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Henry Bird (chess player)

English chess player and author (1829–1908)

Summary

English chess player and author (1829–1908)

Field	Value
name	Henry Bird
image	Henry Edward Bird (1877 drawing by Sam Loyd).jpg
birth_date
birth_place	Portsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England
death_date
death_place	London, England
nationality	British
known_for	Bird's opening

Henry Edward Bird (14 July 1829 – 11 April 1908) was an English chess player, author and accountant. He wrote the books Chess History and Reminiscences and An Analysis of Railways in the United Kingdom.

Although Bird was a practising accountant, not a professional chess player, it has been said that he "lived for chess, and would play anybody anywhere, any time, under any conditions."

Tournament play

At age 21, Bird was invited to the first international tournament, London 1851. He also participated in tournaments held in Vienna and New York City. In 1858 he lost a match to Paul Morphy at age 28, yet he played high-level chess for another 50 years. In the New York tournament of 1876, Bird received the first ever awarded, for his game against James Mason.

Legacy

In 1874 Bird proposed a new chess variant, which played on an 8×10 board and contained two new pieces: guard (combining the moves of the rook and knight) and equerry (combining the bishop and knight). Bird's chess inspired José Raúl Capablanca to create another chess variant, Capablanca Chess, which would ultimately differ from Bird's chess only by the starting position.

It was Bird who popularised the chess opening now called Bird's Opening (1.f4), as well as Bird's Defence to the Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nd4). Bird's Opening is considered sound, though not the best try for an opening advantage. Bird's Defence is regarded as slightly inferior, but "".

Bibliography

Bird, H. E. Chess Masterpieces (London: Dean, 1875)
Bird, H. E. The Chess Openings, Considered Critically and Practically (London: Dean, 1877; New York: Lockwood, 1880, 1886)
Bird, H. E. Chess Practice (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882; Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1892)
Bird, H. E. Chess History and Reminiscences (London: Dean, 1893)
Bird, H. E. Chess Novelties and Their Latest Developments (London, New York: F. Warne, 1895)

Notes

References

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References

Renette, Hans. (2016). "H.E. Bird: A Chess Biography with 1,198 Games". McFarland.
Harold C. Schoenberg, ''Grandmasters of Chess'', W.W. Norton & Co., New York, Rev. Ed. 1981, p. 66.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1829-births 1908-deaths people-from-portsea,-portsmouth english-chess-players english-sportswriters british-chess-writers chess-theoreticians english-male-non-fiction-writers 19th-century-british-chess-players 19th-century-british-sportsmen

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