William Pollock (chess player)

Infobox chess player
playername=William Pollock


caption=
birthname=William Henry Kraus Pollock
country=ENG
datebirth=birth date|1859|2|21
placebirth=Cheltenham, England
datedeath=death date and age|1896|10|5|1859|2|21
placedeath=Clifton, Bristol, England
title=
worldchampion=
womensworldchampion=
rating=
peakrating=

William Henry Kraus Pollock (21 February 1859, Cheltenham – 5 October 1896, Clifton, England) was an Irish–British–American chess Master, and a surgeon.

Born in England, Pollock won Irish Championship at Dublin 1885, and won at Belfast 1886 (ahead of Joseph Henry Blackburne and Amos Burn). At the time, he was not a resident of Ireland. He had been a member of the Dublin Chess Club from 1880 to 1882 during his stay in the city as a medical student. He then moved back to England and became a surgeon. [ [http://us.share.geocities.com/wallw_99/who.htm Aaron, Manuel (1935- ) ] ]

In other British tournaments, he shared 1st at Bath 1884 (B tournament), took 4th at London 1885 ("British Chess Association Congress"), tied for 8-10th at Hereford, took 10th and 5th, both at London 1886, took 7th at Nottingham 1886, tied for 3rd-5th at Stamford 1887, took 5th at London 1887 (BCA), tied for 9-10th at Bradford, tied for 5-6th at London 1888 (Simpson's Divan, Isidor Gunsberg won), [ [http://xoomer.alice.it/cserica/scacchi/storiascacchi/tornei/1851-99/1888LondonDivan.htm londsd ] ] and took 2nd at Dublin 1889.

In 1889 he made the voyage to New York to participate in the New York international tournament (the 6th American Chess Congress). He took 11th (Mikhail Chigorin and Max Weiss won) there. [ [http://members.aol.com/graemecree/chesschamps/us/1889.htm Sixth American Chess Congress, 1889 ] ] He later moved to Baltimore as the resident chess professional, and soon was writing a chess column for the "Baltimore Sunday News", as well as reports on American chess for the "British Chess Magazine". In 1890, he won a match against Charles Moehle (7.5 : 6.5) in New York, took 2nd place at the St. Louis Chess Congress, and played in Chicago. He lost a match to Eugene Delmar (3 : 5) at Skaneateles 1891, shared 1st with Jackson Showalter but lost a play-off game at Lexington 1891. [ [http://www.chessmetrics.com Welcome to the Chessmetrics site ] ]

In 1892, he was Wilhelm Steinitz's secretary. In 1893, he tied for 4-5th in New York, and tied for 9-11th in New York (Emanuel Lasker won). [http://www.anders.thulin.name/SUBJECTS/CHESS/CTCIndex.pdf Name Index to Jeremy Gaige's "Chess Tournament Crosstables", An Electronic Edition, Anders Thulin, Malmö, 2004-09-01]

Finally, he took 19th in the famous Hastings 1895 chess tournament, won by Harry Nelson Pillsbury. [ [http://members.shaw.ca/edo2/players/p458.html Elo Historical Chess Ratings] ]

Further reading

*Edward Winter (1998), " [http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/pollock.html|A Chess Idealist] ".
* Pollock Memories, Moravian Chess, 158 pages : A collection of games, problems, dedicated to life of William HK Pollock (1859-1896).
* [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=10476 82 games of William Pollock]

References