Serafino Dubois
- October 29, 2025
Chessmetrics: World Number One from 1856 – 1858
Tournament Career: without major successes
Matches: Dubois vs de Riviere 25:7
Dubois vs Budzynski 13.5:6.5
Dubois vs Bonetti 11.5:1.5
What earned him this status:
The Italian Serafino Dubois was one of the best players in the world at the beginning of the period covered by this series and was reportedly even the best in the world from 1856-1858. At that time, very few tournaments were held, and Dubois never won any major tournament. However, he was largely dominant in matches, which was then a more common way for chess masters to measure their strength. Of the important matches that Serafino Dubois played against top players, he only lost to the future first world champion Steinitz. Otherwise, he defeated his opponents.
Dubois also spent some time at the famous Parisian chess café, Café de la Régence. Besides playing, he was also known for authoring many materials on chess and promoting chess in Italy.
Why he isn’t ranked higher:
Serafino Dubois lived until 1899 at a blessed age and thus had plenty of time to adapt to tournament play and achieve greater successes in this field. However, he always remained just a match player, and as the competition gradually grew, the Italian began to lose more and more.
Best Games:
Jules Arnous de Riviere vs Serafino Dubois
Paris 1855
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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.