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Bird 
Drawing by Sam Loyd, Scientific American Supplement, 1877  
Henry Edward Bird
Number of games in database: 467
Years covered: 1849 to 1903
Overall record: +166 -225 =73 (43.6%)*
   * Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games
      Based on games in the database; may be incomplete.
      3 exhibition games, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

MOST PLAYED OPENINGS
With the White pieces:
 Bird's Opening (91) 
    A03 A02
 Ruy Lopez (36) 
    C65 C77 C84 C62 C67
 French Defense (22) 
    C00 C13 C11 C01 C10
 French (20) 
    C00 C13 C11 C10
 Giuoco Piano (16) 
    C53 C50
 Evans Gambit (9) 
    C51 C52
With the Black pieces:
 Sicilian (48) 
    B34 B21 B73 B46 B23
 Ruy Lopez (29) 
    C61 C77 C80 C63
 King's Gambit Accepted (23) 
    C35 C33 C39 C37
 French Defense (23) 
    C00 C13 C10 C01 C14
 Sicilian Dragon (20) 
    B34 B73 B72
 Dutch Defense (19) 
    A81 A84 A85
Repertoire Explorer

NOTABLE GAMES: [what is this?]
   Bird vs Lasker, 1892 1-0
   NN vs Bird, 1850 0-1
   Bird vs J Mason, 1876 1-0
   Bird vs Englisch, 1883 1/2-1/2
   Bird vs NN, 1869 1-0
   Bird vs Steinitz, 1867 1-0
   Bird vs Pinkerley, 1850 1-0
   Bird vs K Pitschel, 1878 1-0
   Bird vs Blackburne, 1879 1-0
   Lipschutz vs Bird, 1889 1/2-1/2

GAME COLLECTIONS: [what is this?]
   Interesting Games by Henry Bird by Knight13
   Paris 1878 by suenteus po 147
   Bird's Opening (A02-A03): A Reappraisal by suenteus po 147
   Яяoи caяa by CharlieLuciano

Search Sacrifice Explorer for Henry Edward Bird
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HENRY EDWARD BIRD
(born Jul-14-1830, died Apr-11-1908) United Kingdom

[what is this?]
Henry Edward Bird was born in 1830 in Portsea, Hampshire, in England. At the age of 21 he was invited to an international tournament in London. Bird lost to Paul Morphy at age 28 but continued to play chess for more than 50 years.

Bird was also an author and an accountant, brilliant at both. He wrote a book entitled "Chess History and Reminiscences". Today, he has his name attached to one of the more interesting openings, the Bird Opening, which leads with 1.f4.


 page 1 of 19; games 1-25 of 467  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves Year Event/LocaleOpening
1. G Medley vs Bird 1-052 1849 LondenD35 Queen's Gambit Declined
2. Bird vs G Medley 1-063 1849 London ;HCL 34B45 Sicilian, Taimanov
3. G Medley vs Bird 1-042 1849 LondenA13 English
4. G Medley vs Bird 1-036 1849 London ;HCL 34A85 Dutch, with c4 & Nc3
5. Bird vs G Medley 1-021 1849 LondonC00 French Defense
6. Bird vs G Medley 0-129 1849 LondonC00 French Defense
7. G Medley vs Bird 1-047 1849 LondonD35 Queen's Gambit Declined
8. Bird vs G Medley 1-033 1849 LondenC00 French Defense
9. G Medley vs Bird 1-053 1849 London ;HCL 34C01 French, Exchange
10. NN vs Bird 0-115 1850 ENGC45 Scotch Game
11. Bird vs J Smith 1-021 1850 LondonC64 Ruy Lopez, Classical
12. Bird vs A Simons 1-050 1850 LondonC64 Ruy Lopez, Classical
13. Bird vs Pinkerley 1-024 1850 London000 Chess variants
14. Horwitz vs Bird 1-024 1851 Londen mC41 Philidor Defense
15. Horwitz vs Bird 0-135 1851 ENGB21 Sicilian, 2.f4 and 2.d4
16. Bird vs Horwitz 1-029 1851 Londen mC65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense
17. Bird vs Horwitz ½-½54 1851 Londen mC62 Ruy Lopez, Old Steinitz Defense
18. Horwitz vs Bird ½-½31 1851 Londen mB21 Sicilian, 2.f4 and 2.d4
19. Bird vs Horwitz 0-132 1851 4, London1 m4B30 Sicilian
20. Bird vs Horwitz 1-059 1851 LondonC65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense
21. Horwitz vs Bird 1-062 1851 Londen mC01 French, Exchange
22. Horwitz vs Bird ½-½48 1851 Londen mB21 Sicilian, 2.f4 and 2.d4
23. Horwitz vs Bird 1-055 1851 3, London1 m4B21 Sicilian, 2.f4 and 2.d4
24. Bird vs Anderssen 1-044 1851 LondonC65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense
25. Horwitz vs Bird 1-018 1851 LondonC01 French, Exchange
 page 1 of 19; games 1-25 of 467  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Bird wins | Bird loses  
 

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 7 OF 7 ·  Later Kibitzing >
Feb-22-08   paladin at large: Here's the game -

Blackburne vs Bird, 1892

Feb-22-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: <paladin at large> In the 19th century everyone loved tactics, massive pawn in the center dominating the whole board. Bird's Opening is a quite opening and much less tactics, plus it weakens the White king or something so the kibitzers back then must've thought it as boring and stupid, and plus no other masters playing it, they concluded that 1. f4 is probably not a good opening (which isn't true).
Feb-23-08   paladin at large: <Knight13> Thanks. I was refering to current kibitzers. I have no opinion on how good the Bird Opening is - the point I was trying to make was that Bird was justified in trusting in his own personalized approach in playing Blackburne.

Appreciate the time you have devoted to Bird's games.

Feb-23-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: Yesss!! FINALLY A PICTURE OF HENRY EDWARD BIRD! It's been AGES. Thanks, <Chessgames.com>!
Feb-23-08   MichAdams: An early example of the comb-over hairstyle.
Feb-23-08   Voltaic: and one perfectly depicted.
Feb-25-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: So... Every single one of Bird's games in this database to this day has been commented/kibitzed. Four hundred and sixty-seven games. Whoa...!
Feb-29-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: This game, Bird vs J Mason, 1876, beats "The Game of the Century" by a mile.
Mar-11-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  WannaBe: And this Henry Edward Bird you cannot change!!
Mar-11-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Gypsy: <ChessDude33: I'm sorry if this has already been mentioned but what do people think about Henry bird saying Steintz would get trounced by Morphy? "I trotted Steinitz the closest heat he ever contested. He beat me 8 to 7, with 6 draws. This was in '67. In '58 Morphy beat me 10 to 1, with 1 draw. Steinitz claims that he is a better player than ever Morphy was, but I think my record with each is a fair test of the strength of the two. Steinitz claims that when I played with Morphy I was out of practice, but I cannot explain away my crushing defeat by that great player in any such way. I never played better chess in my life than when he beat me."

---henry bird

Every since I read this quote it has fascinated me. It does slightly appear that Bird has a harder time against morphy than steinitz (perhaps age is the factor?). >

What I think about it is that this statement woke up Steintz and, from that point on, he started to pay Bird a little more more atention. Their record after the quoted statement goes

Bird-Steinitz +1 -9 =2.

To me, the Bird Steinitz story is analogous to the story of Capablanca and Kostic: Kostic had a tournament record of +0 -0 =5 against Capablanca and decided to challenge Capa to a match. Kostic then resigned the match with the score running +0 -5 =0.

Mar-12-08   Nightlamp: Henry Bird was perhaps a little overrated, being more of a master then a grandmaster, but one cannot deny he was a much then 2200. One can see this at his results : in some tournaments he played at equal strength of all time greats as Anderssen, Gunsberg, Lasker, ... He almost drew a match against Steinitz, who wasn't a weak player that year (1866). Bird was also quite appreciated by many people. Especially amateurs, one has to admit, but even Morphy considered him as the most genial player he ever met. Bird had his obvious weaknesses : his health, his very rapid play, his optimism, ... which alas make him a less stronger player then he could have been. To be convinced of his (grand)master strength : look at the Bird-Mason game from the NY Clipper 1876 tournament. Even today, many grandmasters can't play a game like that one. It is stupendous, in contrast, to see how many (very) bad games Bird played. The reasons for this were his quickness (there are witnesses who write he never stopped talking during offhand games, hardly looking at the board) and his stubborness towards the modern theory by Steinitz, who advocated a more positional form of chess. To analyse his games with a PC, which uses modern standards, isn't very relevant. If the same program analyses the games of Lasker, I guess he won't rate him over 2400.
Mar-27-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: <Henry Bird was perhaps a little overrated, being more of a master then a grandmaster> Who said he was a grandmaster? I've seen his games and he's not playing at GM level.

<He almost drew a match against Steinitz, who wasn't a weak player that year (1866)> Yes. Steinitz wiped out Anderssen during that same year.

<...and his stubborness towards the modern theory by Steinitz, who advocated a more positional form of chess.> He wasn't the only one who ignored Steinitz's theory, though. Many others did also, some even regarded Steinitz's positional stuff as garbage and stupid.

Mar-28-08   Nightlamp: The title of grandmaster was used only years after Bird's life, so one can discuss endlessly about it, I think. If, however, one looks at the tournaments in the 19th century, Bird finished amongst the top 10 in many, many tournaments. In his best days he was amongst the 10-20 best players in the world. Nowadays there are more then 1000 GM's. It seems reasonable to me to accept that one who belongs to the top 20 in the world can be seen as a GM.
Mar-28-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: <players in the world. Nowadays there are more then 1000 GM's. It seems reasonable to me to accept that one who belongs to the top 20 in the world can be seen as a GM.> You forgot to add "...during that era." Grandmasters of the 19th century, but not necessarily mean they're 2500s though, since the term Grandmaster means highest title in some kind of a game and you can be #1 and be rated 2000 and you're still a "grandmaster" just because you're on the top level.
Mar-28-08   Nightlamp: Well, there was no rating system indeed.
One can do 2 things :
1. Look at the games and compare them to games from now. We do have a massive amount of opening/middlegame/endgame theory that was unknown then. As I mentioned in an earlier post : if one takes a look at the games of Steinitz : he doesn't play like a modern 2400. So, for me, I think this kind of looking at players from the past isn't right. 2. One can calculate their rating (more or less) by having a look at their results in tournaments and matches. Then Steinitz will be a 2700 player and Bird, I think, a 2500 player.
Mar-29-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: <Nightlamp> I was just using rating to tell strengh, sorry if it mislead you into believing that I was assigning ratings to these players. Yeah, no rating back then. Only way to estimate is let a computer analyze their games and then put up an estimate.

<2. One can calculate their rating (more or less) by having a look at their results in tournaments and matches. Then Steinitz will be a 2700 player and Bird, I think, a 2500 player.> How do you know, though? What if they were, say, a bunch of 2300-2500 strengh players sitting in a tournament? Can't just go and say "2700 Steinitz yes because he won. Bird? Nahh didn't do THAT well so yeah he's 2500 for sure."

Mar-31-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: You all can download "Chess History and Reminescences" here free: http://manybooks.net/titles/birdhen....
Apr-04-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: And so on this day at 6:30 PM I have gone over every single game played by Henry Edward Bird, and kibitzed on every single one. My journey with this guy is OVER!
Apr-07-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  biglo: Note on Friday April 11 it is the centenary of Bird's death
May-07-08   whiteshark: Why does the early Henry Edward Bird get the worm ?
May-16-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: Chessmetrics Player Profile: Henry Bird

Born: 1830-Jul

Died: 1908-Apr

Best World Rank: #2 (2 different months between the March 1876 rating list and the April 1876 rating list )

Highest Rating: 2635 on the September 1875 rating list, #3 in world, age 45y2m

Best Individual Performance: 2664 in Bird-Steinitz Match (London), 1866, scoring 7.5/17 (44%) vs 2707-rated opposition

May-17-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  sneaky pete: <2 different months between the March 1876 rating list and the April 1876 rating list>. Please enlighten me, which months do we have between March and April?
Jul-05-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: <sneaky pete> March point 5.
Jul-14-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  brankat: R.I.P. Master Bird!
Sep-24-08   whiteshark: Quote of the Day

" Chess is so ancient that, by that distinction alone, it seems taken beyond the category of games altogether; and it has been said that it probably would have perished long ago, if it had not been destined to live for ever. "

-- Henry Bird

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