Constant Ferdinand Burille (born 30 August 1866 – died October 1914,

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

) was an American

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. He was a Bostonian born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

(according to another source - born in

), Burille was a member of a group of Boston chess players and theoreticians who formed a loose chess association they called the Mandarins of the Yellow Buttons. He took 15th at

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

1889 (the 6th

American Chess Congress The American Chess Congress was a series of chess tournaments held in the United States, a predecessor to the current U.S. Chess Championship. It had nine editions, the first played in October 1857 and the last in August 1923. First American Che ...

won by

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 ...

and

Max Weiss Miksa (Max) Weisz (21 July 1857 – 14 March 1927) was an Austrian chess player born in the Kingdom of Hungary. Weiss was born in Sereď. Moving to Vienna, he studied mathematics and physics at the university, and later taught those subjects. Wei ...

). He beat F.K. Young (13.5–1.5) in a match in 1888, and lost to

Harry Nelson Pillsbury Harry Nelson Pillsbury (December 5, 1872 – June 17, 1906) was an American chess player. At the age of 22, he won one of the strongest tournaments of the time (winning the Hastings 1895 chess tournament), but his illness and early death prevent ...

(3–7) in 1892 (Burille gave odds of pawn and move). He also played in cable chess matches New York vs. London in 1896 (won a game against

Henry Edward Bird Henry Edward Bird (14 July 1829A date of 1830 has been given, but baptismal records indicate 1829. – 11 April 1908) was an English chess player, author and accountant. He wrote the books ''Chess History and Reminiscences'' and ''An Analysis ...

) and 1897 (lost a game to

Henry Ernest Atkins Henry Ernest Atkins (20 August 1872 – 31 January 1955) was a British chess master who is best known for his unparalleled record of winning the British Chess Championship nine times in eleven attempts. He won every year from 1905 to 1911, and ...

). The "Burille variation" is a recognized variation in the

Grünfeld defense Grünfeld, Grunfeld, or Gruenfeld may refer to: People * Deborah H. Gruenfeld, American social psychologist * Yehuda Gruenfeld (born 1956), Israeli chess Grandmaster * A. Tom Grunfeld (born 1946), SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at Empire St ...

. Burille was one of the operators of the

Ajeeb Ajeeb was a chess-playing "automaton", created by Charles Hooper (a cabinet maker), first presented at the Royal Polytechnical Institute in 1868. A particularly intriguing piece of faux mechanical technology (while presented as entirely automat ...

, a chess-playing "

automaton An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...

".ChessBase :: Spotlights :: Der Schachtürke

References

1866 births 1914 deaths American chess players French chess players 19th-century chess players {{US-chess-bio-stub