Amos Burn (1848–1925) was an English
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
player, one of the world's leading players at the end of the 19th century, and a chess writer.
Burn was born on New Year's Eve, 1848, in
Hull.
[Richard Forster, ''Amos Burn: A Chess Biography'', McFarland & Company, 2004, p. 17. .] As a teenager, he moved to
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
, becoming apprenticed to a firm of shipowners and merchants.
He learned chess only at the relatively late age of 16.
He later took chess lessons from future World Champion
Wilhelm Steinitz
William Steinitz (born Wilhelm Steinitz; May 14, 1836 – August 12, 1900) was an Austrian and, later, American chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first official World Chess Champion. He was also a highly influential writer and che ...
in London, and, like his teacher, became known for his superior defensive ability.
[Forster 2004, p. 9.] Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch ( lv, Ārons Nimcovičs, russian: Аро́н Иса́евич Нимцо́вич, ''Aron Isayevich Nimtsovich''; 7 November 1886 – 16 March 1935) was a Latvian-born Danish chess player and writer. In the late 1920s, Nimz ...
, in his book ''The Praxis of My System'', named Burn one of the world's six greatest defensive players.
Although never a professional chess player, Burn had a long tournament and writing career.
In 1913,
Leopold Hoffer
Leopold Hoffer (1842 in Hungary – 28 August 1913 in England) was an English chess player and journalist.
He left Budapest for Switzerland. From 1867, he lived in Paris, where he won matches against, among others, Ignatz von Kolisch, Samue ...
, the editor for over 30 years of the chess column in ''
The Field'', the leading chess column in Great Britain, died. The proprietors of ''The Field'' took seven weeks to select a successor, finally settling on Burn. He moved to London and wrote the column until his death in 1925 from a stroke.
Tournament history
His first tournament, in 1867–68, was a
handicap tournament at the Liverpool Chess Club. Placed in the second level, where he received
pawn and move odds from the four top-seeded players, and gave up to knight odds to the other players, Burn won easily, scoring 24 out of 25 possible points. Burn's first major tournament was the Third Challenge Cup of the
British Chess Association
The English Chess Federation (ECF) is the governing chess organisation in England. It is affiliated to FIDE. The ECF was formed in 2004 as one of the more localised successors to the British Chess Federation (BCF), an organisation founded in 1904. ...
(London 1870), where he surprised the pundits by tying for first with
John Wisker, ahead of
Joseph Henry Blackburne
Joseph Henry Blackburne (10 December 1841 – 1 September 1924) was a British chess player. Nicknamed "The Black Death", he dominated the British scene during the latter part of the 19th century. Blackburne learned the game at the relatively late ...
and others, but lost the playoff to Wisker. His last was Breslau 1912, where he finished 12th of 18 players, scoring 7.5 out of 17 possible points.
Burn's greatest tournament results were equal first at London 1887 with
Isidor Gunsberg
Isidore ( ; also spelled Isador, Isadore and Isidor) is an English and French masculine given name. The name is derived from the Greek name ''Isídōros'' (Ἰσίδωρος) and can literally be translated to "gift of Isis." The name has survived ...
(ahead of
Joseph Henry Blackburne
Joseph Henry Blackburne (10 December 1841 – 1 September 1924) was a British chess player. Nicknamed "The Black Death", he dominated the British scene during the latter part of the 19th century. Blackburne learned the game at the relatively late ...
and
Johannes Zukertort
Johannes Hermann Zukertort (Polish: ''Jan Hermann Cukiertort''; 7 September 1842 – 20 June 1888) was a Polish chess master. He was one of the leading world players for most of the 1870s and 1880s, but lost to Wilhelm Steinitz in the World Ches ...
), first at Amsterdam 1889 (ahead of a young
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker (; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Champ ...
), second at Breslau 1889 (behind
Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch (; 5 March 1862 – 17 February 1934) was a German chess player, considered to have been among the strongest players and most influential theoreticians of the late 19th and early 20th century.
Life
Tarrasch was born in Bresla ...
), and first at
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
1898 (ahead of
Rudolf Charousek
Rudolf Charousek ( hu, Charousek Rezső; 19 September 1873 – 18 April 1900) was a Czech born Hungarian chess player. One of the top ten players in the world during the 1890s, he had a short career, dying at the age of 26 from tuberculosis. Re ...
,
Mikhail Chigorin
Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin (also ''Tchigorin''; russian: Михаи́л Ива́нович Чиго́рин; – ) was a Russian chess player. He played two World Championship matches against Wilhelm Steinitz, losing both times. The last great ...
,
Carl Schlechter
Carl Schlechter (2 March 1874 – 27 December 1918) was a leading Austro-Hungarian chess master and theoretician at the turn of the 20th century. He is best known for drawing a World Chess Championship match with Emanuel Lasker.
Early life
Sch ...
,
David Janowski
Dawid Markelowicz Janowski (25 May 1868 – 15 January 1927; often spelled ''David'') was a Polish-born French chess player. The Janowski variations of the Old Indian Defense and of the Queen's Gambit Declined are named after him.
Biography
B ...
, and Steinitz). He also played at
Hastings 1895, the strongest tournament held up to that point, finishing in joint twelfth place with 9½ points out of 21.
Legacy
Burn is the eponym of the Burn Variation of the
French Defence
The French Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
:1. e4 e6
This is most commonly followed by 2.d4 d5, with Black intending ...c5 soon after, attacking White's and gaining on the . The French has a reputation for solidity ...
(1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4). The line had been played before, including by
Albert Clerc
Albert Clerc (June 25, 1830, Besançon – June 10, 1918, Saint-Denis-en-Val) was a French chess master.
Chess career
He won at Paris 1856, tied for 9-10th at Paris 1878 (Johannes Zukertort and Szymon Winawer won), took 2nd, behind Samuel Rosent ...
against
Adolf Anderssen
Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen (July 6, 1818 – March 13, 1879)"Anderssen, Adolf" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 385. was a German chess master. He won the great interna ...
at Paris 1878. Burn's first known game with the variation was against Charles Locock at
Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
1888.
[Forster 2004, p. 342.] However, Burn "was the first to adopt it regularly and with good results", scoring nine wins, one draw, and five losses with it.
In 2004, the Swiss
IM Richard Forster published the 972-page ''Amos Burn: A Chess Biography''.
Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ( rus, Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, p=vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. He ...
observed in its foreword that "this work accords
urn
An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape or ...
the recognition he deserves, painstakingly assembling and analysing all available games and biographical material about him."
Sample games
In one of Burn's last tournaments, he won as
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
against the young
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Aleksandrovich Alekhine, ''Aleksándr Aleksándrovich Alékhin''; (March 24, 1946) was a Russian and French chess player and the fourth World Chess Champion, a title he held for two reigns.
By the age of 22, Alekhine was already a ...
:
Burn–Alekhine,
Karlsbad 1911
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Ne4 6.Bxe7 Qxe7 7.Bd3 Nxc3 8.bxc3 c5 9.Nf3 Nc6 10.O-O c4 11.Be2 Bd7 12.Qd2 b5 13.Ne1 a5 14.a3 O–O 15.f4 b4 16.axb4 axb4 17.Rxa8 Rxa8 18.cxb4 Qxb4 19.c3 Qb3 20.Bd1 Ra2 21.Qc1 Qb6 22.Rf2 Qa7 23.Rxa2 Qxa2 24.Nc2 h6 25.Qa1 Qxa1 26.Nxa1 Na7 27.Kf2 Bc6 28.Ke3 Nb5 29.Kd2 Kf8 30.Nc2 Ke7 31.Ne3 f5 32.Bf3 Kd7 33.g4 fxg4 34.Bxg4 g6 35.Bd1 Ke7 36.Ng4 h5 37.Ne3 Kf7 38.Ng2 Kg7 39.Nh4 Be8 40.Nf3 Kf7 41.Kc2 Bd7 42.Kb2 Na7 43.Ka3 Nc6 44.Ba4 Ke7 45.Nh4 Kf7 46.Bxc6 Bxc6 47.Kb4 Be8 48.Nf3 Ke7 49.Ng5 Bc6 50.Ka3 Bd7 51.Kb2 Ba4 52.Kc1 Bb3 53.Nf3 Ba4 54.Nh4 Kf7 55.Ng2 Bd7 56.h4 Be8 57.Kb2 Ba4 58.Ne3 Ke7 59.Ka3 Bc6 60.Kb4 Kd7 61.Ka5 Kc7 62.Nc2 Kb7 63.Nb4 Bd7 64.Na6 Be8 65.Nc5+ Kc6 66.Nxe6 Bd7 67.Ng5 Bf5 68.Kb4 Bg4 69.Ka3 Kd7 70.Nf7 Be6 71.Nd6 Kc6 72.Kb2 Bg4 73.Kc2 Kd7 74.Kd2 Ke6 75.Ke3 Bh3 76.f5+ gxf5 77.Kf4 Bg4 78.Kg5 Bh3 79.Ne8 Kf7 80.Nf6 f4 81.Kxf4 Be6 82.Kg5 1–0
Macdonald-Burn,
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
1910
At right is a surprisingly little-known position from one of Burn's offhand games.
[Forster 2004, pp. 690–91.] At first blush, Black's position looks
resignable: it appears that his
bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
, attacked twice and
pinned to his
king
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
, will fall and he will soon be
checkmate
Checkmate (often shortened to mate) is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check (threatened with ) and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game.
In chess, the king is ...
d. Burn produced the staggering 33...Qg4!!, leaving his
queen
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
''en prise'' to three different white pieces. However, if 34.Bxg4 or hxg4, Black wins with 34...Bxd2. If 34.Qxg5+, 34...Qxg5 35.Rxg5+ Kh6 and Black wins a piece and the game. Macdonald instead tried 34.Rxg4 Nf3+ 35.Kg2 Nxd2 36.Rxg5+ Kh6 37.h4 Nxb3 38.Rf5 Nxa5 and Burn won in 11 more moves.
Burns' biographer Richard Forster calls the move "without doubt the most extraordinary of his career."
Chess journalist
Tim Krabbé
Tim Krabbé (born 13 April 1943) is a Dutch journalist, novelist and chess player.
Krabbé was born in Amsterdam. His writing has appeared in most major periodicals in the Netherlands. Once a competitive cyclist, he is known to Dutch readers for ...
considers 33...Qg4!! one of the ten most fantastic moves ever played,
MacDonald vs. Burn, 1910
scroll down to No. 258 noting that it is a rare example of the Novotny theme in practical play.
Notes
External links
*
Amos Burn
download 129 of his games in pgn format.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burn, Amos
1848 births
1925 deaths
English chess players
Chess theoreticians
British chess writers
Sportspeople from Kingston upon Hull