Ernst Karl Falkbeer (June 27, 1819 – December 14, 1885) was an Austrian

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 ...

master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

and journalist.

Life and chess career

Falkbeer was born in

Brünn Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inha ...

, a town that in 1819 belonged to

Habsburg The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...

Austria, and which today is known as Brno in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

. Falkbeer moved to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

to study law, but ended up becoming a journalist. During the European Revolutions of 1848, he fled Vienna for Germany. He played chess with German masters

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 ...

and

Jean Dufresne Jean Dufresne (14 February 1829 – 13 April 1893) was a German chess player and chess composer. He was a student of Adolf Anderssen, to whom he lost the "Evergreen game" in 1852. Life Dufresne was born and died in Berlin. The son of a wealthy J ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, Berlin,

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

, and

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

. In 1853 Falkbeer was allowed to return to Vienna. Two years later, in January 1855, he started the first Austrian chess magazine, ''

Wiener Schachzeitung ''Wiener Schachzeitung'' (or ''Wiener Schach-Zeitung'', "''Viennese Chess Bulletin''") was the name of several Austrian chess periodicals published in Vienna between 1855 and 1949. Original publications (1855 and 1887-1888) The original publicat ...

'', which lasted only a few months. He went to London where he played two matches against Henry Bird. Falkbeer lost the 1856 match (+1 −2), but won the 1856/7 match (+5 −4 =4). At the

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

1858

knockout tournament A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking ...

he beat Saint-Amant in round two (+2 −1), but lost in the round four final to

Johann Löwenthal Johann Jacob Löwenthal ( hu, Löwenthal János Jakab; 15 July 1810 – 24 July 1876) was a professional chess master. He was among the top six players of the 1850s. Biography Löwenthal was born in Budapest, the son of a Jewish merchant. He ...

(+1 −3 =4) to finish second. Falkbeer edited a chess column for ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

'' from April 1857 to November 1859. He returned to Vienna in 1864, later writing a chess column in ''Neue Illustrierte Zeitung'' from 1877 to 1885. He died in Vienna on December 14, 1885.

Legacy

Falkbeer is more famous for his contributions to

chess theory The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the chess opening, opening, Chess middlegame, middlegame, and Chess endgame, endgame. There is a large body of theory regarding how the game should be played in each of these phases, espec ...

than for his individual play. He introduced the

Falkbeer Countergambit The Falkbeer Countergambit is a chess opening that begins: :1. e4 e5 :2. f4 d5 In this aggressive , Black disdains the pawn offered as a sacrifice, instead opening the to exploit White's weakness on the . After the standard capture, 3.exd5, ...

, still considered one of the main lines in the

King's Gambit Declined The King's Gambit is a chess opening that begins with the moves: :1. e4 e5 :2. f4 White offers a pawn to divert the black e-pawn. If Black accepts the gambit, White has two main plans. The first is to play d4 and Bxf4, regaining the gambit p ...

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 ...

held the view that Falkbeer's Countergambit refuted the King's Gambit entirely.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Falkbeer, Ernst 1819 births 1885 deaths Sportspeople from Brno Austrian chess players Chess writers Chess theoreticians 19th-century chess players Austrian magazine founders