Louis Paulsen

Chessmetrics Ranking: World Number One continuously from 1862-1865 and for one month in 1878

Tournament Career: winner of seven super-tournaments:

6-time winner of the German Chess Congress

winner of the Bristol Chess Tournament 1861

Matches: Paulsen vs Anderssen 5:3 (=1)

  Paulsen vs Kolisch 7:6 (=17)

Why He Deserved It:

There are players who simply define their era, set trends, and the world of their sport revolves around them. This was precisely the case in the 1860s with Louis Paulsen, a German defensive wizard and one of the pioneers of chess strategy and positional play. He was the world number one for a long time, won a very respectable number of tournaments for that era, and was also very successful in matches. He defeated, for example, Adolf Anderssen, whom he also surpassed in several tournaments. His best tournament victory at the German Congress in 1877 was memorable, as he finished ahead of Anderssen, Zukertort, Englisch, and Winawer. The only reason Paulsen did not become a world champion is that this title did not exist in his time.

Only one player throughout Paulsen’s career proved to be too strong an opponent, whom Paulsen sometimes defeated but never equaled on a larger scale – the American Paul Morphy. However, it should be noted that he faced Morphy in the late 1850s, which was several years before Paulsen entered his best period.

Otherwise, there was no opponent in the world that Paulsen could not defeat. He was among the best players in the world for a long time, throughout the 1860s, 1870s, and even part of the 1880s.

Paulsen’s name is associated with several opening variations, the most famous of which is the Sicilian Defense variation with the move e6.

Best Games:

Louis Paulsen vs John Owen

London 1862