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Louis de La Bourdonnais
Full name	Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais
Country	France
Born	1795 France
Died	1840 (aged 44 or 45)
World Champion	1821-1840 (Unofficial)

Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais (1795–1840) was a French chess master, possibly the strongest player in the early 19th century.

[edit] Early life

Born on the island of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean in 1797, La Bourdonnais was forced to earn his living as a professional chess player after squandering his fortune on ill-advised land deals.

[edit] Unoffical World Chess Champion

La Bourdonnais was considered to be the unofficial World Chess Champion (there was no official title at the time) from 1821, when he became able to beat his chess teacher Alexandre Deschapelles, until his death in 1840. The most famous match series, indeed considered as the world championship, was the one against Alexander McDonnell in 1834.

[edit] Death

He died penniless in London in 1840, having been forced to sell all of his possessions, including his clothes, to satisfy his creditors. George Walker arranged to have him buried just a stone's throw away from his old rival Alexander McDonnell in London's Kensal Green Cemetery.^[1][2]

He was the grandson of Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais.

[edit] Notable chess games

The end position of the game MacDonnell-La Bourdonnais, London 1834 after the Black move 37. ... e2. Alexander MacDonnell vs Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais, 16, London 1834, Sicilian Defense: Old Sicilian. Open (B32), 0-1 A game demonstrating the strength of pawns. Its end position is one of the most surprising in the history of chess. Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais vs Alexander MacDonnell, 3, London 1834, Queen's Gambit Accepted: Old Variation (D20), 1-0 La Bourdonnais punishes MacDonnell's premature attack. [edit] See also List of chess games [edit] References World chess champions by Edward G. Winter, editor. 19981 ISBN 0-08-024094-1 ^ Philip W. Sergeant, A Century of British Chess, David McKay, 1934, p. 39. ^ Walker, George (1850). Chess and Chess-Players. London: C. J. Skeet.  [edit] External links Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais player profile at ChessGames.com This biographical article related to French chess is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e