Ernst Grnfeld

Ernst Franz Grnfeld (November 21, 1893 April late 1950s he was playing very little chess and he mainly
3, 1962) was a leading Austrian chess grandmaster and worked on his prodigious library which by now had comchess writer, mainly on opening theory.
pletely lled the living room in his at which he shared
with his wife and daughter. His last tournament was Beverwijk (Hoogovens) in 1961, where in a eld with ve
more strong grandmasters, he nished with a score of 3/9
1 Life and career
(with only one win, against Jan Hein Donner).
Grnfeld was born in Josefstadt, Vienna. He lost a leg in He died in Ottakring, Vienna on April 3, 1962.
his early childhood, which was beset by poverty. However, he discovered chess, studied intensely, and quickly
earned a reputation as a skilled player at the local chess 2 Playing style
club, the Wiener Schach-Klub.
He reputedly modeled his style of play on Akiba Rubinstein's and only played 1.d4, claiming that he did not make
mistakes in the opening. However, his style of avoiding
complex variations together with an essentially drawish
nature was simply not good enough to trouble the worlds
best. He is best remembered for his eponymous defence,
the Grnfeld Defence (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5) and
for his general expertise in the opening.

The First World War (191418) seriously aected Grnfelds chances of playing the best in the world as few tournaments were played during this troubled period. He was
reduced to playing correspondence matches and spent
much of his spare time studying opening variations. He
started a library of chess material which he kept in his
small Viennese at until his death at the age of 68 in 1962.
He developed a reputation as an expert on openings
during the 1920s and success over the board soon followed. He was 1st= in Vienna (1920) with Savielly Tartakower; 1st in Margate (1923); 1st in Meran (1924);
1st in Budapest (1926) with Mario Monticelli; 1st in Vienna (1927) and he shared rst spot in the Vienna tournaments of 1928 and 1933 (Trebitsch Memorial)the former with Sndor Takcs and the latter with Hans Mller;
and nally he was 1st in the tournament at Ostrava of
1933. He also won in the 23rd DSB Congress at Frankfurt 1923.

3 Writings

Ernst Grnfeld contributed many articles on openings to

chess magazines around Europe. Indeed, before he had
turned 20, he was already contributing articles on the Ruy
Lopez to Wiener Schachzeitung, which was one of the
most popular German language chess publications of its
day, and over the next 40 years or so he wrote many artiDuring the Bad Pistyan (Pieany) tournament of April cles on opening theory for chess publications in Germany,
1922 Grnfeld introduced his most important contri- Belgium, and the USSR. His favorite market was in Bulbution to opening theorythe Grnfeld Defence. He garia though because they used to pay for his work in food
played the defence against Friedrich Smisch in round 7, rather than in money!
drawing in 22 moves, and later that year he used it suc- He published several books which were generally well
cessfully against Alexander Alekhine in the Vienna tour- received and he contributed to a seminal account of
nament. However, he did not play the opening frequently. the Teplice tournament of 1922. Other publications inDuring the late 1920s and 1930s Grnfeld played top clude The Queens Pawn Game and the Queens Gamboard for Austria in four Chess Olympiads (1927, 1931, bit Declined (1924) and Taschenbuch der Eronungen im
1933, 1935), and his best year was in 1927 when he Schach (1953).
scored 9/12. According to the Chessmetrics website he
would have been rated around 2715 at his peak (December 1924).

4 External links

In May 1943, he took 2nd, behind Paul Keres, in Posen,

and won in December 1943 in Vienna. After the Second World War, he tied for 3rd-4th at Vienna 1951
(Schlechter Memorial, Moshe Czerniak won). Grnfeld
became an International Grandmaster in 1950. By the

Kmoch, Hans (2004). Grandmasters I Have Known:

Ernst Grnfeld. Chesscafe.com.
Ernst Grnfeld player prole and games at
Chessgames.com
1

4
Grnfelds prole on chessmetrics.com

EXTERNAL LINKS

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