Berthold Suhle
- October 30, 2025
Chessmetrics Ranking: World Number One 1865-1867
Tournament Career: without major successes
Matches: Suhle vs Forlico 11.5:9.5
Suhle vs Cornitz 6:1 (=3)
Suhle vs Hirschfeld 7:0 (=2)
Suhle vs Anderssen 3:3 (=2)
Why he deserved it:
The little-known chess player Berthold Suhle was an excellent theorist, author of numerous publications, and above all, one of the best players in the world in the 1860s. His strength is evidenced by the match he drew with Adolf Anderssen, considered by many to be the best player of his time. In other matches, Suhle generally defeated his opponents, and therefore his retrospectively calculated rating was the highest in the world from 1865-1867. His overall score against Anderssen was 6:11 (=4), which is not bad at all against such a player.
Suhle was an academic, philosopher, and philologist in civilian life.
Why he isn’t higher:
He lacks at least one significant tournament success. In later years, Suhle was not a very active player as he focused on his academic career.
Best Game:
Adolf Anderssen vs Berthold Suhle
Breslau 1859
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Miroslav Janeček graduated in English Philology at Palacký University Olomouc. Currently he works in Prague as a content editor for a large marketing company. His roots are in Opava - the historic and cultural centre of the Czech part of Silesia. That city is also the home of Slezan Opava, the chess club where Miroslav started to play chess, later went on to work as a youth coach and which he to this day proudly represents. As an aspiring chess publicist, he is the main author of articles on ChessDB.cz. In his free time, in addition to chess and writing, he also devotes himself to racket sports, history, and literature.