Johann Baptist Allgaier

Johann Baptist Allgaier (June 19, 1763, Schussenried – January 3, 1823, Vienna) was a German-Austrian chess master and theoretician. He was also the author of the first chess handbook in German – Neue theoretisch-praktische Anweisung zum Schachspiel (Vienna 1795–96).

Relatively few details of his life are known. Only a few years after his death almost all information concerning his life, including dates of birth and death, were lost. Daniel Fiske traveled to Vienna between 1862 and 1863 and searched the archives of the city for some details about him, but in vain. Only in 1870 Anton Baron Reissner (a founder of the and collaborator of the ), by working in archives and by interviewing Allgaier's family members and others who knew him, managed to recover some details of the life of this master. Subsequently, it was discovered that some information was also present in the memories of Karl Heinrich von Ritters Lang written in 1842, but not known to the chess historians of the time.

Johann Baptist Allgaier was born in 1763 in the Duchy of Württemberg, his mother tongue was the Swabian dialect. His father, Georg Allgaier, was employed at a monastery as a Hofmeister, the person, who, in those days, was in charge of the education of the children of the rich and nobles families. The young Johann received a Catholic education and was directed by his father towards the study of theology. Following a trip to Poland, however, he learned chess from a Polish Jew and the game became his main interest at the expense of the study of theology. Subsequently, in 1798, he moved to Vienna and joined the army. In the Austrian capital, he was able to improve his chess skills. Towards the end of 1780, he won an important match from which he earned 1500 florins and the reputation of the city's best player. This allowed Allgaier access to the aristocratic circles of the capital where he gave chess lessons. He also became the teacher of the sons and brothers of the Emperor Francis II. Since Allgaier was in the army, participated in the Napoleonic wars between Austria and France. In 1809, he was employed in a field hospital, where he became ill with chronic asthma. Later it was moved to Prague where he became an accountant at the military hospital. He returned to Vienna in 1816 where the Emperor gave him, for health reasons (asthma), a modest pension. In order to make some additional money, he played chess in the Cafés of Vienna, and in particular to the Zur Goldenen Krone, the meeting place of many strong players in the capital, including Anton Witthalm and the Count Johann Somssich. Witthalm was one of the persons interviewed by Anton Baron Reissner to reconstruct Allgaier's life of that period. Witthalm reported that Allgaier's style was brilliant and mainly focused on attacking, while Somssich, by contrast, was more cautious and defensive. Because of his style when Allgaier played a crowd of spectators gathered at the premises of the Café to admire his brilliant play. Santo Vito, who edited the 6th and 7th edition of Allgaier's book, collected some of these games in an appendix. Allgaier was used to accept the challenge of anyone for a gulden. This price for weaker players, also included a short lesson of the master after the game. In fact, Allgaier throughout most of his life had to deal with a constant shortage of money as it emerges from the memoirs of Karl Heinrich von Ritters Lang. Financial problems were often the reasons, for some players, to accept Mälzel's offer to operate the Turk. Allgaier played hidden in the chess Automaton in 1809. A game played that year by the Turk against Napoleon at Schönbrunn Palace is attributed to Allgaier.

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