Isidor Arthur Gunsberg began his career as the player operating the remote-controlled chess automaton Mephisto

Mephisto (automaton)

Mephisto was the name given to a chess-playing "pseudo-automaton" built in 1876. Unlike The Turk and Ajeeb it had no hidden operator, instead being remotely controlled by electromechanical means....

, but later became a 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...

 professional.

He moved to Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 in 1876, later becoming a naturalized British citizen on May 12, 1908.

In the late 1880s and early 1890s Gunsberg was one of the top players in the world. He was the winner at the 4th German Chess Congress

German Chess Championship

The German Chess Championship has been played since 1861, and determines the national champion.Prior to 1880 three different federations organized chess activities in Germany: the Westdeutscher Schachbund , the Norddeutscher Schachbund and the Mitteldeutscher Schachbund . Each one organized its...

 in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 in May 1885. In match play, he defeated Joseph Henry Blackburne

Joseph Henry Blackburne

Joseph Henry Blackburne , nicknamed "The Black Death", dominated British chess 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...

 in 1887 and Henry Bird in 1889. In 1890 he drew a match with Mikhail Chigorin

Mikhail Chigorin

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

, a former and future challenger for the world chess championship

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....

. Later that year, Gunsberg himself challenged 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...

 for the world title. The match took place in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and Gunsberg lost with four wins, six losses, and nine draws.

In 1916 he sued the Evening News for libel when they said that his chess column contained "blunders". He won the suit after the British High Court accepted a submission that in chess matters, eight oversights did not make a "blunder

Blunder (chess)

In chess, a blunder is a very bad move. It is usually caused by some tactical oversight, whether from time trouble, overconfidence or carelessness. While a blunder may seem like a stroke of luck for the opposing player, some chess players give their opponent plenty of opportunities to blunder.What...

".

Chess strength

Arpad Elo

Árpád Élo

Arpad Emrick Elo is the creator of the Elo rating system for two-player games such as chess. Born in Egyházaskesző, Austro-Hungarian Empire, he moved to the United States with his parents as a child in 1913.Elo was a professor of physics at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was...

 calculates that Gunsberg's best 5-year average Elo rating was 2560. According to another assessment system, Chessmetrics

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:...

, at his peak in July 1889 Gunsberg's play was equivalent to a rating of 2744, and he was ranked number 2 in the world, behind only Steinitz. He was ranked number 1 in the world, albeit with a slightly lower rating, on the February 1889 rating list. His best single performance was his 1887 match against Joseph Henry Blackburne

Joseph Henry Blackburne

Joseph Henry Blackburne , nicknamed "The Black Death", dominated British chess 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...

, where he scored 8 of 13 possible points (62%) against a 2744-rated opponent, for a performance rating of 2784.

External links

• • "Chess in the Courts"
  • CN 3824, July 2005, "Libel Suit"
  • CN 5113, August 2007, "Isidor Gunsberg"
  • CN 5136, September 2007, "An Interview with Gunsberg"