Jacques Mieses

Jacques Mieses
Jacques Mieses, 1900
Country	Germany United Kingdom
Born	(1865-02-27)27 February 1865 Leipzig, Germany
Died	23 February 1954(1954-02-23) (aged 88) London, United Kingdom
Title	Grandmaster

Jacques Mieses (Leipzig, 27 February 1865 – London, 23 February 1954) was a German-born chess Grandmaster and writer. He became a naturalized British citizen after World War II.^p258

Mieses was a dangerous attacker with a number of famous victories to his credit, e.g. against Frank Marshall (Monte Carlo 1903). His best achievement was to win the first Trebitsch Memorial at Vienna 1907, and he came third at the 28-round Masters tournament at Ostend the same year.

He organized the 1911 San Sebastian master tournament and insisted that all the masters' expenses were paid. This was the first international tournament of José Raúl Capablanca, who surprised everyone by winning.

Mieses moved to England in the 1930s to escape Nazi persecution as a Jew. In 1950 he became the first FIDE-authorized British grandmaster, though not (as is sometimes claimed) the first British grandmaster. ("Grandmaster" is a title first used of chess players in the nineteenth century,^p156 and a number of British players were considered to be grandmasters in their day, such as Howard Staunton and Joseph Blackburne. When FIDE first awarded the grandmaster title in 1950, Mieses was one of the 27 original recipients, and the oldest of them.)

Mieses wrote many tournament reports, but his style was regarded as fairly dry, in contrast with his wittiness in person.