Austrian-Argentine chess player
Erich Gottlieb Eliskases (15 February 1913 – 2 February 1997) was a chess player who represented Austria, Germany and Argentina in international competition. In the late 1930s he was considered a potential contender for the World Championship. Eliskases was granted the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1952.
Chess career
Born in Innsbruck, Austro-Hungarian Empire, he learned chess at the age of twelve and quickly displayed an aptitude for the game, winning the Schlechter chess club championship in his first year at the club, aged just fourteen. At fifteen, he was the Tyrolean Champion and at sixteen, joint winner of the Austrian Championship.
His college education in Innsbruck and Vienna centred on business studies; it was chess, though, that captured his imagination and he had exceptional results representing Austria at the Olympiads of 1930, 1933 and 1935. After the Anschluss of March 1938, he won the German national championship at Bad Oeynhausen in 1938 and 1939. Other early successes included outright or joint first place at Budapest 1934 (the Hungarian Championship), Linz 1934, Zürich 1935, Milan 1937; and match wins against Rudolf Spielmann (in 1932, 1936 and 1937). He acted as a second to Alexander Alekhine during Alekhine's successful world championship rematch against Max Euwe in 1937.
His best two years were 1938 and 1939.[1] In June 1938 he won a tournament in Noordwijk ahead of Paul Keres (who later that year would win the great AVRO 1938 chess tournament) and previous world champion Max Euwe.[2] His victory in Noordwijk was his best career result,[3] and began a streak of eight consecutive tournaments in which he was undefeated: six in 1938 and 1939,[1] including Krefeld 1938, Bad Harzburg 1939, Bad Elster 1939, Vienna 1939; and two later in South America. He also won a match against previous world championship challenger Efim Bogoljubov in 1939.
These successes led to suggestions of a World Championship match with Alekhine. Documentary evidence later showed that the Nazi regime had scheduled him a 1941 match with the World Champion,[1] but had subsequently abandoned the idea. In 1941, Alekhine spoke out in favour of a match with either Eliskases or Keres, preferring the former.[1] But Dutch grandmaster Hans Ree argues that it does not mean Eliskases was the strongest contender: it was one of a series of antisemitic articles attributed to Alekhine, and the suggestion of a German contender was probably politically motivated.[4]
In 1939, Eliskases emigrated to South America. He played under the German flag at the 1939 Buenos Aires Olympiad, during which World War II began, when Eliskases (along with many other players) decided to stay in Argentina (and for a while in Brazil) rather than return to Europe. During those years he struggled to make a living; and in Brazil he was threatened with internment and expulsion, though some Brazilian chess enthusiasts helped Eliskases avoid that fate by hiring him as a chess teacher.[1]
In 1951 he returned to Argentina,[1] where he eventually became a naturalized Argentine citizen and represented his new country at the Olympiads of 1952, 1958, 1960 and 1964. Thus he represented three different countries at Olympiads: Austria, Germany and Argentina,[5] possibly the only person to do so.[1] Tournament success in South America included first or joint first at Águas de São Pedro/São Paulo 1941, São Paulo 1947, Mar del Plata 1948, Punta del Este 1951 and Córdoba 1959.
FIDE awarded Eliskases the titles of International Master and Grandmaster in 1950 and 1952, respectively.
He carried on playing through the 1950s, 1960s and even into the 1970s, but his results were less convincing. He married the Argentinian María Esther Almeda in 1954 and had a son, Carlos Enrico. In 1976, he and his wife went back to the Austrian Tyrol, but the couple failed to settle and returned to Córdoba in Argentina.
Eliskases was also a strong correspondence player and his notes showed that he scored over 75 percent during his most active period.
He was considered an expert in the endgame—at Semmering 1937, he outplayed and beat Capablanca in this phase, despite this being the forte of the Cuban ex-world champion. Hans Ree observes that Eliskases is one of only four players (along with Keres, Reshevsky and Euwe) to beat both Capablanca and Bobby Fischer.[4] He had even scores against Euwe (3–3),[6] Capablanca (2–2)[7] and Fischer (1–1).[8]
