Dawid Janowski

Dawid Janowski, often spelled David, was a Polish chess player born in 1868 into a Jewish Polish family in Wolkowysk, then part of the Russian Empire and now in Belarus. He settled in Paris around 1890 and turned professional in 1894. He won the Monte Carlo tournament of 1901 and Hanover in 1902, and shared first place at Vienna in 1902. A sharp tactician who played very fast and loved the bishop pair, he beat each of the first four world champions at least once, and played Emanuel Lasker for the world title in 1910, losing the match. Interned briefly in Germany at the outbreak of the First World War, he spent nine years in the United States, winning at Atlantic City in 1921, before returning to Paris, where he died of tuberculosis in 1927. Several opening variations carry his name.