Ernst Franz Grünfeld (November 21, 1893 – April 3, 1962) was an Austrian chess player and writer, mainly on opening theory.

He played the defence against Friedrich Sämisch in round 7, drawing in 22 moves, and later that year he used it successfully against Alexander Alekhine in the Vienna tournament.

During the late 1920s and 1930s Grünfeld played top board for Austria in four Chess Olympiads (1927, 1931, 1933, 1935), and his best year was in 1927 when he scored 9½/12.

By the late 1950s he was playing very little chess and he mainly worked on his prodigious library which by now had completely filled the living room in his flat which he shared with his wife and daughter.

However, his style of avoiding complex variations together with an essentially drawish nature was simply not good enough to trouble the world's best.

[citation needed] He published several books which were generally well received and he contributed to a seminal account of the Teplice tournament of 1922.