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Lowenthal 
 
Johann Jacob Loewenthal
Number of games in database: 123
Years covered: 1842 to 1883
Overall record: +45 -51 =25 (47.5%)*
   * Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games
      Based on games in the database; may be incomplete.
      2 exhibition games, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

MOST PLAYED OPENINGS
With the White pieces:
 Sicilian (9) 
    B44 B20 B30 B32 B40
 Ruy Lopez (8) 
    C64 C65 C78 C84 C80
 Philidor's Defense (7) 
    C41
 King's Gambit Declined (5) 
    C30 C31
 Petrov (5) 
    C42
 Giuoco Piano (5) 
    C53 C54 C50
With the Black pieces:
 Evans Gambit (7) 
    C51 C52
 Petrov (6) 
    C42 C43
 Giuoco Piano (6) 
    C50
 Philidor's Defense (5) 
    C41
 King's Gambit Declined (4) 
    C30 C31
 King's Gambit Accepted (4) 
    C39 C38 C33
Repertoire Explorer

NOTABLE GAMES: [what is this?]
   Morphy vs Lowenthal, 1858 0-1
   Lowenthal vs Morphy, 1858 1-0
   Lowenthal vs Morphy, 1858 1/2-1/2
   H Buckle vs Lowenthal, 1851 0-1
   Lowenthal vs Morphy, 1859 1-0
   Lowenthal vs Morphy, 1858 1/2-1/2
   Morphy vs Lowenthal, 1858 0-1
   Morphy vs Lowenthal, 1859 1/2-1/2
   Lowenthal vs Morphy, 1858 1-0
   Lowenthal vs Anderssen, 1851 1-0

GAMES ANNOTATED BY LOWENTHAL: [what is this?]
   Morphy vs Anderssen, 1858
   Morphy vs H Baucher, 1858
   Morphy vs Anderssen, 1858
   Morphy vs Lord Lyttelton, 1858
   Morphy vs G Salmon, 1858
   >> 29 GAMES ANNOTATED BY LOWENTHAL

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JOHANN JACOB LOEWENTHAL
(born Jul-15-1810, died Jul-21-1876) Hungary (citizen of United States of America)

[what is this?]
John Jacob (or Johann) Löwenthal was born in the twin city of Buda-Pesth (now Budapest), Hungary, in July 15, 1810. He claimed to be first interested in chess watching Jozsef Szen play in a Pesth café. While traveling to Paris, Löwenthal played against many of the Le Cercle des Echecs (French Chess Club) members. He played a match with Hofrat Hampe (1814-1876), winning 2-1. He traveled to Breslau and played a young Adolf Anderssen, and beat him in the majority of off-hand games.

He left for the U.S. and arrived in New York December 29, 1849 and played Charles Henry Stanley who was considered the U.S. champion. He won the match with Stanley and one with J Turner. Mr. Turner accompanied Löwenthal to Kentucky where, in Lexington, he played and won a match with Colonel Dudley, considered the strongest player in the west.

In 1850, Löwenthal first learned of the chess prodigy Paul Morphy and agreed to play him a short match. To the surprise of most, the youngster won the match with two wins and one draw. About this time, Löwenthal received a personal invitation from Howard Staunton to come to England and participate in an elimination tournament to be played there in 1851. Although he was eliminated in the first round, he stayed in England and enjoyed many successes. At the Manchester tournament of 1857, Löwenthal took first place ahead of Anderssen. That same year, he designed the first upright demonstration chess board.


 page 1 of 5; games 1-25 of 123  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves Year Event/LocaleOpening
1. Lowenthal vs Szen 0-137 1842 BudapestC53 Giuoco Piano
2. Lowenthal vs Szen 1-035 1842 BudapestC53 Giuoco Piano
3. Lowenthal vs Von Der Lasa  ½-½38 1846 WienB01 Scandinavian
4. Von Der Lasa vs Lowenthal  ½-½32 1846 WienC00 French Defense
5. Hamppe vs Lowenthal 0-130 1846 UnknownC26 Vienna
6. Hamppe vs Lowenthal 0-132 1846 match (03)C26 Vienna
7. Lowenthal vs Hamppe 1-047 1846 Germany mC44 King's Pawn Game
8. Morphy vs Lowenthal 1-049 1850 New OrleansB21 Sicilian, 2.f4 and 2.d4
9. Morphy vs Lowenthal 1-055 1850 New OrleansC42 Petrov Defense
10. Lowenthal vs Anderssen 0-130 1851 LondonC65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense
11. Lowenthal vs Staunton 1-027 1851 London m/1C31 King's Gambit Declined, Falkbeer Counter Gambit
12. Lowenthal vs Staunton 1-039 1851 London m1B40 Sicilian
13. Anderssen vs Lowenthal  0-117 1851 London MatchC45 Scotch Game
14. Lowenthal vs E Williams 0-144 1851 1, London1 m7C01 French, Exchange
15. Lowenthal vs Anderssen 1-020 1851 LondonC51 Evans Gambit
16. H Buckle vs Lowenthal 0-135 1851 London m1C50 Giuoco Piano
17. H Buckle vs Lowenthal 1-041 1851 **Rd--()-, LondonA02 Bird's Opening
18. Lowenthal vs Jaenisch 1-028 1851 BerlinC33 King's Gambit Accepted
19. Lowenthal vs Staunton ½-½44 1851 London m1B32 Sicilian
20. Lowenthal vs E Williams 0-139 1851 01, LondonA40 Queen's Pawn Game
21. Anderssen vs Lowenthal 1-021 1851 LondonC51 Evans Gambit
22. Lowenthal vs H Buckle 0-142 1851 London m1C01 French, Exchange
23. Lowenthal vs H Buckle 1-056 1851 London m1A02 Bird's Opening
24. Lowenthal vs E Williams 0-139 1851 London m5C00 French Defense
25. Anderssen vs Lowenthal 1-020 1851 London LBC33 King's Gambit Accepted
 page 1 of 5; games 1-25 of 123  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Lowenthal wins | Lowenthal loses  
 

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 2 OF 2 ·  Later Kibitzing >
Nov-22-05
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: Ahhh... Yessssss.... The Great Lowenthal. A year has passed since my last kibitz on here. The man who wrote about Morphy. Not a bad player (Of course, why would his games be on CG.com if he was a bad player?)
Jan-05-06   BIDMONFA: Johann Jacob Loewenthal

LOWENTHAL
http://www.bidmonfa.com/lowenthal.htm
_

Jan-11-06   SBC: .

You can read Löwenthal's very own account of his stay in America (1849-50): http://batgirl.atspace.com/Lowentha...

.

Feb-11-06
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: His decisive win against Morphy: Morphy vs Lowenthal, 1850.
Jul-19-06
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: This line is named after him:

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nb5


click for larger view

5... a6 6. Nd6+ Bxd6 7. Qxd6 Qf6


click for larger view

Called the Loewenthal Variation, an alternative to 5... d6 ... White can either play 8. Qd1, Qa3 or even Qc7!?

Jul-19-06   aw1988: Qd1 and Qa3 should be fine, but not Qc7...
Jul-19-06   aw1988: I know, it just looks so... strange. The queen doesn't do anything or go anywhere.
Jul-19-06
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: [Reposted] <aw1988> Hi. Check it out yourself: Opening Explorer.

Even Karpov played 8. Qc7: Karpov vs Aronshtats, 1971

And this game: O Rubtsova vs M Ristic, 1970

Nov-21-06
Premium Chessgames Member
  Sneaky: <White can either play 8. Qd1, Qa3 or even Qc7!?> First, there's nothing wrong with 8.Qc7, it really puts a cramp on Black's development. But the best move is 8.Qxf6! which virtually refutes the entire variation. I can go over the details if anybody is interested.
Nov-21-06   Ziggurat: <I can go over the details if anybody is interested.> Please do. What's the general scheme for white?
Nov-21-06
Premium Chessgames Member
  Sneaky: OK, here's the mainline of the refutation:

after 8.Qxf6! (already a counterintuitive move, seemingly allowing black a lead in development) Nxf6 9.Nc3 (9.f3 d5 =; 9.Bd3 Nb4 =) we have this position, Black to move:


click for larger view

9...d5 is clever but works out no better than the line below, see Short vs R Tomczak, 1991 for an example. So with that out of the way, the only real hope to stir things up and relieve that backwards pawn is the direct approach 9...Nb4

Now we're looking at this, with White to move


click for larger view

What would you play here? Lots of patzers play 10.Bd3, basically giving up all of White's advantage, but the real move is, believe it or not, ... 10.Kd2!!


click for larger view

Now White has neutralized the threat on c2 as well as preserved his bishop pair.

[Footnote: 10.Kd1? may look more aesthetic than the odd 10.Kd2 that blocks in the bishop--but it runs into ...Ng4 with the threat on f2, exploiting the "overloaded king." But, after 10.Kd2!! Ng4? 11.f3 then Nf2 does nothing more than get a knight trapped.]

So now Black plays 10...d5 to relieve his backward pawn (hoping for something like 10.exd5 Nfxd5 11.Nxd5 Nxd5 =) but It's not so easy: 11.a3! d4 (what else?) 12.axb4 dxc3


click for larger view

And now the last hard move to remember in this variation: 13.Ke3!! stopping all counterplay. Play might continue 13...cxb2 14.Bxb2 O-O 15.Be2 (15.Bxe5? Ng4+ ) Re8 and this postion, typical of these kinds of endgames, is so strong for White than I am convinced that Black would need a miracle to find a draw:


click for larger view

Now you might think, "hey--bishop pair, shmishop pair, Black got rid of his backwards pawn, so he should be able to hold this position." All I can say is, set this up against a strong chess computer and try to hang on. Those bishops will cut you to ribbons. Then set it up where you get to play White and notice what an easy time you have slapping even a strong computer like Rybka into submission.

Nov-23-06   Ziggurat: Thanks Sneaky - the Ke2-Ke3 maneuvre is very beautiful and extremely hard to see!
Nov-25-06
Premium Chessgames Member
  tpstar: Fritz 7 Deep Position Analysis [20MB]:

10. Kd2 d5 11. a3 d4 12. axb4 dxc3+ 13. Ke3 cxb2 14. Bxb2 0-0 15. Be2 Re8

1) 16. f3

a) 16 ... Nd7 17. Rhd1 Kf8 18. c4 f6 19. c5 [1.34/14]

b) 16 ... Nd7 17. Bc3 b6 18. g3 Ra7 19. Bb2 [0.78/15]

c) 16 ... Kf8 17. b5 a5 18. c4 Nh5 19. g3 [1.53/14]

d) 16 ... Kf8 17. Rhd1 Nd7 18. Bc4 b5 19. Bd5 [1.19/16]

e) 16 ... Rb8 17. Rhd1 b5 18. Rd6 Nd7 19. Rad1 [1.53/14]

f) 16 ... Rb8 17. c4 b6 18. b5 a5 19. c5 [1.50/16]

2) 16. Rhd1 Be6 17. Rd2 Rac8 18. f3 Bc4 19. Ra5 [1.31/15]

Nov-28-06   Rubenus: How do you spell it? Loewenthal, Lowenthal or Löwenthal?
Nov-28-06
Premium Chessgames Member
  Karpova: <Rubenus: How do you spell it? Loewenthal, Lowenthal or Löwenthal?>

<Lowenthal> is wrong. the other two are possible (just like Gruenfeld)

Nov-28-06
Premium Chessgames Member
  Calli: I spell it Löwenthal. Thanks for asking.
Aug-18-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Karpova: <Copyright controversies are not uncommon. In 1853 the Chess Player’s Chronicle reported on the ‘Chess Meeting at Manchester’, attended by such luminaries as Staunton, Harrwitz, Horwitz, Williams and Löwenthal. Page 189 related:

‘Mr Löwenthal then explained the circumstances of the transaction as to his challenge to Mr Harrwitz, and said that the London Club wished to force on him conditions which no player would accept, viz. – that all the games should be played at the London Chess-club; and that all the games should be the property of that club (Shame! absurd!). He proposed that half the games should be played at the London and the other half at the St George’s Chess-club; but that the games must be public property (applause); but to this they would not agree ...’> http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Jul-15-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  brankat: R.I.P. Master Loewenthal.
Jul-15-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  whiteshark: Player of the Day

I wonder about his citizenship. It's not mentioned in his biography. He was born in <Austrian Empire>.

Jul-15-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Calli: "Loewenthal, who became a naturalised Englishman, had a highly polished manner and mixed freely in good society. He was a friend and frequent opponent at chess of W. G. Ward [q. v.], under whose influence he joined the Roman Catholic church." - The Dictionary of National Biography, 1909 [Note - JJL was Jewish by birth.]

Another interesting tidbit from the same book:

"Though a non-combatant in the revolutions of 1849, Loewenthal was an ardent follower of Kossuth, and held a civil appointment under his administration ; he was in consequence expelled from Austro-Hungary after the patriot's downfall in 1849,..."

Jul-16-08   sneaky pete: <... under whose influence he joined the Roman Catholic church> and <Jewish by birth>: No doubt, but G.H. Diggle in BCM, July 1976, mentions that <Janos Jakab> Löwenthal "was educated at the Roman Catholic middle school of the piarist fathers, and received his first chess lessons from Jozsef Szen, four [should be five, if the biographers on this site are right] years his senior, who was at the same school for eight years."

Also from Diggle: "And though he 'lived for chess, and (sometimes not too well) by chess', he never 'crossed the line into Bohemia'. He had an acute sense of what was due to the Chess Public, and would have starved rather than appeared at a chess function, or given a lesson to a client, 'improperly dressed' or in dirty linen."

Oct-26-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Karpova: <How do we know Crittenden played chess? This comes from an interesting letter written by Hungarian master Johann Jacob Löwenthal about his time in America, which was printed in the book of the first 'American Chess Congress'. Kentucky was at that time quite a hotbed of American chess, and Löwenthal spent some time there as the guest and opponent of the leading players of the state. Part of the letter reads as follows:

"On the 10th of April I left Lexington for Frankfort on my way to Cincinnati, carrying with me letters of introduction to Mr. Temple, the Treasurer of the state of Kentucky. Mr. Temple introduced me to Gen. Pain and to Governor Crittenden, in whom I had the satisfaction of becoming acquainted with one of the leading statesmen of America. I stayed at the Governor's house to tea and supper amid a large party. Mr. Brown, who was, I was told, considered the best player in Frankfort, was present. I won two games of Mr. Brown, to whom I gave odds, and then requested the honor of a game with the Governor. Here my good fortune deserted me, Mr. Crittenden proved victorious, and I had to console myself with the thought that I had been beaten in even play by one of the shrewdest brains in the States.">

From page 6 of Jeremy P. Spinrad's "Early American Political Players", December 2007: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/spinr...

Jan-08-09   myschkin: . . .

"The Chess Congress of 1862"
Edited and Games Annotated by J.J. Löwenthal
(open access zipped PDF, ~18MB )

http://www.chessville.com/downloads...

für Deutschsprachige Interessierte:
http://books.google.com/books?id=l1...

Jul-15-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: Happy Birthday, Lowenthal!

Sucks that you share a birthday with Pal Benko. Could've been YOU who's Player of the Day instead of him!

Jul-31-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: Loewenthal drew Steinitz with score of (+0 -0 = 2) in 1866

search "Steinitz vs Loewenthal".

That proves enough that he's a very strong and underrated player.

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