Rudolf Charousek was a Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 player. A brilliant player, he had a short career, dying at the age of 27 from tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

. Reuben Fine

Reuben Fine

Reuben Fine was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the early 1930s through the 1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology.Fine won five medals in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S...

 described him as the John Keats

John Keats

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...

 of chess.

Charousek learned how to play chess around age 14, receiving a chess set as a Christmas gift. Charousek's first chess teacher and partner was Dezso Pap. He soon became one of the strongest players in Miskolc

Miskolc

Miskolc is a city in northeastern Hungary, mainly with heavy industrial background. With a population close to 170,000 Miskolc is the fourth largest city of Hungary It is also the county capital of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén and the regional centre of Northern Hungary.- Geography :Miskolc is located...

. After high school, he studied law at the Academy of Laws in Kassa

Košice

Košice is a city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary...

 and was the strongest chess player in that city.

In 1893 he went to Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 and played chess at the Budapest Chess Club for the first time. Right from the start, Charousek defeated many of the strongest players at the club. He drew his first match with Géza Maróczy

Géza Maróczy

Géza Maróczy was a leading Hungarian chess Grandmaster, one of the best players in the world in his time. He was also a practicing engineer.-Early career:...

, then defeated Hungary's strongest player, Gyula Makovetz

Gyula Makovetz

Gyula Makovetz was a Hungarian journalist and chess player.He edited the chess magazine Budapesti Sakkszemle from 1889 to 1894. Makovetz was 1st, ahead of Johann Hermann Bauer and Emanuel Lasker, at Graz 1890...

.

In July and August 1896, in the surroundings of a Bavarian exposition, a grand chess tournament was planned in Nuremberg

Nuremberg

Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

, the hometown of Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch

Siegbert Tarrasch

Siegbert Tarrasch was one of the strongest chess players and most influential chess teachers of the late 19th century and early 20th century....

. All the strongest players in the world were invited, but Charousek was not invited by the organizers, despite the pleading of Maróczy. However, when the Englishman Henry Edward Bird could not participate, Charousek was officially invited to play in the tournament.

He was 12th out of 19 players at Nuremberg 1896

Nuremberg 1896 chess tournament

The tournament at Nürnberg 1896 should have become 10. Deutschen Schachbund Kongreß , but the local chess club took over the organisation and included no minor groups...

, ahead of Marco

Georg Marco

Georg Marco was a Romanian chess player.He was born in Chernivtsi , Bukovina...

, Albin

Adolf Albin

right|thumb|Adolf AlbinAdolf Albin was a Romanian chess player, especially known for the countergambit that bears his name, and for the first chess book written in Romanian.- Life :...

, Winawer and defeating the tournament winner (in the final round), world champion Emanuel Lasker

Emanuel Lasker

Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...

, Janowski and Blackburne. In the same year he was equal second at Budapest with Mikhail Chigorin

Mikhail Chigorin

Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin also was a leading Russian chess player...

. He won at Berlin 1897

Berlin 1897 chess tournament

The Internationales Turnier Berlin 1897 celebrated seventy years of the Berliner Schachgesellschaft. Twenty great chess masters started but Curt von Bardeleben had to withdraw after a short draw. They played in the Architektenhaus from September 13 to October 4, 1897. Eventually the event became a...

 ahead of 19 masters (winning all 9 games in the last 9 rounds) and the following year he was second at Köln

KOLN

KOLN, digital channel 10, is the CBS affiliate in Lincoln, Nebraska. It operates a satellite station, KGIN, on digital channel 11 in Grand Island. KGIN repeats all KOLN programming, but airs separate commercials...

, ahead of Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian and then American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894. From the 1870s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz was effectively the champion earlier...

, Schlechter

Carl Schlechter

Carl Schlechter was a leading Austrian 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:...

 and other 12 masters.

Because of his nervous temper, it was difficult for Charousek to weather the psychological strain of match play. He was defeated in 1896 at Budapest by Maróczy and Chigorin.

He was one of a few players who had a plus record against Emanuel Lasker

Emanuel Lasker

Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...

, having defeated the world champion

World Chess Championship

The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....

 at Nuremberg 1896. Lasker was so impressed that he is reported to have said "I shall have to play a championship match with this man some day". His game against Lasker is reproduced below:

King's gambit

King's Gambit

The King's Gambit is a chess opening that begins with the moves:White offers a pawn to divert the Black e-pawn so as to build a strong centre with d2–d4...

 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Bc4 d5 4.Bxd5 Qh4+ 5.Kf1 g5 6.Nf3 Qh5 7.h4 Bg7 8.Nc3 c6 9.Bc4 Bg4 10.d4 Nd7 11.Kf2 Bxf3 12.gxf3 O-O-O 13.hxg5 Qxg5 14.Ne2 Qe7 15.c3 Ne5 16.Qa4 Nxc4 17.Qxc4 Nf6 18.Bxf4 Nd7 19.Qa4 a6 20.Qa5 Nf8 21.Ng3 Ne6 22.Nf5 Qf8 23.Bg3 Rd7 24.Nxg7 Qxg7 25.Qe5 Qxe5 26.Bxe5 f6 27.Bxf6 Rf8 28.Rh6 Nf4 29.Ke3 Ng2+ 30.Kd2 Rdf7 31.e5 Nf4 32.Rah1 Rg8 33.c4 Ne6 34.Ke3 Nf8 35.d5 Rd7 36.e6 1-0    See the game online

Another of Charousek's games, which Grandmaster Andrew Soltis

Andrew Soltis

Andrew Eden Soltis is a chess Grandmaster, author and columnist.He won at Reggio Emilia 1971–72 and was equal first at New York 1977. He was awarded the International Master title in 1974 and became a Grandmaster in 1980...

 described as "one of the prettiest ever", was the basis for the story Last Round by Kester Svendsen, which Soltis called "perhaps the finest chess short story". Here is the game with punctuation marks by Soltis:

Charousek—Wollner, Kaschau 1893

Danish gambit

Danish Gambit

The Danish Gambit, known as the in German, and the in Dutch, is a chess opening that begins with the moves:...

 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bc5 6.Nxc3 d6 7.0-0 0-0 8.Ng5 h6 9.Nxf7! Rxf7 10.e5 Ng4!? 11.e6 Qh4! 12.exf7+ Kf8 13.Bf4 Nxf2 14.Qe2 Ng4+ 15.Kh1 Bd7 16.Rae1 Nc6    (see diagram at left) 17.Qe8+!! Rxe8 18.fxe8(Q)+ Bxe8 19.Bxd6 mate.

See the game online.

External links

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SY1QWIo39E Four part video series on Charousek by JessicaFischerQueen