Charousek's Games of Chess: With Annotations and Biographical Introduction

by Philip Walsingham Sergeant

None available

Paperback

First published July 1, 1989

Reviews

[Alec · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rudolf Charousek (September 19, 1873-April 18, 1900) was a hungarian Chess Master from the 19th century who had a short career he studied the Bilguier Von der Lasa Handbuch des Schachspiels a massive work in German that all masters and strong players of the 19th century studied if they could aquire it (Bobby Fischer studied it as well) unfortunately Charousek was poor and could not afford it so he copied the entire book by hand from a library.

His games are forgotten today younger players aren't familliar with them (they don't study the classics at all) which is a pity he was a pitbull on the attack I was lucky to aquire a first edition copy of Phillip Sergeants book on Charousek from 1918 he played some big names in Chess like Steinitz, Janowski, Tarrasch, Lasker (had a plus score against him) and Schlechter he also played lesser known players like Brody.

Sergeant says at the beginning of his book when he thinks of Rudolf Charousek's career it reminds him of the poem an athlete dying young from A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad he says that his reputation was second to Morphy's in the short time he played which is high praise indeed.

Vintage good book!