Jacques Mieses

Jacques Mieses was born on Feb. 27, 1865 in Leipzig as a scion of a merchant family. Er studierte Naturwissenschaften in seiner Vaterstadt Leipzig und in Berlin. He studied natural sciences in his native city of Liepzig and Berlin.  Mieses is not a player of great famne but he played a lot of great games.

In 1882 at the age of 17, he won the Berlin Championship and in 1888 he finished in third place at an international tournament in Liepzig which was the start of his career.  His greatest success came in 1907 in Vienna when he won first place.

Like many other chess players, Miese was deeply affected by World War II and was persecuted by the Nazis but he managed to escape to England.  Arriving there in 1938, he had 15 marks in his pocket which, by today’s standards, is only about $10.00.  That translates to about $150 in 1938 buying power.  He eventually became a British citizen. Just prior to arriving in England, In 1937 he was involved in a serious car accident that nearly killed him and was hospitalized for nearly a year.

Mieses leitete eine Reihe von internationalen Turnieren als Schiedsrichter und betätigte sich auch journalistMieses was an international referee and worked as a journalist. Er schrieb Schachspalten und Turnierberichte für Zeitungen in ganz Europa. He wrote columns and chess tournament reports for newspapers across Europe. Wie viele Großmeister gab er auch Blind- und Simultanvorstellungen. He also gave a lot of blindfold and simultaneous exhibitions. Einmal soll er binnen fünf Tagen insgesamt 99 Blindpartien absolviert haben, von denen er 71 gewann und 28 remisierte! In addition Mieses was also a theorist and author.  His style was so aggressive that he won many brilliancy prizes. In 1909 in match play he defeated Carl Schlechter 2.5 - 0.5 and in 1915 defeated Tarrasch with a convincing 9-4.

Sein historische ELO Wertung (ein Punktesystem zur Beurteilung eines Schachspielers) ist 2490 und lag 1905, als er zu den 10 weltbesten Spielern zählte, bei 2595.Von 1888-1948 nahm der deutsche Großmeister Jacques Mieses an Schachturnieren teil.He took part in many tournameHe took part in many tournaments from 1888-1948 and in 1950 FIDE retroactively, together with Bernstein, Boleslavsky, Bondarevsky, Botvinnik, Bronstein, Duras, Euwe, Fine, Flohr, Grunfeld, Keres, Kostic, Kotov, Levenfish, Lilienthal, Maroczy, Najdorf, Ragosin, Reshevsky, Rubinstein, Saemisch , Smyslov, Stahlberg, Szabo, Tartakower and Vidmar, awarded him the GM title.

Mieses blieb bis ins hohe Alter erstaunlich Mieses remained amazingly strong even in his old age. Jeden Tag machte er seine Freiübungen, ging noch mit 86 Jahren täglich schwimmen und machte im Hyde Park Liegestütze. Every day he did calisthenics, went swimming and did pushups. At the age of 88 he took part in the London Blitz Championship and was strongly interested in everything that was happening in the world. He participated in the 1945 Hasting tournament at the age of 80. His peak historical ELO rating was 2490 in 1905. By way of comparison Chessmetrics ratings for the top ten players of 1905 were:

1-Lasker-2736

2-Maroczy-2730

3-Tarrash-2729

4-Janowsky-2650

5-Schlechter-2643

6-Pillsbury-2631

7-Bernstein-2582

8-Marshall-2582

9-Teichmann-2579

10-Berger-2539

Er starb kurz vorHe died shortly before his 89th Geburtstag am 23.2.1954 in London. Birthday on Feb. 23, 1954 in London.

The following game is typical of both players…a messy tactical affair.  After playing an old fashioned gambit, which by the way Marshall himself used frequently early in his career, Mieses’ attack isn’t quite strong enough to finish Marshall off.  Marshall repeated moves, probably in order to gain time on his clock, then when he plays 30…Qc5 it’s obvious he overlooked Mieses’ stunning finish.