Andreas Dückstein (1927-2024)

For over seven decades, he was known, appreciated and loved in the chess world: Andreas Dückstein passed away peacefully a few weeks after his 97th birthday.

Photo: Ilse Dückstein

Dr Andreas Dückstein must be called the 'legend' of Austrian chess. He played in nine Chess Olympiads and over 100 international matches for Austria, making him a 'record international'. He not only played in four Zonal Tournaments, but was also three times Austrian Champion (1954, 1956, 1977) and played countless games in various Austrian leagues.

Andreas Dückstein was one of the last of the historical classical chess generation. It is hard to believe that there was still someone living in the centre of Vienna who had competed with the past giants of chess: he played against seven world champions, three of whom he defeated (Botvinnik, Euwe, Spassky). For the rest of his life he raved about the analysis of his hard-fought game against Mikhail Tal in Zurich in 1959 ('Unbelievable, the variations Tal showed me with tremendous speed'); but he soon lost to the 16-year-old Bobby Fischer ('I underestimated him after his bad game against Walther, which was of course nonsense'). Dückstein lost narrowly to Petrosjan and Smyslow. On the other hand, he celebrated victories over Larsen (three of them!) and draws against greats such as Keres, Korchnoi, Stein, Taimanov, Reshevsky, Hort, Portisch, Olafsson and many more.

Photo: As a 90-year-old with the tournament book about the tournament in Zurich 1959 |Photo: Martin Stichlberger

The title "International Master", which he had gained at a time when it was worth far more than in later times of title inflation, was something of a trademark for "IM Dückstein" - and somehow also a symbol of his modesty. In the spring of 2024 he was awarded the title of 'Honorary Grandmaster' by FIDE, immediately after FIDE had reintroduced it after a break of several decades. "In several tournaments I had made enough norms to get the Grandmaster title," the newly crowned Honorary Grandmaster revealed on hearing the news, "all I had to do was stop playing in some events." (The unfortunate rule that you could lose the title by 'continuing to play' has since been changed).

The most famous of these occasions was the 1958 Munich Chess Olympiad, when Dückstein caused the sensation of the tournament by winning against the reigning World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik. It was Botvinnik's only defeat in Munich and the only loss the entire Soviet team (with Tal and Petrosian on the reserve boards!) suffered at the Olympiad. With five rounds to go, Dückstein had the Grandmaster title firmly in his pocket, he only had to take a break for the last five games (Austria had qualified for the A final). But for Dückstein this was "out of the question". And he added: "The game against Botwinnik wasn't that good, the best was the one against Pachman." If you didn't know him to be so objective and reserved, you might think that this sentence was the understatement of his career.
On the chessboard he was particularly fond of attacking and sacrificing. It is significant that he always cited Mikhail Tal as his absolute favourite player. Results and ratings were secondary to him: "The main thing is to have fun playing."

Photo: In 1958

Andreas Dückstein's long life was full of adventurous phases:

He was born on 2 August 1927 in Budapest as the only child of a sports teacher couple, his father was the Hungarian national gymnastics coach. As a 12-year-old, the young ‘Andor’ was able to draw a simultaneous game against Max Euwe. After graduating from high school, the sports enthusiast Dückstein studied at the Sports University and graduated with a diploma.

In 1949 he decided to flee from anti-Semitic and communist post-war Hungary to Vienna, which he managed to do amidst enormous confusion. For years it was impossible to get a permanent job in Vienna, so Dückstein turned to his chess skills, studying old tournament books and earning a few shillings playing chess in coffee houses. As early as 1952 he won the Vienna City Championship. In 1954 he became an Austrian citizen. Thanks to his chess contacts he was offered a permanent position in the Verbund Group and began to study law, which he completed with a doctorate in 1964. Dückstein remained an amateur throughout his life and never turned professional.

Scoresheet of a simul against Euwe

After the death of his first wife (and flight companion), Dückstein married Ilse, a lawyer, in 1975; after the birth of his son Simon (1980), he cut back on foreign tournaments and played mainly in Austria.

In his later years, Dückstein particularly enjoyed competing in the many senior team World and European Championships. In the 1990s the "World's Best Ladies vs. Veterans" tournaments were very popular. At the Waltz Tournament in Vienna in 1993, Dückstein was selected for the Veterans World Team, a special honour considering his five legendary teammates: Vasily Smyslov, Bent Larsen, Lev Polugayevsky, Fridrik Olafsson, Borislav Ivkov.

He received further recognition in 2012-2015 when he was invited (as the only IM) to the annual meeting of chess legends (namely grandmasters over 75 years of age) in Dresden. The world class grandmasters naturally accepted him as one of their own.

Dückstein played his last season at the age of 89 in the Vienna State League, where he managed to draw with Black against the then reigning state champion IM Georg Fröwis, who was a good 60 years his junior. After a big party for his 90th birthday, at which he was celebrated by almost all of Austria's chess celebrities, he retired to private life. At the age of almost 91, he did not miss one last tournament appearance, namely at the 2018 Senior Team World Championship in Radebeul. It was a kind of farewell to the many friends he had met again and again over the decades.

‘Bandi’, as friends were allowed to call him (a diminutive of the Hungarian “Andor”), spent peaceful years with his family in a terraced house in the south of Vienna; after a fall, he was no longer able to walk very well, but mentally he was in top form until his very last days. You could throw him the name of any chess player from 1950 to the present day - it was fascinating how he knew about every single one of them and told anecdotes with shining eyes. In the last weeks of his life, as a sports enthusiast, he still had the great pleasure of being able to watch the European Football Championships and the Olympic Games extensively on television.

Andreas Dückstein will be remembered for a long time. Not only as "the legend" of Austrian chess, but also as a particularly likeable, modest and humorous person.