James Mason (19 November 1849 – 12 January 1905) was an Irish-born British-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 ...

player, journalist and writer who became one of the world's best half-dozen players in the 1880s. Mason was ranked the number 1 player in the world by Chessmetrics during 11 separate months between August 1877 and June 1878.Jeff Sonas
Chessmetrics Player Profile: James Mason
Retrieved on 2018-06-02.

Biography

Mason was born in

Kilkenny Kilkenny (). is a city in County Kilkenny, Ireland. It is located in the South-East Region and in the province of Leinster. It is built on both banks of the River Nore. The 2016 census gave the total population of Kilkenny as 26,512. Kilken ...

in Ireland. He was adopted as a child and took the name James Mason (his original birth name was unknown) when his family moved to the United States in 1861. There he learned chess and eventually secured a job at the ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. His ...

''. Mason made his first mark on the chess scene in 1876 when he won the Fourth American Chess Congress in Philadelphia, the New York Clipper tournament, and defeated Henry Bird in a match by the comfortable margin of 13–6. In 1878 he settled in England. His best tournament results were third at the Vienna 1882 tournament, third at Nuremberg 1883 and equal second at Hamburg 1885. At Hastings 1895, often considered the strongest tournament of the nineteenth century, he finished tied for 12th–14th with 9½ points of 21 possible. Mason wrote several books on chess, the most popular being ''The Principles of Chess in Theory and Practice'' (1894), ''The Art of Chess'' (1895), ''Chess Openings'' (1897) and ''Social Chess'' (1900). In 1903 he became seriously ill and had to curtail almost all activities for the remainder of his life. He died on 12 January 1905 in

Rochford Rochford is a town in Essex, England, north of Southend-on-Sea, from London and from Chelmsford, the county town. At the 2011 census, the Civil parishes in England, civil parish, which includes the town and London Southend Airport, had a popu ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, and is buried in nearby

Thundersley Thundersley is a town and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Benfleet, in the Castle Point borough, in southeast Essex, England. It sits on a clay ridge shared with Basildon and Hadleigh, east of Charing Cross, London. In 1951 ...

churchyard.

Chess strength

According to

Chessmetrics Chessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo rating system. Implementation Chessmetrics is a weighted average of past performance. The score considers a player's win percen ...

, at his peak in October 1876 Mason's play was equivalent to a Chessmetrics rating of 2715, and he was ranked number 2 in the world, behind only

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 ...

. However, Mason was ranked number 1 in the world, albeit with a slightly lower rating, during 11 separate months between August 1877 and June 1878. His best single performance was at

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

1882, where he scored 15 of 23 possible points (65%) against 2622-rated opposition, for a

performance rating The PR (Performance Rating, P-rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s (Cyrix announced it in February 1996) as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those of ri ...

of 2732.

Legacy

The

London System The London System, also known as the Mason Variation, is an in chess where White opens with 1.d4 but does not play the Queen's Gambit, instead opting to rapidly develop the . This often results in a . The London System can be used against virt ...

opening Opening may refer to: * Al-Fatiha, "The Opening", the first chapter of the Qur'an * The Opening (album), live album by Mal Waldron * Backgammon opening * Chess opening * A title sequence or opening credits * , a term from contract bridge * , ...

1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 is sometimes called the Mason Variation in his honour; he played it several times from the 1880s. The variation of the

King's Gambit 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 ...

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nc3 (allowing 3...Qh4+) is sometimes called the Mason Gambit or

Keres In Greek mythology, the Keres (; Ancient Greek: Κῆρες), singular Ker (; Κήρ), were female death-spirits. They were the goddesses who personified violent death and who were drawn to bloody deaths on battlefields. Although they were pre ...

Gambit, although Mason lost the only game he played with it (against

Samuel Rosenthal Samuel Rosenthal (7 September 1837 – 12 September 1902) was a Polish-born French 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 chec ...

at Paris 1878). The 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Be7 7.0-0 0-0 variation of the

Petroff Defence Petrov's Defence or the Petrov Defence (also called Petroff Defence, Petrov's Game, Russian Defence, or Russian Game – russian: Русская партия) is a chess opening characterised by the following moves: :1. e4 e5 :2. Nf3 Nf6 Th ...

is named after him, as well as the Mason Gambit in the

Giuoco Piano The Giuoco Piano (Italian: "Quiet Game"; ), also called the Italian Opening, is a chess opening beginning with the moves: :1. e4 e5 :2. Nf3 Nc6 :3. Bc4 Bc5 "White aims to develop quickly – but so does Black. White can construct a pawn cen ...

: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.0-0.

Books

* * * * *

References

External links

*
An article on James Mason

An article on James Mason
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, James 1849 births 1905 deaths Irish adoptees Irish chess players Irish emigrants to the United States (before 1923) American chess players British chess players People from Kilkenny (city) American chess writers American male non-fiction writers British chess writers Chess theoreticians 19th-century chess players