Jules Arnous de Rivière
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Jules Arnous de Rivière (4 May 1830–11 September 1905) was the strongest French chess player from the late 1850s through the late 1870s. He is best known today for playing many games with Paul Morphy when the American champion visited Paris in 1858 and 1863.
Born in Nantes to a French father and an English mother as Arnous-Rivière, he awarded himself the noble "de". Rivière finished 6th of 13 in the 1867 Paris international tournament organized in conjunction with the Exposition Universelle. Although he finished well below the strongest foreign masters, he was ahead of fellow Parisian Samuel Rosenthal. Rivière had success in some minor tournaments in Paris: 3rd in 1880, 2nd= in 1881, 2nd in 1882–3, and 3rd in the Café de la Régence tournament of 1896.
Rivière faired poorly in his casual games against Morphy, but did well in more formal match play. In 1855 he lost to Serafino Dubois, but in 1860 he defeated Thomas Wilson Barnes in London +5−2=0 and Paul Journoud in Paris +7−2=1, and in 1867 he defeated Johann Löwenthal in Paris +2−0=0. He also lost a close match to Mikhail Chigorin in 1883 by +4−5=1.
Rivière's writings included several chess columns and books on billiards and roulette. He also invented many games. Rivière died in Paris in 1905.
[edit] References
- Gaige, Jeremy (1987), Chess Personalia, A Biobibliography, McFarland & Company, pp. 356, ISBN 0-7864-2353-6
- Golombek, Harry (1977), “Rivière, Jules Arnous de”, Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess, Batsford, pp. 276, ISBN 0-517-53146-1. (Seems to have typos in a couple of the years, as it lists the date of death as 11 September 1906 and sets the Chigorin match in 1885.)
- Hooper, David & Whyld, Kenneth (1992), “Rivière, Jules Arnous de”, The Oxford Companion To Chess (2 ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 342, ISBN 0-19-280049-3
