Johann Berger
Encyclopedia
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
– 17 October 1933) 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, theorist, endgame study
Endgame study
An endgame study, or just study, is a composed chess position—that is, one that has been made up rather than one from an actual game—presented as a sort of puzzle, in which the aim of the solver is to find a way for one side to win or draw, as stipulated, against any moves the other side...
composer, author and editor.
In September 1870, he won the first tournament in the Austro-Hungarian Empire at Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
. In 1875, he won a match against Alexander Wittek
Alexander Wittek
Alexander Wittek was an Austrian architect and chess master.As an architect Wittek worked in Bosnia and Herzegovina during Austro-Hungarian Empire...
(14 : 4) in Graz, and drew a match with Paul Lipke
Paul Lipke
Paul Lipke , was a German chess master.Lipke was born in Erfurt. In 1889, he tied for 5–6th in Breslau , and took 4th in Dessau. In 1892, he won in Dresden , and he took 2nd in Halle...
(3.5 : 3.5) at Eisenach 1896.
He tied for 5-6th at Graz 1880 (Max Weiss
Max Weiss
Miksa Weisz was an Austrian chess player born in the Kingdom of Hungary.Weiss was born in Sereď. Moving to Vienna, he studied mathematics and physics at the university, and later taught those subjects....
, Johannes von Minckwitz and Adolf Schwarz
Adolf Schwarz
Adolf Schwarz was an Austria-Hungarian chess master.He took 10th in the Vienna 1873 chess tournament . In 1878, he took 2nd, behind Louis Paulsen, in Frankfurt. In 1879, he took 3rd in Leipzig...
won); tied for 9-10th at Berlin 1881 (second DSB Congress
DSB Congress
The Deutschen Schachbund had been founded in Leipzig on 18 July 1877. When the next meeting took place in the Schützenhaus on 15 July 1879, sixty-two clubs had become member of the chess federation. Hofrat Rudolf von Gottschall became Chairman and Hermann Zwanziger the General Secretary...
, 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...
won); took fourth at Nuremberg 1883 (third DSB–Congress, Simon Winawer won); tied for 11-12th at Hamburg 1885 (fourth DSB–Congress, Isidor Gunsberg
Isidor Gunsberg
Isidor Arthur Gunsberg began his career as the player operating the remote-controlled chess automaton Mephisto, but later became a chess professional....
won); tied for 5-6th at Frankfurt 1887 (fifth DSB–Congress, George Henry Mackenzie
George Henry Mackenzie
George Henry Mackenzie was a Scottish–American chess master....
won); took tenth at Breslau 1889 (sixth DSB–Congress, 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....
won); tied for 4-5th at Graz 1890 (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...
won); tied for 8-9th at Leipzig 1894 (ninth DSB–Congress, Tarrasch won).
He took eighth place at 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 (eleventh DSB–Congress, Amos Burn
Amos Burn
Amos Burn was an English chess player, one of the world's leading players at the end of the 19th century, and a chess writer....
won); tied for 7-10th at Munich 1900 (twelfth DSB–Congress, 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:...
, Carl 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 Harry Pillsbury won); tied for 6-7th at Coburg
Coburg
Coburg is a town located on the Itz River in Bavaria, Germany. Its 2005 population was 42,015. Long one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined with Bavaria by popular vote in 1920...
1904 (foufteenth DSB–Congress, Curt von Bardeleben
Curt von Bardeleben
Curt von Bardeleben was a Count and a German chess master who committed suicide by jumping out of a window in 1924. His life and death were the basis for that of the main character in the novel The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov, which was made into the movie The Luzhin Defence...
, Schlechter and Rudolf Swiderski
Rudolf Swiderski
Rudolf Swiderski was a German chess master.He took 6th at Eisenach 1896 , took 2nd at Annaberg 1897, tied for 7-8th at Berlin 1897, and tied for 3-6th in Amsterdam. He made his mark in 1900 when he won 1st place at the Munich Hauptturnier...
won); took sixth at Barmen
Barmen
Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land, Germany, which in 1929 with four other towns was merged with the city of Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. Barmen was the birth-place of Friedrich Engels and together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded the...
1905 (Dawid Janowski
Dawid Janowski
Dawid Markelowicz Janowski was a leading Polish chess master and subsequent French citizen....
and Maroczy won); tied for 7-8th at 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...
1907 (Jacques Mieses
Jacques Mieses
----Jacques Mieses was a German-born Jewish chess Grandmaster and writer. He became a naturalized British citizen after World War II.p258-Chess career:...
won); tied for 16-18th in the Carlsbad 1907 chess tournament
Carlsbad 1907 chess tournament
The first international chess tournament in Carlsbad was held in the magnificent Kaiserbad . Twenty one great masters, under the direction of Viktor Tietz, played in the Kurhaus Hotel Imperial from August 20 to September 17, 1907.The results and standings:...
(Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein was a famous Polish chess Grandmaster at the beginning of the 20th century. He was scheduled to play a match with Emanuel Lasker for the world championship in 1914, but it was cancelled because of the outbreak of World War I...
won), and took fifteenth in the Vienna 1908 chess tournament
Vienna 1908 chess tournament
The Internationales Schachturnier Wien 1908 was held in honour of the sixtieth anniversary of Franz Joseph I of Austria’s elevation as monarch to the Austria-Hungary Empire. Twenty great masters played at the Wiener Schach-Club in Vienna, from March 23 to April 17, 1908.The results and standings:...
(Oldřich Duras
Oldrich Duras
Oldřich Duras was a leading Czech chess master of the early 20th century...
, Maróczy and Schlechter won).
Berger was the first Austrian to win an important international correspondence tournament the Monde Illustré 1889-1892, and he did so with the remarkable result of 45 wins, no losses, and three draws.
He was editor of the Deutsche Schachzeitung and author of Das Schachproblem und dessen Kunstgerechte Darstellung (Leipzig 1884), Theorie und Praxis der Endspiele (Leipzig 1890), Problemen, Studien und Partien (Leipzig 1914).
Berger was a major endgame study
Endgame study
An endgame study, or just study, is a composed chess position—that is, one that has been made up rather than one from an actual game—presented as a sort of puzzle, in which the aim of the solver is to find a way for one side to win or draw, as stipulated, against any moves the other side...
composer, having published more than 100 studies, many of which gave notable contributions to endgame theory. His book Theorie und Praxis der Endspiele (Theory and Practice of the Endgame) was published in 1891, revised in 1922, and supplemented in 1933. This was the first modern comprehensive book on practical endgames, and was the standard work on endgames for decades.
Berger discussed the tie-break system
Tiebreaker
In games and sports, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is used to determine a winner from among players or teams that are tied at the end of a contest, or a set of contests.-In matches:In some situations, the tiebreaker may consist of another round of play...
now called the Sonneborn-Berger system, but he did not invent it. See Tie-breaking in Swiss system tournaments#Sonneborn-Berger for details. (For each player in the tie, the sum of the final scores of all the opponents he has defeated, together with half the final scores of all the opponents which whom he has drawn is found–nothing is added for games he has lost or for unplayed games).