Emanuel Stepanovich Schiffers was a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n 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 and chess writer. For many years he was the second leading Russian player after Mikhail Chigorin

Mikhail Chigorin

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

.

Schiffers parents emigrated from Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. He was born in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 and also died there.

Schiffers held the title of Russian champion for 10 years before finally being defeated by his student, Mikhail Chigorin

Mikhail Chigorin

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

, in 1880.
At their first meeting in 1873, Schiffers was able to offer Chigorin (who also from St. Petersburg) knight odds. In 1878 they played on even terms, Schiffers losing the first of two matches 7-3, but winning the second 7.5-6.5, thus establishing himself as the second strongest player in Russia after Chigorin himself. They later played two more matches with Chigorin winning both.

At Rostov on Don in 1896 he played a match against former World Chess Champion Wilhelm 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...

, losing 6.5–4.5.

Schiffers played eight major foreign tournaments from Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

 1887 to Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 1898. His best tournament result was at Hastings 1895

Hastings 1895 chess tournament

The Hastings 1895 chess tournament was a round-robin tournament of chess conducted in Hastings, England from August 5 to September 2, 1895.Hastings 1895 was arguably the strongest tournament in history at the time it occurred. All of the strongest players of the generation competed...

 where he finished sixth with 12/21 (Harry Pillsbury won).
In 1899 and 1900/01, he took second places, behind Chigorin, in All Russian Masters Tournament

Russian Chess Championship

-Imperial Russia:In 1874, Emanuel Schiffers defeated Andrey Chardin in a match held in St. Petersburg with five wins and four losses. Schiffers was considered the first Russian champion until his student, Mikhail Chigorin, defeated him in a match held in St. Petersburg in 1879...

(1st and 2nd RUS-ch).

Schiffers was known as "Russia's Chess Teacher".
In 1889, Schiffers gave the first public lectures on chess theory in Russia, at the St Petersburg Chess Association and in other cities.
He wrote the chess textbook Samouchitel shakhmatnoi igry (Chess Self Taught, published 1906).

External links