Lionel Adalbert Bagration Felix Kieseritzky (Russian: Лионель Адальберт Багратион Феликс Кизерицкий; 1 January 1806 [O.S.

Kieseritzky was born in Dorpat (now Tartu), Livonia, Russian Empire into a Baltic German family.

From 1838 to 1839, he played a correspondence match against Carl Jaenisch – unfinished, because Kieseritzky had to leave for Paris.

Kieseritzky became one of the four leading French masters of the time, alongside Louis de la Bourdonnais, Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant, and Boncourt, and for the few years before his death was among the top several players in the world along with Howard Staunton.

[citation needed] His knowledge of the game was significant and he made contributions to chess theory, but his career was somewhat blighted by misfortune and a passion for the unsound.