Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant
Template:Short description Template:Infobox chess biography
Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant (12 September 1800, Monflanquin – 29 October 1872) was a leading French chess master and an editor of the chess periodical Le Palamède. He is best known for losing a match against Howard Staunton in 1843 that is often considered to have been an unofficial match for the World Chess Championship.
Chess career
Saint-Amant learned chess from Wilhelm Schlumberger, who later became the operator of The Turk.<ref name="HooperWhyld350-51"/><ref name="Golombek283-84"/><ref name="Sergeant54"/> He played at the Café de la Régence, where he was a student of Alexandre Deschapelles.<ref name="HooperWhyld350-51"/><ref name="Sunnucks419">Anne Sunnucks, The Encyclopaedia of Chess, St. Martin's Press, 1970, p. 419.</ref> For many years he played on level terms with Boncourt, a strong player, and received odds of pawn and two moves from Deschapelles and Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais.<ref name="Sergeant54"/> In 1834–36, he led a Paris team that won both games of a correspondence match against the Westminster Club, then England's leading chess club.<ref>H. J. R. Murray, A History of Chess, Oxford University Press, 1913, p. 881. Template:ISBN.</ref> After La Bourdonnais' death in 1840, he was considered the country's best player.<ref name="HooperWhyld350-51">David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (2d ed. 1992), pp. 350–51. Template:ISBN.</ref><ref name="Sergeant54"/> In December 1841 he revived Le Palamède (at its inception in 1836 the world's first chess periodical),<ref>Hooper & Whyld, p. 56.</ref><ref>Murray, p. 886.</ref> which ran until 1847.<ref name="Sunnucks419"/><ref>Hooper & Whyld, p. 350.</ref>
He played two matches against Staunton in 1843. The first, in London, he won 3½–2½ (three wins, one draw, two losses), but he lost a return match in Paris just before Christmas 13–8 (six wins, four draws, eleven losses).<ref>Sergeant, pp. 55–56.</ref> This second match is sometimes considered an unofficial world championship match.<ref name="HooperWhyld350-51"/><ref name="Sunnucks419"/>
In 1858, Saint-Amant played in the Birmingham tournament, a Template:Chessgloss event. He won in the first round, but lost in the second by a 2–1 score to Ernst Falkbeer.<ref>R. D. Keene and R. N. Coles, Howard Staunton: the English World Chess Champion, British Chess Magazine, 1975, pp. 21–23.</ref> Returning to Paris, he witnessed the adulatory reception accorded Paul Morphy at the Café de la Régence.<ref>A correspondent for the American Chess Monthly wrote, " 'Does anybody believe,' exclaims St. Amant, 'that it is not the season and that there is nobody in Paris? Let them go to the Café de la Régence and glance at the throng of spectators who look on in admiration while Morphy, the young American, displays his wonderful attainments.' " Philip W. Sergeant, Morphy's Games of Chess, Dover Publications, pp. 150–51.</ref><ref>According to Morphy's biographer, "Saint Amant wrote that [Morphy] supplied a want which Paris had felt for a long time—the want of a hero." Frederick Milne Edge, The Exploits & Triumphs in Europe of Paul Morphy the Chess Champion, Dover Publications, 1973, p. 171. Template:ISBN.</ref> The score of one game between them is known, a 22-move rout by Morphy of Saint-Amant and his consultation partner, given as "F. de L." or "F. de L'A".<ref>J. Löwenthal, Morphy's Games of Chess, George Bell and Sons, 1909, pp. 232–33.</ref><ref>Sergeant, pp. 150–51.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Outside of chess
Saint-Amant became a government clerk in Paris at an early age.<ref name="Sergeant54">Philip W. Sergeant, A Century of British Chess, David McKay, 1934, p. 54.</ref> He then served as the secretary to the governor of French Guiana from 1819 to 1821.<ref name="Sergeant54"/><ref name="Sunnucks419"/> He was dismissed from that appointment after he protested against the slave trade that still existed in that colony.<ref name="Golombek283-84">Harry Golombek (editor), Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess, pp. 283–84. Template:ISBN.</ref><ref name="Sergeant54"/><ref name="FineWorld'sGreatGames9">Reuben Fine, The World's Great Chess Games, Dover Publications, 1976, p. 9. Template:ISBN.</ref> After that, he tried his hand as a journalist and actor, then became a successful wine merchant.<ref name="Golombek283-84"/><ref name="Sergeant54"/><ref name="FineWorld'sGreatGames9"/> He was a captain in the French National Guard during the 1848 revolution. For his role in saving the Palais des Tuileries from destruction by the mob, he was made its Governor for a few months.<ref name="Sergeant54"/><ref name="Sunnucks419"/><ref name="FineWorld'sGreatGames9"/> In 1851–52, he was the French consul to California.<ref name="Sergeant54"/><ref name="FineWorld'sGreatGames9"/> He visited during this period the Territory of Oregon, witnessed a period of transition for the early settlements and wrote one of the few records available on this period. Upon returning to France he spent some years writing well-regarded works on the French colonies, and a treatise on the wines of Bordeaux.<ref name="Sergeant54"/>
In 1861 Saint-Amant retired to Algeria.<ref name="HooperWhyld350-51"/><ref name="Golombek283-84"/><ref name="Sunnucks419"/> He died there in 1872 after being thrown from his carriage.<ref name="HooperWhyld350-51"/><ref name="Sunnucks419"/>
Notable games
Reuben Fine writes that although Saint-Amant lost his epic match against Staunton, in the 13th match game, playing White, "he at least had the satisfaction of winning the most brilliant game."<ref name="FineWorld'sGreatGames9"/>
- 1. d4 e6 2. c4 d5 3. e3 Nf6 4. Nc3 c5 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. a3 Be7 7. Bd3 0-0 8. 0-0 b6 9. b3 Bb7 10. cxd5 exd5 11. Bb2 cxd4 12. exd4 Bd6 13. Re1 a6 14. Rc1 Rc8 15. Rc2 Rc7 16. Rce2 Qc8 17. h3 Nd8 18. Qd2 b5 19. b4 Ne6 20. Bf5 Ne4 21. Nxe4 dxe4 22. d5Template:Chesspunc (first diagram) exf3Template:Chesspunc 22...Bf4! was essential.<ref name="FineWorld'sGreatGames10">Fine, The World's Great Chess Games, p. 10.</ref> 23. Rxe6! Qd8 (second diagram) Of course not 23...fxe6 24.Bxe6+, winning the queen. 24. Bf6Template:Chesspunc gxf6 25. Rxd6! Kg7 If 25...Qxd6, 26.Qh6 forces mate. Black could resign here.<ref name="FineWorld'sGreatGames10"/> 26. Rxd8 Rxd8 27. Be4 fxg2 28. Qf4 Rc4 29. Qg4+ Kf8 30. Qh5 Ke7 31. d6+ Kxd6 32. Bxb7 Kc7 33. Bxa6 Rc3 34. Qxb5 Template:ChessAN
In the 9th match game, Saint-Amant had pulled off a swindle that grandmaster Andrew Soltis considers the greatest ever perpetrated in match play.