Rudolf Charousek

Rudolf Charousek
CountryHungary
Born(1873-09-19)19 September 1873
Klein Lometz, Bohemia
Died18 April 1900(1900-04-18) (aged 26)
Budapest, Hungary
This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

Rudolf Charousek (Hungarian: Charousek Rezső; 19 September 1873 – 18 April 1900) was a Czech born Hungarian chess player.[1] One of the top ten players in the world during the 1890s,[2][3] he had a short career, dying at the age of 26 from tuberculosis. Reuben Fine wrote of him "Playing over his early games is like reading Keats's poetry: you cannot help feeling a grievous, oppressive sense of loss, of promise unfulfilled".[4]

Charousek was born in Klein Lometz (modern Lomeček) near Prague, Bohemia. At the age of five weeks, his family moved to Debrecen, Hungary, where he became a naturalized Hungarian. They later moved to Miskolc where, at the age of 16, he learned to play chess. Studying law in Kassa, he is said to have copied out the voluminous Handbuch des Schachspiels by hand, unable to afford his own copy. Despite the lack of competition in Kassa, he soon became a strong player, and also qualified as a lawyer. In 1893 he entered a correspondence tournament organised by the Budapest newspaper Pesti Hirlap, in which he eventually shared first place with another up and coming Hungarian master, Géza Maróczy. He joined the Budapest chess club, where he frequently played with Maróczy and Gyula Makovetz, and convincingly defeated Gyozo Exner in a match.[5]

  1. ^ Fred Skolnik; Michael Berenbaum (2007). Encyclopaedia Judaica: Blu-Cof. Granite Hill Publishers. p. 580. ISBN 978-0-02-865932-9.
  2. ^ Chessmetrics Player Profile: Rezsö Charousek
  3. ^ Edo Ratings, Charousek, R.
  4. ^ Reuben Fine, The World's Greatest Chess Games, p103, Courier Corporation, 1976, ISBN 0486245128
  5. ^ Philip W. Sergeant, Charousek's Games of Chess, G. Bell and Sons, London, 1919