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).

About his biography 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 Reisner (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.

Biography 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 noble 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 1,500 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, he 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 he 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 Reisner 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. 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 florin. 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. That same year the Turk went against Napoleon at Schönbrunn Palace.

At the end of December 1822, he was admitted to the military hospital in Vienna and died a few days later of dropsy. The fact that he died in a public institution, although he was married, gives, according to Anton Baron Reisner, a clear proof of Allgaier's shortage of money. This was also confirmed by the papers of his legacy, which Reisner examined.

Influence on chess

In 1795 and 1796 published in Vienna (in two volumes) his book Neue Theoretische-praktische Anweisung zum Schachspiel, which was regarded in some parts of Europe as the best text book of the time and was reprinted several times, even after his death; the seventh and final edition was in 1843.

From his treatise, it is clear that Allgaier knew very well the literature of his time. He was influenced both by the ideas of Philidor and the Modenese School (del Rio, Lolli and Ponziani) between which he tried some sort of compromise. The influence of the French master seemed dominant, however, and Allgaier was later called the "German Philidor".

Style of play and games In the sixth and seventh edition of the Neue Anweisung, Santo Vito added an appendix containing four games played by the strongest players in Vienna. Anton Witthalm, interviewed by Reisner, affirmed that Allgaier had a very tactical style of play and the games recorded by Santo Vito (or at least part of them) were played by Allgaier. These games are rare and cannot be found in the common chess databases like ChessBase, 365chess, chessbites or chesslab and, consequently, are here reported. In the original text, there were no comments to the games; punctuation and the notes between square parenthesis come from analysis carried out with the chess engine FireBird 1.2. The first and second game show a more complex tactical struggle; game three, on the other hand, indicates a very poor endgame technique.

First Game

Second Game

Third Game

Fourth Game