Dr. Paul Clemens Seuffert (ne Seufert) was born in Berlin. During his high school years, Paul is said to have learned the basic rules of chess from his father, whom he quickly surpassed through intensive self-study. After completing his one-year military service in Berlin at the beginning of the eighties, the love of chess quickly developed into a passion for the student of classical philology. Seuffert spent most of his free time at Café Royal, and - as later in Kassel - occupied himself with the royal game on sleepless nights.
In the main group tournament of the Hamburg Congress of the German Chess Federation in 1885, he came to the division of the 5th-7th prize in strong competition. The center of the lively chess business in Berlin was certainly the Berlin Chess Society. The next major success Seuffert recorded in the winter tournament of the Berlin SG 1886/87, where he won the 2nd prize among 15 applicants without losing a game, leaving players like Curt von Bardeleben, Theodor von Scheve and Horatio Caro behind and only on Emil Schallopp, whom he had defeated, half a point remained behind.
At the end of August 1893, when the Kiel Chess Society announced a national championship tournament of the German Chess Federation, to which recognized strong players were admitted even without an official championship title, Seuffert seized the opportunity to devote himself again to chess. He succeeded in proving his equality with renowned masters such as Curt von Bardeleben, Karl Walbrodt, Paul Lipke, Johannes Metger, Jacques Mieses and Hermann von Gottschall. Not only the division of the 4th-5th prize with Gottschall and Metger, but the consistently high quality of his games convinced.
Seuffert possessed a pronounced inclination towards philosophical thinking, and he was all too happy to ponder the becoming and passing of people and things. A severe nervous disorder, because of which he had to go to a sanatorium, robbed him of courage and energy to live. On Monday, August 3, at 5 a.m. in the afternoon, Seuffert put an end to his life in A forest near Lohr, by a shot from his pistol
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