Ernst Karl Falkbeer
was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

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...

 master

Chess master

A chess master is a chess player of such skill that he/she can usually beat chess experts, who themselves typically prevail against most amateurs. Among chess players, the term is often abbreviated to master, the meaning being clear from context....

 and journalist.

Life and chess career

Born in Brno

Brno

Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...

, Bohemia

Kingdom of Bohemia

The Kingdom of Bohemia was a country located in the region of Bohemia in Central Europe, most of whose territory is currently located in the modern-day Czech Republic. The King was Elector of Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806, whereupon it became part of the Austrian Empire, and...

, Falkbeer moved to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 to study law, but ended up becoming a journalist. During the European Revolutions of 1848

Revolutions of 1848

The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...

, he fled Vienna for Germany.
He played chess with German masters Adolf Anderssen

Adolf Anderssen

Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen was a German chess master. He is considered to have been the world's leading chess player in the 1850s and 1860s...

 and Jean Dufresne

Jean Dufresne

Jean Dufresne was a German chess player and chess composer. He was a student of Adolf Anderssen, and lost the "Evergreen game" to him in 1852. Dufresne was an unsuccessful novelist under the anagrammatic pseudonym E. S...

 in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, Berlin, Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, and Bremen

Bremen

The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...

.

In 1853 Falkbeer was allowed to return to Vienna. Two years later, in January 1855, he started the first Austrian chess magazine, Wiener Schachzeitung, which lasted only a few months. He went to London where he played two matches against Henry Bird. Falkbeer lost the 1856 match (+1 −2), but won the 1856/7 match (+5 −4 =4). At the Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 1858 knockout tournament he beat Saint-Amant in round two (+2 −1), but lost in the round four final to Johann Löwenthal

Johann Löwenthal

Johann Jacob Löwenthal was a professional chess master.Löwenthal was born in Budapest, the son of a Jewish merchant. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native city. In 1846, he won a match against Carl Hamppe in Vienna...

 (+1 −3 =4) to finish second.

Falkbeer edited a chess column

Chess columns in newspapers

The earliest known chess column appeared in the Lancet in 1823, but due to lack of popularity disappeared after less than a year.-Historical development:...

 for The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

from April 1857 to November 1859.
He returned to Vienna in 1864, later writing a chess column in Neue Illustrirte Zeitung from 1877 to 1885. He died in Vienna on December 14, 1885.

Legacy

Falkbeer is more famous for his contributions to chess theory

Chess theory

The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the opening, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory as how the game should be played...

 than for his individual play. He introduced the Falkbeer Countergambit

Falkbeer Countergambit

The Falkbeer Countergambit is a chess opening that begins:In this aggressive countergambit, Black disdains the pawn offered as a sacrifice, instead opening the centre to exploit White's kingside weakness. After the standard capture, 3. exd5, Black may reply with 3.....

, still considered one of the main lines in the King's Gambit Declined. 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....

held the view that Falkbeer's Countergambit refuted the King's Gambit entirely.

External links