimar. Here he is at the chess tournament in Leipzig 1877 with his father Richard:
One of his early successes was in London 1883, in the so called Vizanayagaram tournament. von Bardeleben won the event, and the following years he would participate quite successfully in the strongest fields.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=80534
Frankfurt 1887 was the strongest tournament between 1885 and 1895 according to Chessmetrics, with eight of the top ten participating. von Bardeleben shared first place after 18 of the 21 rounds but ended up 4th after a for him customary weak finish, that began with his draw agreement in a winning position in the 19th round. An excellent summary of the tournament can be found at
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=88418
In Bradford 1888 (third strongest tournament between 1885 and 1895) he started with six
straight wins but ended up third.
https://zanchess.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/bradford-1888-a-first-look/
At the end of the 1880s Chessmetrics have him as #4 on a couple of rating lists, then being the clearly youngest player in the top ten. Chess Monthly wrote in 1888 (December, p 98): ”Since Morphy there is perhaps no other young player whose record of success can be compared with that of v. Bardeleben”
Even if he didn’t live up to the expectations, he continued to play well. In Hastings 1895 von Bardeleben had 6 wins and 3 draws in the first nine rounds, one of the wins being against reigning World Champion Lasker.
In the tenth round von Bardeleben lost a famous game against Steinitz, and after his 7.5/9 start he scored 4/12 in the last dozen rounds to still end up seventh in quite a strong field, ahead of players like Janowski, Schlechter, Blackburne and Gunsberg. He was at the time seen as “a very reserved gentleman, with somewhat wearied look, probably from ill-health, fragile figure, suggestive of highly strung nervous temperament”, BCM (October 1895, p 412).
Alekhine described von Bardeleben as “a charming old chap” when writing about his short match against him in 1908, but also added that he didn’t demonstrate the necessary will to win. It is clear that on some occasions, von Bardeleben didn’t have the determination or physical strength to score even better results of the sort his talent seemed to suggest.
von Bardeleben married three times in the early 1900s and divorced quickly every time. Rumour has it that he was paid to marry by women who wanted his title. He was never good at keeping money, and the inflation in the early 1920s finished his small reserves and in 1924 he died after falling or more probably jumping out of a window. He was then 62 years old.
Some of his more prominent results, apart from those already mentioned.
Nuremberg 1883:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79624
Breslau 1889:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79605
Kiel 1893:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79932
Match vs Blackburne 1895:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=90670
Coburg 1904:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79924