1903 in chess
Events in chess in 1903:
News
- Siegbert Tarrasch wins the Monte Carlo tournament, ahead of Géza Maróczy, Harry Pillsbury, Carl Schlechter, and Richard Teichmann.
- Mikhail Chigorin wins the 3rd All-Russian Championship in Kiev, ahead of Ossip Bernstein.
- Chigorin also wins the Vienna tournament, ahead of Frank Marshall, Georg Marco, and Pillsbury. All games in this gambit tournament begin with the King's Gambit.
- The American team wins the Anglo-American cable match by the score 5½–4½. Pillsbury and Marshall are in Europe to play at the Monte Carlo tournament, so they travel to London to play their games in person.
Births
- Tihomil Drezga born in Šibenik, Croatia
- Henryk Friedman, Polish master
- Gisela Harum, Austrian chess master
- Menachem Oren born in Różana, Poland
- Karol Piltz, Polish chess master.
- Solomon Gotthilf, Russian master
- January 1 – Kola Kwariani professional wrestler, is born in Kutaisi, Georgia
- February 28 – Ozren Nedeljković, Serbian master, is born in Sremski Karlovci
- March 20 – Vitaly Halberstadt, French endgame study composer, is born in Odesa
- March 29 – Heinrich Reinhardt, German–Argentine master, is born in Stettin
- April 1 – Salo Landau, Dutch player, who died in a Nazi concentration camp is born in Bochnia, Galicia, Austria-Hungary
- April 9 – Morris Schapiro, American investment banker and chess master, is born in Lithuania
- Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian-American cellist and chess patron, is born in Dnipropetrovsk
- June 14 – Lajos Steiner, Hungarian and Australian International Master, is born in Nagyvárad
- August 4 Karl Ruben, Danish master
- August 21 – William Fairhurst, British and New Zealand International Master, is born in Alderley Edge
- August 25 – Arpad Elo, Hungarian-American player and inventor of the Elo rating system, is born in Egyházaskesző, Austria-Hungary
- September 17 – George Koltanowski, Belgian and American chess player, is born in Antwerp
- September 27 Boruch Israel Dyner was a Belgian–Israeli chess master
- October 8 – Georgy Geshev, Bulgarian master, is born in Sofia
- December 20 – Ramón Rey Ardid, Spanish master and Spanish champion from 1929 to 1943.
Deaths
- February 26 – Samuel Tinsley, English player and chess columnist for The Times, competed at Hastings 1895, dies in London.
- June 1 – Josef Noa, Hungarian master, dies in Budapest at age 46.
- August 8 – Gyula Makovetz, Hungarian chess player and editor of the chess magazine Budapesti Sakkszemle, dies in Budapest.