Siegbert Tarrasch

Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934) was “one of the best four players in the world for about 20 years” [David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess, New Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 411]. His fame began when in a seven year period, he won five important tournaments: Nuremberg 1888; Breslau 1889; Manchester 1890; Dresden 1892; and Leipzig 1894.

Tarrasch was significant for setting forth the principles of chess he believed were best. Tarrasch accepted, developed, and popularized “Steinitz’s theory of the accumulation of small advantages, he yet differed in his interpretation of what constitutes such small advantages.” While “the rigid dogmatism of his writings may be somewhat repellent today…but it was exactly this dogmatism which made Tarrasch’s teachings so effective at a time when amateurs still had to learn that a game of chess should not be a haphazard conglomeration of unrelated ideas but a logical whole” [Harry Golombek, ed., Golombek’s Encyclopedia of Chess (New York: Crown Publishers, 1917), 319].

Tarrasch is a significant figure in the history of chess. Craig Pritchett commented that “while he never became world champion, Tarrasch was a great teacher (as well as longstanding world number two). A highly accessible communicator, Tarrasch had a passion for the investigation and exposition of the game’s more strictly scientific, rules-based essence and (not least) of the theory of the (often sharp) openings that he considered best supported his views” [Craig Pritchett, Modern Chess from Steinitz to the 21st Century, Thinkers Publishing, (2022), 74].

Tarrasch was a prolific editor and writer of books and chess columns which have been described as having been “written with wit and style, and also with arrogant self-assurance” (Companion, 411).

Reuben Fine noted that when Tarrasch died in 1934, Max Euwe wrote an appreciation which said, essentially, that “He played many great games, he won many first prizes, he wrote many great books.” Fine went on to add: “We can add that Tarrasch was another of the select handful of geniuses who were of world championship caliber but did not secure the title” [Reuben Fine, The World’s Great Chess Games (1951), 60].

This Crossword introduces us to some facets of Tarrasch’s life and work.

I hope you enjoyed this look at a great chess player!

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