Philipp Hirschfeld was a German chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 player and theoretician.

Hirschfeld came from an affluent background. He learned the game as a child in Königsberg, and by the time he went to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 in 1859 to study, he was already a very strong player and theoretician. He was in the editorial department of the Deutschen Schachzeitung

Deutsche Schachzeitung

Deutsche Schachzeitung was the first German chess magazine.Founded in 1846 by Ludwig Bledow under the title Schachzeitung der Berliner Schachgesellschaft, it took the name Deutsche Schachzeitung in 1872...

, where he published analysis of opening theory. During his time in Berlin, he played matches with Carl Mayet and Berthold Suhle

Berthold Suhle

Berthold Suhle was a German chess master.Born in Stolp , he studied philosophy, philology and nature in Berlin and Bonn .He won a match with Bartolomeo Forlico at Venice 1858, lost to Adolf Anderssen at Cologne...

 (+0 -7 = 2) in 1860, and with Adolf Anderssen

Adolf Anderssen

Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen was a German chess master. He is considered to have been the world's leading chess player in the 1850s and 1860s...

 (+10, -14, =5) and Gustav Neumann

Gustav Neumann

Gustav Richard Ludwig Neumann was a German chess master.Neumann was born in Gleiwitz in the Prussian Province of Silesia. In matches he lost to Louis Paulsen at Leipzig 1864, and defeated Celso Golmayo Zúpide , and Simon Winawer at Paris 1867...

 in 1861.

In 1863 Hirschfeld finished his studies and joined his father's business. In London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, he founded the Königsberg Tea Company, with branches in Königsberg

Königsberg

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

, Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 and China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. Hirschfeld's profession left him no time for international tournaments, but on his business trips he met up with the best players of his time and occasionally contested matches with them. In 1865 he drew a match with Ignaz von Kolisch in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 4-4 (+4, -4, =0), and in 1865 he lost a match Moscow against Prince Sergei Urusov 2-3 (+1, -2, =2). Hirschfeld also played individual games against Wilhelm Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian and then American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894. From the 1870s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz was effectively the champion earlier...

, Johann Jacob Löwenthal, Bernhard Horwitz

Bernhard Horwitz

Bernhard Horwitz was a German English chess master and chess writer.Horwitz was born in Neustrelitz, and went to school in Berlin, where he studied art. From 1837 to 1843, he was part of a group of German chess players known as "The Pleiades".He moved to London in 1845...

 and Cecil De Vere. In 1873 he took up permanent residence in London, where he was a frequent analysis partner of Johannes Zukertort

Johannes Zukertort

Johannes Hermann Zukertort was a leading chess master of German-Polish-Jewish origin. He was one of the leading world players for most of the 1870s and 1880s, and lost to Wilhelm Steinitz in the World Chess Championship 1886, which is generally seen as the first World Chess Championship match, he...

. From that time he regularly lived a few months of the year in Berlin. He died in 1896 in Wannsee

Wannsee

Wannsee is a locality in the southwestern Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Germany. It is the westernmost locality of Berlin. In the quarter there are two lakes, the larger Großer Wannsee and the Kleiner Wannsee , are located on the river Havel and are separated only by the Wannsee bridge...

, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

.

According to the chessmetrics

Chessmetrics

Chessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo rating system.-Implementation:...

website, his best historical Elo rating was 2600, which he attained in October 1864. Between 1862 and 1866 he was ranked 4th in the world.

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