Jul-10-04
 | | Benzol: Potter 1840 - 1895 was a leading English player in the 1870's. A barrister's clerk he was only able to play in one strong tournament, London 1876. He finished in third place behind Blackburne and Zukertort.
A friend of Steinitz they both played in a correspondence match of two games for the London Chess Club against a Viennese team led by Kolisch for a stake of 100 pounds.
The rest of the London team (Blackburne, Horwitz, Lowenthal and Wisker) were unable to accept the ideas of Steinitz and Potter and withdrew leaving the latter two to play on. They won the match and Steinitz declared that modern chess began with these two games.
In match play Potter lost to Zukertort in 1875 (+2 =8 -4) and drew with Mason in 1879 (+5 =11 -5). |
 |
Mar-27-05
 | | BishopBerkeley: Dr. Emanuel Lasker mentions the friendship between Mr. Potter and Wilhelm Steinitz in "Lasker's Manual of Chess": I heard in London, that a London master, Mr. Potter, who loved unusual and strange moves, had influenced Steinitz greatly. The two were friends, and Steinitz somehow began to copy Potter's style. However that may have been, I can well believe that a strange style would rise, almost of necessity, at a time so romantic, so superstitious as that time was. Potter probably saw through the emptiness and the presumption of the style then dominating and with his style of play he seemed to call out to his contemporaries: "You want to beat me right from the start by force of your greater genius? Look! I make ridiculous moves, and yet you cannot beat me. Become, I pray you, more modest and more reasonable." From "Lasker's Manual of Chess", p.200, Dover edition, ISBN: 0486206408: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t... (:  B :) |
|
| May-06-05 | | soberknight: Potter: Harry's long-lost great-grandfather! |
|
| Mar-28-06 | | Whitehat1963: Did he ever play Lord Voldemort? |
|
| Mar-28-06 | | Jim Bartle: Easy enough to find out: just plug in Potter and Kasparov into the search function and see if any games pop up. |
|
| May-25-07 | | Dittersdorf: In the mid-1870s, surely Potter was stronger than IM-strength relative to his day. |
|
| Jul-14-07 | | noTALent: Maybe Blackburne is an alias for Voldemort or one of Sirius Black's less likable relatives. In which case Potter's 0-2 record against Blackburne is a concern. Could the 2 losses represent Harry's parents? |
|
| Aug-17-08 | | ravel5184: Hipy papy bthuthdth thuthda bthuthdy! |
|
| Jan-06-09 | | Karpova: A picture and information can be found in C.N. 5936: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... His sister, Mary Potter, founded the "Little Company of Mary". |
|
| Aug-17-09 | | BIDMONFA: William Norwood Potter POTTER, William N.
http://www.bidmonfa.com/potter_will...
_ |
|
Aug-17-09
 | | DarthStapler: It's funny that his "most often referenced game" isn't in the database |
|
| Aug-17-09 | | WhiteRook48: he led a 7-0 record against voldemort |
|
| Aug-17-09 | | Dredge Rivers: Was a much better CO for the MASH 4077th than Henry Blake. |
|
| Sep-27-10 | | who: Not my favorite bio. "IM strength"? Says who? According to chessmetrics he was #4 in the world at his peak and he was in the top 10 for a few years. |
|
| Feb-12-11 | | Karpova: Frederic Friedel's article on the Fenton-Potter game: http://asp.internet.is/srt/fentonpo... |
|
Mar-09-12
 | | whiteshark: "We are amongst those who would be glad to see the ancient game burst through the barriers of social rank and gladden every walk of life, so that the handicraftsman and the laborer, after the day's toil, might find pleasure in a recreation which would give them no headache next day, and would leave their pockets in a satisfactory condition." ~ William Norwood Potter |
|
Mar-17-12
| | whiteshark: "Chess, of course, may have been the cause of <Morphy's mental fall>; he may have loved it not wisely but too well. A mind saturated with one idea to the exclusion of all others is necessarily predisposed to mania, and if a man allows himself to regard Chess as the one fact of existence, thereby starving his mind, which, like the body, requires a variety of food, then the texture of the strongest brain must become weakened, and the reason sooner or later be overthrown. Whether this was <Morphy's case> remains to be seen. However, the disaster which has overtaken him may be accounted for in another way. Success came to him too early and was too complete. So far as Chess was concerned he had conquered the world, and henceforth he had no motive in life." ~ William Norwood Potter |
|
Mar-17-12
| | whiteshark: "Chess, of course, may have been the cause of <Morphy's> mental fall; he may have loved it not wisely but too well. A mind saturated with one idea to the exclusion of all others is necessarily predisposed to mania, and if a man allows himself to regard Chess as the one fact of existence, thereby starving his mind, which, like the body, requires a variety of food, then the texture of the strongest brain must become weakened, and the reason sooner or later be overthrown. Whether this was <Morphy's> case remains to be seen. However, the disaster which has overtaken him may be accounted for in another way. Success came to him too early and was too complete. So far as Chess was concerned he had conquered the world, and henceforth he had no motive in life." ~ William Norwood Potter |
|
