Gunsberg, Isidor

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GUNSBERG, ISIDOR

GUNSBERG, ISIDOR (1854–1930), British chess master and journalist. Gunsberg was born in Hungary and taken to England as a child. He was known as a master of attack and his name was particularly associated with the Allgaier gambit. Gunsberg defeated Bird and Blackburne, and drew with Tchigorin. In 1889 he lost the world championship match against *Steinitz by the surprisingly narrow score of 6–4 with 9 draws. He wrote Chess Openings (1896) and famous chess columns in the Morning Post. One of the strongest players of his time, by his death in 1930 he was one of the last survivors of the Victorian chess world, but has remained surprisingly neglected by chess historians since.

add. bibliography:

D. Hooper and K. Wyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (1992), 162–63.

[William D. Rubinstein (2nd ed.)]