Talk:Johannes Zukertort

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Poland

	Poland portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Poland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Poland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PolandWikipedia:WikiProject PolandTemplate:WikiProject PolandPoland articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Biography: Sports and Games

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	Sports portal This article is supported by the sports and games work group.
	This article has been automatically rated by a bot or other tool because one or more other projects use this class. Please ensure the assessment is correct before removing the `\|auto=` parameter.

Chess High‑importance

	Chess portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chess, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Chess on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChessWikipedia:WikiProject ChessTemplate:WikiProject Chesschess articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

London Low‑importance

	London portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject London, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of London on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LondonWikipedia:WikiProject LondonTemplate:WikiProject LondonLondon-related articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

old talk

I've moved this article back to Johannes Zukertort (which I believe was its original location) from Jan Herman Zukertort--I admit I don't know what name Zukertort was born with (it doesn't seem impossible that he was born Jan, but came to use Joahnnes in later life), but I'm pretty sure that he is today more often called "Johannes" (or even "Johann") that he is "Jan". If somebody knows that he was, in fact, born "Jan", then that's probably worth mentioning in the article, but, following Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), the article should in any case remain at "Johannes". --Camembert

Zukertort Opening

Was the above captioned opening named for Johannes Zukertort, and if so, why did it come to be called so ?

Joe Gatt 08:42, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"The Oxford Companion to Chess" by David Hooper & Kenneth Whyld states the Zukertort Opening (1.Nf3) "...abhorred by Ruy Lopez, used by Zukertort always as a preliminary to 2.d4, now the fourth most popular opening move after 1.e4, 1.d4 and 1.c4" (p. 388) There is also a Zukertort Defense, a variation of the Vienna Gambit: 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 ef4 4.d4 Qh4+ 5.Ke2 d5 (IBID, p 396). "After 6.ed5 Bg4+ 7.Nf3 0-0 sacrificing a piece for counterattack" (IBID p. 388)NimzoRoy (talk) 15:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC)^[1][reply]

^ The Oxford Companion to Chess, ISBN 0-19-217540-8

Wrong date?

Quotation from the main article on 22/5/08 follws:- 'Poor health and lack of physical stamina appeared to be one of Zukertort's two long-term weaknesses: some commentators attributed to illness the severity of his defeat in the 1972 match against Steinitz;[9] in the 1883 London tournament he won 22 of his first 23 games, enough to give him an uncatchable lead, but lost his last 3 games;' IN THE SECOND LINE THERE IS THE DATE 1972 - COULD THIS BE WRONG? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.238.74 (talk) 20:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course not, he's one of the chess immortals! Seriously, thanks for spotting the error. -- Philcha (talk) 10:37, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jewish?

The article speaks of Zuckertort's Jewish origins:

Johannes Hermann Zukertort (7 September 1842 – 20 June 1888) was a leading chess master of German-Polish-Jewish origin.

But his grave at Brompton Cemetery is marked by a cross. What's the truth? Abenr (talk) 14:01, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to this Wikipedia article, he was born to a Jewish father who became a Christian, and a non-Jewish mother. That would have made Zukertort non-Jewish. Old reference books I see state that his father was "Prussian", and his mother Polish, without saying that his father was Jewish. Are we sure even that part is accurate? All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 15:24, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. According to Chess and Jews by Edward Winter, there is some disagreement whether Zukertort's father was Jewish. Quale (talk) 02:52, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Zukertort’s death

For your information : [1] a note from Edward Winter (chess historian) about this article. I'm not fluent enough in english to correct the article. --En passant (talk) 14:24, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. Yes, of course we would always rather quote prime sources that contain no errors in the background reading. The Jimmy Adams 1989 book on Zukertort is currently available for just under £2000 on Amazon UK, so I'll order a copy straight away! But seriously, if Mr Winter really cared that much, he could correct the article himself in a heartbeat. Sadly, expending twice the effort in broadcasting these inexactitudes is far more his style. Mind you, we'd probably all feel a bit smug if we had a library like his. Brittle heaven (talk) 11:07, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Place of Birth

He was probably born in Lublin, but some places say he was born in Riga, Latvia. It has been commonly believed that the late Johann Hermann Zukertort was born in the town of Riga on the 7th September, 1842, but it is now stated on the authority of Herr E. Schallopp, who gets his information from Herr Adolf Zukertort, a stenographer in Berlin and a brother of J. H. Zukertort, that the real birthplace of the great Chess player was Lublin, a small town in Russian Poland. The year of his birth is undoubtedly 1842, but whether the 7th of September was his actual natal day is not quite so certain, but probabilities point that it was. Source: International Chess Magazine, August 1888, p227 Alanobrien (talk) 08:32, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Johannes Zukertort. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 01:21, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Other achievements

These seem to circulate intact across several older biographies but without much further elaboration. At least "linguist" appears to be by now outdated — he is only ever credited by studying several languages but not researching anything; i.e. he might be today better called a polyglot. Others could have similar problems: e.g. was he a musician in any performing sense or merely by knowing how to play some number of instruments? --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 00:10, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Zuckertort preferred 1.c4 and 1.Nf3?

The 'Style of Play' section currently says that, unusually amongst attacking players, Zuckertort preferred 1.c4 and 1.Nf3 to other first moves. However, reference to the ChessTempo.com database shows that Zuckertort played 335 games starting 1.e4 vs 17 games starting 1.c4 and 7 games starting 1.Nf3. While those figures include games where Zuckertort was Black as well as ones where he was White, clearly he was typical of players of his era in playing 1.e4 on the great majority of occasions and did not 'prefer openings such as 1.c4 and 1.Nf3'. I suggest that this be altered to say that 'In an age where the majority of players played exclusively 1.e4, Zuckertort was an occasional early experimenter with openings such as 1.Nf3 (The Zuckertort Opening) and 1.c4'. Or words to that effect.

Any thoughts? Axad12 (talk) 19:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Now altered as above. Databases are sometimes incomplete and can be fallible when used as definitive references on players' opening repertoires. However, in the case in point, it is self-evident that Zuckertort did not prefer 'openings such as 1.c4 and 1.Nf3'. The best that can be said is that he used them occasionally.

Presumably the deleted claim was based on the idea that because an opening is named after a player, that player must have played it very often - but sometimes (as here) that is not correct. Axad12 (talk) 06:09, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] The Oxford Companion to Chess, ISBN 0-19-217540-8

[1]