Joseph Henry Blackburne (1841–1924), nicknamed "Black Death", dominated the British chess world during the latter part of the 19th century. He learned the game at the relatively late age of 18 but quickly became a strong player and went on to develop a professional chess career that spanned over 50 years. At one point he was number two in the world with a string of tournament victories behind him but he really enjoyed popularising chess by giving simultaneous and blindfold displays around the country. Joseph Blackburne, famous english chessplayer From [1] File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... 1841 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Year 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Chess (disambiguation). ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a single sport or game. ... Grandmaster Vlastimil Hort giving a simultaneous exhibition, 1997 A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display (often abbreviated to simul) is an event where one player (commonly a chess master or grandmaster) plays multiple chess games at a time with selected players (usually below master strength). ... Blindfold Chess is a way to play chess, whereby play is conducted without the players having sight of the positions of the pieces, or any physical contact with them. ...

Biography

Joseph Henry Blackburne was born in Manchester in December of 1841. He learned how to play draughts as a child but it wasn't until he heard about Paul Morphy's exploits around Europe that he switched to playing chess. He joined the Manchester Chess Club around 1860 and learned endgame theory from Bernhard Horwitz, who had been appointed the resident chess professional in 1857. This article is about the City of Manchester in England. ... 1841 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... “Checkers” redirects here. ... Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 - July 10, 1884), The Pride and Sorrow of Chess, was an American chess player. ... For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ... 1860 is the leap year starting on Sunday. ... EndGame is the name of a 1997 story arc of the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book published by published by Archie Comics. ... Bernhard Horwitz (1808-1885) was a German English chess master. ... 1857 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

At first Blackburne worked in the hosiery trade but after improving rapidly at the game during the 1860s he decided to turn chess professional. By the 1868-69 season he had won the second British championship after beating the current holder, Cecil Valentine De Vere, and he was duly regarded as England's best player. Hosiery describes undergarments worn directly on the feet and legs. ... Year 1868 (MDCCCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Cecil Valentine De Vere (1845-1875) was the pseudonym of Cecil Valentine Brown, the winner of the first official British Chess Championship, in 1866. ...

For the next twenty years Blackburne toured the globe playing the greats of world chess. He was regularly in the top five of the world rankings and performed well in many international tournaments. He was equal first with Wilhelm Steinitz in Vienna, 1873, although he lost the playoff (-2); first in London, 1876; first with Berthold Englisch and Adolf Schwarz in Wiesbaden, 1880; first in Berlin, 1881, where he finished 3 points ahead of his great rival Johannes Zukertort; equal first with James Mason in Belfast, 1892 and first at the London tournament of 1893. Wilhelm (later William) Steinitz (May 17, 1836, Prague–August 12, 1900, New York) was a Jewish-Austrian-American chess player and the first official world chess champion. ... For other uses, see Vienna (disambiguation). ... 1873 (MDCCCLXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Year 1876 Pick up Sticks(MDCCCLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Wiesbaden is a city in central Germany. ... Year 1880 (MDCCCLXXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... Year 1881 (MDCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Zukertort, early 1880s Johannes Hermann Zukertort (7 September 1842 Lublin – 20 June 1888 London) was a leading Polish-Jewish chess master. ... James Mason (November 19, 1849 – January 18, 1905) was a famous chess player and writer. ... This article is about the city in Northern Ireland. ... 1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Year 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...

His results were decidedly mixed when he turned his talents to matchplay though and he found it tough going against the very best in the world. He lost two matches to Steinitz in 1862 (+1, -7, =2) and 1876 (+0, -7, =0) and lost a match to Emanuel Lasker in 1892 (+0, -6, =4). He did better against Zukertort; after losing a first match in 1881 (+2, -7, =5) he managed to win the second in 1887 (+5, -1, =7) and he performed similarly against Isidor Gunsberg in the same years - winning in 1881 (+7, -4, =3) but losing the return in 1887 (+2, -5, =6). Emanuel Lasker (December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German World Chess Champion, mathematician, and philosopher born at Berlinchen in Brandenburg (now Barlinek in Poland). ... Isidor Gunsberg (Hungary, 1854 – 1930) began his career as the player inside the chess automaton Mephisto but later became a chess professional. ...

The 1876 match against Steinitz was held at the West-end Chess Club in London and it was considered at the time to be an unofficial world championship match. The stakes were £60 a side with the winner taking all. This was a considerable sum of money in Victorian times - £60 in those days would be roughly equivalent to £4,000 in today's money. Queen Victoria (shown here on the morning of her accession to the Throne, 20 June 1837) gave her name to the historic era The Victorian era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. ...

Blackburne made most of his money from touring the country giving simultaneous exhibitions, including blindfold displays in which he played up to sixteen boards at once.^[1] Indeed he even visited the North-east of England in 1889 to help promote the newly formed Teesside Chess Association. Blackburne visited the area for two simultaneous displays and a blindfold event. He charged 1/- for a simultaneous game or 2/6d to play him blindfold and he proved to be virtually unbeatable, winning 29, drawing 2 and losing only one of the simultaneous games. In the blindfold he won 7 and drew 1 with 0 losses.

His fondness for drinking whisky at the board once led him to down an opponent's glass. Shortly afterwards, the opponent resigned, leading him to quip, "My opponent left a glass of whisky en prise and I took it en passant". In an interview with a liquor industry publication, Blackburne once claimed that drinking whisky cleared his brain and improved his chessplay,</ref>Ibid.</ref> and he seems to have tried to prove this theory as often as possible. For other uses, see Whisky (disambiguation). ... This page explains commonly used terms in chess in alphabetical order. ... ġĠ ġ Εý ŚÝ ¼Ћ This article is about the chess move en passant. For other uses, see En passant (disambiguation). ...

The dubious chess opening the Blackburne Shilling Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4?!) has been named for Blackburne because he purportedly used it to win quickly against amateurs, thus winning the shilling wagered on the game.^[2] The Blackburne Shilling Gambit is the name facetiously given to a dubious chess opening, an offshoot of the Italian Game, that begins (in algebraic notation) 1. ... This article is about coinage. ...

By the 1890s Blackburne was reputedly playing over 2,000 games a year in simuls and he had even travelled abroad to countries like the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand to give exhibitions. However he still had time to marry twice and with his second wife, Mary Fox, he had a son. In addition he played top board for the British team in 11 of the Anglo-American cable matches which commenced in 1896 and in the first six matches he recorded a score of 3½-2½ against the top American, Harry Pillsbury. Harry Nelson Pillsbury (December 5, 1872 - July, 1906), was United States Chess Champion from 1898 until his death in 1906. ...

In 1914 he tied for the British Championship with Frederick Yates but at the age of 72 his best days were behind him and ill health prevented him from contesting the play-off for the title. Earlier in the same year he had competed in his last major international tournament in St Petersburg, where he beat the up-and-coming Aaron Nimzowitsch, but by now he was concentrating on writing his chess column for The Field, a position he held up until his death in 1924 at the age of 82. Blackburne died on September 1, 1924 at the age of 82 of a heart attack. Frederick Yates (January 16 1884 – November 10, 1932) was a chess master who won the British Championship six times. ...

Legacy

Joseph Henry Blackburne

Joseph Henry Blackburne is an icon of Romantic chess because of his wide open and highly tactical style of play. His large black beard together with his aggressive attacking style earned him the nickname of 'der Schwarze Tod' (the Black Death, referencing the plague of the same name) after his performance in the 1873 Vienna tournament. In 1881, according to one retroactive rating calculation (see www.chessmetrics.com), he was the second highest-ranked player in the world. He was especially strong at endgames and had a great combinative ability which enabled him to win many brilliancy prizes but he will be best remembered for his popular simultaneous and lightning displays which captured the imagination of the general public who flocked to watch him. Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Romantic Chess seems to mean wide open combinational attacking chess, used by the likes of Adolf Anderssen and Henry Blackburne. ... This article concerns the mid fourteenth century pandemic. ... For information on lightning precautions, see Lightning safety. ...

Mr. Blackburne's Games at Chess, which he published in 1899, has been recently reprinted by Moravian Chess. It contains over 400 of his games, around 20 problems composed by him, and a short biography.

References

Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ...

External links

• Joseph Henry Blackburne at ChessGames.com
• Joseph H Blackburne download 117 of his games in pgn format.
• Statistics at ChessWorld.net