Gerhard Pfeiffer

Gerhard Pfeiffer ( born June 14, 1923 in Leipzig, † June 27, 2000 in Hamburg ) was a German chess player.

Chess players

A native of Leipzig Pfeiffer learned chess at the age of 11 years by his father. Already during the Second World War, he was considered an excellent player and new hope. By the end of the 1950s he was one of the strongest German chess masters.

His first major success was achieved by Pfeiffer in 1941 with the split fifth to seventh place in the championship of Germany in Bad Oeynhausen. The years of residence in Berlin, he was crowned in 1949 by winning the city championship before Heinz Lehmann, Berthold Koch and Kurt Richter. In the same year, Pfeiffer moved to Hamburg, where he was a year later also won the city championship. With the Hamburger SK he was in 1956 and 1958 German team champion. Between 1941 and 1961 he took part in eight West German singles championships and a few championships of the Soviet occupation zone. His greatest successes were the runners-up in the championship of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1947 ( title playoff against Lothar Schmid lost ) and of the German championship in 1951., But also in his other championship appearances, he landed mostly in the upper third of the table. Even in international tournaments he cut off successfully, so it was in 1957 appointed to the International Master. Between 1950 and 1960 he represented the Federal Republic of Germany to six Chess Olympiads. After 1961, Pfeiffer retired from tournament chess, but remained the chess as a composer, where he specialized in fairy chess tasks.

His best historical Elo rating was 2597 in January 1952.

Chess composition

Pfeiffer came in late 1983 with the Hamburg problem area, where he made the acquaintance of, inter alia, with Kurt and Hans Bacmeister jib. Previously he had published in The World and star chess problems. In Hamburg he learned elements of the fairy tale chess know and mastered various conditions and figures within a short time. He published his compositions in this field in the journal castling.

The complete works of Pfeiffer comprises about 550 tasks, of which he sent to his death, only about ten percent publish. Among the posthumously published in 2001, Gerhard Pfeiffer Memorial Book 250 of his best compositions are numerous Urdrucke.