Reuben Fine wrote of him "Playing over his early games is like reading Keats's poetry: you cannot help feeling a grievous, oppressive sense of loss, of promise unfulfilled".

In 1893 he entered a correspondence tournament organised by the Budapest newspaper Pesti Hirlap, in which he eventually shared first place with another up and coming Hungarian master, Géza Maróczy.

He joined the Budapest chess club, where he frequently played with Maróczy and Gyula Makovetz, and convincingly defeated Gyozo Exner in a match.

[5] This is Charousek's last round win over the World Champion in his international tournament debut: Charousek-Lasker, Nuremberg 1896 Another of Charousek's games, which Grandmaster Andrew Soltis described as "one of the prettiest ever", was the basis for the sty Last Round by Kester Svendsen,[7] which Soltis called "perhaps the finest chess short story".

[8] Here is the game with punctuation marks by Soltis: Charousek—Wollner, Kaschau 1893 A variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined is named after him.