Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant (12 September 1800 – 29 October 1872) was a leading French
chess master
A chess title is a title regulated by a chess governing body and bestowed upon players based on their performance and rank. Such titles are usually granted for life. The international chess governing body FIDE grants several titles, the most pres ...
and an editor of the chess periodical ''
Le Palamède
''Le Palamède'' was the world's first periodical devoted to the game of chess.David Hooper (chess player), David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, ''The Oxford Companion to Chess'' (2d ed. 1992), p. 56. .H. J. R. Murray, ''A History of Chess'', Oxford Uni ...
''. He is best known for losing a match against
Howard Staunton in 1843 that is often considered to have been an unofficial match for the
World Chess Championship.
Chess career
Saint-Amant learned chess from
Wilhelm Schlumberger
William Schlumberger (1800 – April 1838) was a European chess master. He is known to have taught
Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant to play chess and as the operator of The Turk, a chess-playing machine which was purported to be an autom ...
, who later became the operator of
The Turk.
He played at the
Café de la Régence, where he was a student of
Alexandre Deschapelles.
Anne Sunnucks
Patricia Anne Sunnucks (21 February 1927 – 22 November 2014) was an author and three-times British Women's Chess Champion (1957, 1958, 1964). During her chess career she was always known as Anne Sunnucks.
She was educated at Wycombe Abbey Scho ...
, ''The Encyclopaedia of Chess'', St. Martin's Press, 1970, p. 419. For many years he played on level terms with
Boncourt, a strong player, and received
odds of pawn and two moves from Deschapelles and
Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais.
In 1834–36, he led a Paris team that won both games of a
correspondence match against the Westminster Club, then England's leading chess club. After La Bourdonnais' death in 1840, he was considered the country's best player.
[ David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, '' The Oxford Companion to Chess'' (2d ed. 1992), pp. 350–51. .] In December 1841 he revived ''Le Palamède'' (at its inception in 1836 the world's first
chess periodical), which ran until 1847.
He played two matches against
Staunton in 1843. The first, in London, he won 3½–2½ (three wins, one draw, two losses), but he lost a return match in Paris just before Christmas 13–8 (six wins, four draws, eleven losses). This second match is sometimes considered an unofficial world championship match.
In 1858, Saint-Amant played in the
Birmingham tournament, a event. He won in the first round, but lost in the second by a 2–1 score to
Ernst Falkbeer. Returning to Paris, he witnessed the adulatory reception accorded
Paul Morphy at the
Café de la Régence. The score of one game between them is known, a 22-move rout by Morphy of Saint-Amant and his consultation partner, given as "F. de L." or "F. de L'A".
Outside of chess
Saint-Amant became a government clerk in Paris at an early age.
Philip W. Sergeant
Philip Walsingham Sergeant (27 January 1872, Notting Hill, LondonBirths, Marriages and Deaths – 20 October 1952) was a British professional writer on chess and popular historical subjects.Harry Golombek, ''Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess'', Cro ...
, ''A Century of British Chess'', David McKay, 1934, p. 54. He then served as the secretary to the governor of
French Guiana from 1819 to 1821.
He was dismissed from that appointment after he protested against the
slave trade that still existed in that colony.
[ Harry Golombek (editor), ''Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess'', pp. 283–84. .][ Reuben Fine, ''The World's Great Chess Games'', Dover Publications, 1976, p. 9. .] After that, he tried his hand as a journalist and actor, then became a successful wine merchant.
He was a captain in the
French National Guard during the
1848 revolution
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...
. For his role in saving the
Palais des Tuileries from destruction by the mob, he was made its Governor for a few months.
In 1851–52, he was the French
consul to California.
He visited during this period the Territory of Oregon, witnessed a period of transition for the early settlements and wrote one of the few records available on this period. Upon returning to France he spent some years writing well-regarded works on the French colonies, and a treatise on the wines of
Bordeaux.
In 1861 Saint-Amant retired to
Algeria.
He died there in 1872 after being thrown from his carriage.
Notable games
Reuben Fine writes that although Saint-Amant lost his epic match against Staunton, in the 13th match game, playing
White, "he at least had the satisfaction of winning the most brilliant game."
:1. d4 e6 2. c4 d5 3. e3 Nf6 4. Nc3 c5 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. a3 Be7 7. Bd3 0-0 8. 0-0 b6 9. b3 Bb7 10. cxd5 exd5 11. Bb2 cxd4 12. exd4 Bd6 13. Re1 a6 14. Rc1 Rc8 15. Rc2 Rc7 16. Rce2 Qc8 17. h3 Nd8 18. Qd2 b5 19. b4 Ne6 20. Bf5 Ne4 21. Nxe4 dxe4 22. d5 (first diagram) exf3 22...Bf4! was essential.
[Fine, ''The World's Great Chess Games'', p. 10.] 23. Rxe6! Qd8 (second diagram) Of course not 23...fxe6 24.Bxe6+, winning the
queen. 24. Bf6 gxf6 25. Rxd6! Kg7 If 25...Qxd6, 26.Qxh6 forces
mate. Black could resign here.
26. Rxd8 Rxd8 27. Be4 fxg2 28. Qf4 Rc4 29. Qg4+ Kf8 30. Qh5 Ke7 31. d6+ Kxd6 32. Bxb7 Kc7 33. Bxa6 Rc3 34. Qxb5
In the 9th match game, Saint-Amant had pulled off a
swindle that
grandmaster Andrew Soltis considers the
greatest ever perpetrated in match play.
See also
*
List of chess games
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint-Amant, Pierre
1800 births
1872 deaths
French chess players
French editors
French male non-fiction writers
19th-century chess players