Nov-22-04
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| Knight13: Johann Jacob Löwenthal (July 15, 1810 - July 24, 1876) was a 19th century professional chess master. He was born in Budapest, the son of a merchant.
He was one of the first masters to play a match against Paul Morphy after the latter's arrival in England in 1858. Morphy won with a score of nine wins, three losses and two draws. "...I am convinced that I was vanquished by superior strength," Löwenthal said about the match, as reported by the Englishman Frederick Edge. No doubt aware that chess was Löwenthal's only source of livlihood, and conscious to not be considered a professional player himself, Morphy after winning the match stakes of £100, presented Löwenthal with a gift of furniture valued at £120 for his new house. Just days after being defeated by Morphy, Löwenthal had his greatest success by winning the British Chess Association Congress knockout tournament in Birmingham, England, August 27, 1858. His prize was £63. In 1860 Löwenthal took advantage of Morphy's extreme popularity to create a collection of the American master's games titled Morphy's Games of Chess According to Morphy's biographer David Lawson, Morphy was friendly to Löwenthal and therefore agreed to sign his name to material in the book, that was purported to be written by Morphy but in fact was not. For a time, Löwenthal served as club secretary of the St. George's Chess Club in London. He taught chess, and invented the first demonstration board. He helped organize an international tournament in 1862, and then published a tournament book. Löwenthal lived into his sixties. When became ill in 1874 and could no longer financially support himself, a collection was taken up for him. Lord Randolph Churchill and many others contributed to the charity fund. Löwenthal died on July 24, 1876 at St. Leonards-on-Sea, near Hastings at the age of sixty-six. |
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Apr-30-05
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| Sneaky: Of interest: Game Collection: The Sneaky Old Löwenthal Sicilian |
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Nov-22-05
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| 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?) |
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| Jan-05-06 |
| BIDMONFA: Johann Jacob Loewenthal LOWENTHAL
http://www.bidmonfa.com/lowenthal.htm
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| Jan-11-06 |
| SBC: . You can read Löwenthal's very own account of his stay in America (1849-50): http://batgirl.atspace.com/Lowentha... . |
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Feb-11-06
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| Knight13: His decisive win against Morphy: Morphy vs Lowenthal, 1850. |
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Jul-19-06
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| 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!? |
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| Jul-19-06 |
| aw1988: Qd1 and Qa3 should be fine, but not Qc7... |
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| Jul-19-06 |
| aw1988: I know, it just looks so... strange. The queen doesn't do anything or go anywhere. |
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Jul-19-06
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| 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 |
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Nov-21-06
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| 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. |
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Nov-21-06
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| Ziggurat: <I can go over the details if anybody is interested.> Please do. What's the general scheme for white? |
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Nov-21-06
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| 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 view9...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 viewWhat 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 viewNow 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 viewAnd 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 viewNow 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. |
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Nov-23-06
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| Ziggurat: Thanks Sneaky - the Ke2-Ke3 maneuvre is very beautiful and extremely hard to see! |
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Nov-25-06
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| 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] |
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| Nov-28-06 |
| Rubenus: How do you spell it? Loewenthal, Lowenthal or Löwenthal? |
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Nov-28-06
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| Karpova: <Rubenus: How do you spell it? Loewenthal, Lowenthal or Löwenthal?> <Lowenthal> is wrong. the other two are possible (just like Gruenfeld) |
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Nov-28-06
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| Calli: I spell it Löwenthal. Thanks for asking. |
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Aug-18-07
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| 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/... |
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Jul-15-08
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| brankat: R.I.P. Master Loewenthal. |
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Jul-15-08
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| whiteshark: Player of the Day
I wonder about his citizenship. It's not mentioned in his biography.
He was born in <Austrian Empire>. |
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Jul-15-08
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| 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,..." |
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Jul-16-08
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| 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." |
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