Phony Benoni: I've looked up some tournament and match results for Carls. His first major event seems to have been the <Hauptturnier> (Master Candidate) tournament at Cologne, 1898, where he tied for 3rd-4th in his preliminary section and did not qualify for the final. Considering he was not quite 18 at the time, even this modest result indicates a player with some promise.In those days, one became a Master in Germany by winning a Hauptturnier. Carls came close with a second place finish at Hamburg 1910 (Rotlewi won), then broke through with a victory at Cologne 1911.
After this he was qualified to play in the master section of the German Chess Congress, which was equivalent to a strong international tournament. His usual finish was around 15th in an 18-20 player field, but he did score some notable individual victories, such as defeating both Spielmann and Tarrasch at Breslau, 1912.
After the war, the German congresses were generally weaker and Carls' results improved: 5th-7th at Hamburg 1921, 2nd at Oyenhaousen 1922. His major international tournament came at Baden-Baden 1925, where he finished his usual 15th in a strong 21-player field.
He had solid results playing 3rd board for Germany in the Olympiads at London 1927 (63.3%) and Hamburg 1930 (67.9%). He also competed in the Amateur Championship at Hague 1928, finishing 7th.
After this, he confined his action mostly to local tournaments for the next decade. However, he did play in the first two German Championships, finishing 4th at Bad Pyrmont 1933 (Bogoljubow 1st) and winning the title at Aachen in 1934 (though it must be said it was a very weak field). Also, in the so-called "Extra Olympiad" at Munich 1936, he played fourth board for Germany and recorded his usual solid result with 58.8%.
He was jerked back into activity for some of the Nazi-sponsored tournaments during World War II, finishing 7th-10th at Krakow 1941, 1st at Rostock 1942 (ahead of Klaus Junge, but no other important players), then withdrawing after 8 rounds at Prague, 1943. After that, the only event I can find is the German Championship at Bad Pyrmont 1949, where finished well down in the crosstable with 4.5/12.
He was not very successful in match play, losing to Bernstein (+2 -6 =2), Eljaschoff (+1 -3 =0), E. Cohn (+1 -6 =1), and Suechting (+1 -2 =0). He did win several matches from fellow Bremen player Antze in the 1930s, but these may not have been totally serious affairs.
In short, he seems to have been another one of those players who lost his best years to World War I, though he probably would not have progressed beyond the second tier of Masters.
d2 gxf2!! as others did too. Curious, that I used to have the Martinez Roca Spanish edition of the Gelenczei work originally publihed in Hungary in 1958, but was not recalling immediatelly that it showed the featured game...
