- Cecil Valentine De Vere
Infobox chess player
playername=Cecil Valentine De Vere
caption=
birthname=Cecil Valentine De Vere
country=SCO
datebirth=birth date|1845|2|14
placebirth=Scotland
datedeath=death date and age|1875|2|9|1845|2|14
placedeath=England
title=
worldchampion=
womensworldchampion=
rating=
peakrating=Cecil Valentine De Vere (
14 February 1845 , Montrose –9 February 1875 ,Torqay ) was the pseudonym of Cecil Valentine Brown,citation
last=Gaige | first=Jeremy | author-link=Jeremy Gaige
year=1987 | title=Chess Personalia, A Biobibliography
publisher=McFarland
isbn=0-7864-2353-6
page=91] the winner of the first officialBritish Chess Championship , in 1866.He played chess effortlessly and elegantly without recourse to chess study or theory; in this respect he was not unlike
Capablanca . His meteoric rise to fame and equally dramatic decline has been compared toMorphy and he is often cited as 'The English Morphy'. His great natural talent for the game was attended by an equal indolence for work. Cecil De Vere contractedtuberculosis around 1867 and later became dependent on alcohol. He lived inLondon for most of his life but was sent toTorquay by his chess friends in 1874 in the vain hope of recuperation. He died in Torquay, UK, aged 29, and is buried there.References
External links
* [http://snow.prohosting.com/~batgrrl/JH%20Blackburne.html Article on J H Blackburne with section on C V De Vere]
* [http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/event/chgbr01/03brit.html Chesscenter.com]
* [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=79407 93 chess games of Cecil Valentine De Vere ]
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