Potter was born in London on 27 August 1840 to William and Mary Anne Potter. He had three brothers and a sister, Mary Potter. A barristers' clerk by trade, Potter first appeared in London chess circles in 1867 and rose quickly from obscurity, winning the 1870 City of LondonChess Clubhandicap tournament, in which he defeated Joseph Henry Blackburne and Cecil Valentine De Vere on even terms. From 1872 to 1874 the City of London Chess Club contested a two-game correspondence chess match with Vienna: the other London team members eventually dropped out, leaving Potter and Steinitz to continue the match by themselves, which they ultimately won by a score of 1.5–0.5. Steinitz would later point to this match as the beginning of the "systematic analytical development of modern ideas" in chess. In 1875 Potter lost a hard-fought match against Johannes Zukertort, scoring two wins and four losses with eight draws. In 1879 he drew a match against James Mason, both sides scoring five wins apiece with eleven draws. Potter was a chess columnist for the Westminster Papers from 1868 to 1879. From 1874 to 1876 he produced his own periodical, the City of London Chess Magazine, which featured contributions from Zukertort and Steinitz. Subsequently, he became the last chess editor at Land and Water from 1877 to 1885. He also contributed the well-reviewed article on chess in the ninth edition of Encyclopædia Britannica. After 1885 Potter retired from the London chess scene. He died in his home in Sutton on 13 March 1895.
Assessment and legacy
In Potter's obituary, the British Chess Magazine noted that though "his record of first-class play is not a long one", "the quality of his best play entitles him, we think, to rank as the equal of any British-born master of his time, with the single exception of Blackburne." Regarding Potter, Steinitz once said: "Put all the pieces into a hat and shake them out on to the board, and you have Potter’s style exactly"; but nevertheless acknowledged him as "a very fine player of the modern school, as well as unquestionably the ablest analyst in England next to Zukertort." Emanuel Lasker claimed in his Manual of Chess that Potter "had influenced Steinitz greatly" but subsequent commentators have cast doubt on this assessment. For his part, Steinitz claimed that Potter "was my pupil direct for some time." Potter's chess writings are praised for their mastery, liveliness and wit. The Oxford Companion to Chess records two opening variations bearing Potter's name, one in the Scotch Game which he introduced in the 1870s and which was revived in the 2000s by Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen, and one in the Compromised Defence to the Evans Gambit which he gave in his Land and Water column. The Saavedra position, one of the best-known endgame studies in chess, originates from a game of Potter's against Richard Fenton in 1875: see Saavedra position#History.
Notable games
Potter vs. Matthews, London 1868
This frequently published miniature, which features a knight delivering checkmate from a corner of the board, was played between Potter and Matthews during a "meeting of the British Chess Association" in 1868.
Zukertort vs. Potter, London 1876
In a difficult position, Potter finds a remarkable queen manoeuvre to save this game against Zukertort in an 1876 tournament at Simpson's Divan.
Potter vs. Mason, London 1879
This fine sacrificial attack by Potter against Mason from their 1879 match was annotated by Steinitz in The Modern Chess Instructor, from which the following quotes are taken.
