Hermann Mattison

Hermanis Matisons (also Hermann Mattison) (born December 28, 1894 in Riga, † November 16, 1932 in Riga) was a Latvian chess player and signifcant study composer.

Chess player
Matisons' father came from a family of agricultural workers and moved to Riga at a young age. He worked for a shipping company when his son was a child. Hermanis learned to play chess at the age of seven, but it was not until 1910 that he became more serious about chess. In 1913 he became a member of the Riga Chess Club and won a simultaneous event against José Raúl Capablanca.

As a 15-year-old, Matisons had to stop attending high school after his father's death and became an apprentice in an office. In the period that followed, his contributions as a chess author were the main source of his existence.

From 1922 to 1923 he prevailed among the best in the Riga chess society. Matisons, now a civil servant, won the national championship at the 1st Latvian Chess Congress in April 1924 and in the same year the amateur world championship (officially: Tournoi international d'amateurs à l'occasion de la VIIIe Olympiade) held for the first time in Paris by the newly founded World Chess Federation FIDE As part of the 1924 Chess Olympiad. In the final group he won four games, drew three times and only lost to Max Euwe. At the second edition of this tournament in The Hague in 1928 he came third behind Max Euwe and Dawid Przepiórka. In 1929 he took part in the very strong tournament in Karlovy Vary and took 10th place, leaving chess greats such as Géza Maróczy and Savielly Tartakower behind him. He played on the first board for Latvia at the Chess Olympiad in Prague in 1931 and achieved 50 percent of the points (three wins, three losses, eight draws), winning against the world champion Alexander Alekhine as well as against Akiba Rubinstein and Milan Vidmar.

He became famous for his endgame studies. From 1911 onwards he composed a total of 53 studies and twelve checkered pieces, most of which appeared in Riga newspapers. In foreign publications his name was usually given in the Germanized form Hermann Mattison.

Matisons headed the Riga Chess Club chess corner in the Latvis daily newspaper. In 1927 he founded a chess column in the Latvian weekly magazine Atpūta and ran it until his death. He died of consumption at the age of 37.

His best historical Elo rating is 2631. He achieved this in 1929, meaning he was temporarily in 12th place in the world rankings.

Chess composition
After Alexander Koblenz, Matisons was undoubtedly the most talented student composer of the twenties and thirties. Savielly Tartakower called him the “world champion of study composers”.

Matison's studies are characterized by deep and unusually interesting content and dynamic play of both sides, which is often combined with a seduction that obscures the solution.

Literature
Timothy G. Whitworth: Mattison's chess endgame studies. British Chess Magazine, St Leonards on Sea, 1987. ISBN 0-900846-47-X.
Tim Harding: He could have been a contender. In: Heroic tales. Russell Enterprises, Milford 2002. ISBN 1-888690-13-5. pp. 209–219.
Gedimins Salmins: Hermanis Matisons 1894–1932. No Parize lidz Pragai. Liepja (ed.), Van Strockum, 2008, ISBN 978-9984-821-27-6.
Individual evidence
  Valentin Fyodorovich Kirillov: Petschat genija. National Technical Center Respublikanskogo Schachmatnogo Kluba SO Daugawa, Riga 1990. (Russian)

Web links
Compositions by Hermanis Matisons on the PDB server
Portrait in Chess Notes (No. 4078)
Small portrait in Latvian (including portrait) (Memento from July 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive)
Mattison's rhyme study from February 26, 1932 in the magazine Atpūta

Source; Germain Wikipedia

Others: On Website arves.org 3 endgame studies by him are selected.