HoF #43: Winawer (The French King)
This blog is a celebration that leverages an outstanding concept of GMs Nielsen and Gustafsson (both of whom are also popular chessable.com authors) but offers my unique take. The two GMs produced videos and multiple lessons regarding their top 50 chess players of all time. Although I provide a link to their work below, my focus is different, though I freely accept their rankings.
How does my work differ? Well, first off, I'm not a titled player. Second, I wrote brief biographies for each player and offer limited discussion and pictures of some of their works (if they wrote). Third, if they were eminently quotable, I'll throw in a few of those! I may have found occasion to add quotes from other famous (or even unknown) chess names regarding the Hall of Famer. Fourth, I'll toss in the occasional caricatureš. Fifth and last, I will include at least two games analyzed by the individual, if such games exist. After all, the greatest of the great should be able to explain what they were thinking during a game, shouldn't they? (Spoiler alert: perhaps, except when there is no evidence that they ever had analyses published.)
We've reached #43!
Writings (none)
Quotes (almost nonexistent, but lol)
Annotated_Games (only by others...sigh)
Other Links of Interest šš»šš»
#43 chess.com HoF: Szymon Winawer
Szymon Abramowicz Winawer (March 6, 1838 – November 29, 1919) was a Polish master and one-time German CC. ChessMetrics estimated his peak rating at 2708 in April 1883 and placed him #2 globally in 12 different months between July 1878 and May 1880. He maintained a spot in the top ten for the best part of twenty years.
In his first international tournament, Paris 1867, he finished in second place, tied with Steinitz. He tied with Steinitz again at Vienna 1882, the world’s strongest tournament up to that time, but this time the tie was for first! Shortly after, he took a long break from chess. He returned in the 1890s only to find a younger generation had surpassed him.
There are multiple blogs you can read about him on the site. The first three are by @Steakanator, the fourth by @simaginfan.
- Loser's POV: Szymon Winawer (1878-1883)
- Romantic Rumble: Mikhail Chigorin vs. Szymon Winawer
- Winner's POV: Nuremberg 1883
- Szymon Winawer. Some Games and a Puzzling Picture. - Chess.com
His most famous opening variation is the French Winawer. I always loved this line as White when I was strictly a 1.e4 player.
Winawer is also associated with the Winawer Attack of the Ruy Lopez and the Slav Winawer Countergambit, which he introduced in a game against Frank Marshall.
What, you didn't believe me? Hey, he had other things on his mind. Earning a living, playing chess for fun and glory, raising a family. That doesn't leave much time for writing books.
Me? I'm twice retired and have time for writing chess books and blogging.
At least Winawer had a sense of humor. I can relate to his approach to cigars and tournament play. Why can I relate? Well, in the 1970s Bob Shean was a Life Master living in Colorado and two-time State CC. Bob was known for the cigars he smoked during tournaments. Even after they banned smoking, he would display a well-chewed, half-smoked cigar at the table, leaving his opponents in agony as they fretted over whether he would light that sucker up and they'd have to call over the tournament director against this much higher-rated, well-known opponent. [We played once. I offered a draw in a winning position because it secured about five hundred dollars in prize money and my first points scored against a master--well, half-point, but you get the idea.]
Here's a Robert Buckley anecdote about Winawer from the American Chess Bulletin, February 1923, p.43. "We met him last at the great London tournament of 1883. He was smoking poisonous cigars. We submitted something better. He smoked one of ours and refused another." Here's Tartakower's explanation for his refusal.
I can’t stand good cigars. I’ve been accustomed to bad ones for so many years that I prefer them. Besides (and here he poked poor Zukertort in the ribs) I rely on the stench of my cigars to knock my opponents over; if I could get them bad enough, I think I would win first prize.
Here is what the flyleaf on The Wizard of Warsaw: A Chess Biography of Szymon Winawer had to say about Winawer, the player.
Winawer was a proponent of fighting chess, regularly deploying the King’s Gambit and Ruy Lopez as white, demonstrating winning combinations as well as positional sacrifices and endgame precision. He attacked the castled king with his h-pawn 150 years before Alpha-Zero. He displayed technique using Horowitz bishops and opening the g-file. At the same time, we see in the book that he also played solid positional chess. Moreover, several opening ideas are named after him, including the popular Winawer Variation of the French Defense.
The Warsaw-born player was not a chess professional and never published any annotated games of his own, but some of his concepts, both in the opening and in the middlegame, are still valid in the 21st century. Indeed, many strategic ideas (blockade, exploiting doubled pawns, maneuvering) described in the works of Nimzowitsch and other hypermodernists can be found, in embryonic form, in the games of Winawer played half a century earlier.
Given these are fifty of the greatest players of all time, how were they as annotators? Well, for those who wrote books we could truly explore that question in depth. But to keep the playing field even, I am only including games taken from a DB. Besides, I didn't want to burden myself with transcribing comments from a book into a pgn. Or increase my debt burden by buying books of those who did not yet offer free access to books released to the public domain. Besides, far easier and faster to look for annotated games in an online database.
NOPE, I didn't find a record of any games he annotated, so that's two strikes for writings and annotations. My research into whether he annotated any games was verified after reading the flyleaf of The Wizard of Warsaw: A Chess Biography of Szymon Winawer.
But fear not, I'll provide a couple games of his with annotation, even if I have to do it myself!! (I did not have to exert myself.) There were some annotated games in the DB, some of acceptable quality. I've added a basic note or two where I felt it useful.
Winawer, Szymon - Chigorin, Mikhail Ivanovich, St Petersburg CC, 1875 (1-0)
A typical Evans Gambit idea of giving up a pawn early in order to accelerate White's development. Black ends up with their king stuck in the middle and an attack that comes in ever-higher waves finally swamps the defender. Beautiful stuff, and very much representative of Winawer's Romantic style chess.
The black king's plight reminds me of a song by Stealers Wheel.
Well, I don't know why I came here tonight
I've got the feeling that something ain't right
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs
Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am stuck in the middle with you.
Winawer, Szymon - Anderssen, Adolf, Congress International, Paris, 1878.07.08 (Round 7) (1-0)
Contrary to the first game, here we observe Winawer leveraging the power of the bishop pair and an open file in an endgame. Then the game transitioned to an active white rook versus a relatively passive black rook, and a white bishop versus the black knight. That knight ended up on the rim defending a weak pawn. Earlier, Black made a key positional slip that left his h-pawn vulnerable. Given all those weaknesses (Dvoretsky would approve), Winawer displayed fine endgame technique to bag the full point.
Anderssen never had the chance to fully display the tactical acumen for which he was rightfully renowned.
Mason, James - Winawer, Szymon, Wien International-02 25years WienerSK, Vienna, 1882.06.13 (Round 27) (1-0)
Winawer weakens the light squares on the kingside and finds his king wandering pitifully around the queenside. Black is unable to meet the threats as White probes first on the kingside, then on the queenside, and even opens the center. Eventually Mason beat his esteemed opponent with some sharp tactics that decided the contest.
No reason not to learn from the mistakes of Hall of Famers!!
Winawer, Szymon - Steinitz, William, Nuremberg Internationales Meisterturnier, Nuremberg, 1896.08.01 (Round 12) (1-0)
Winawer in fine attacking form! We get to see thematic opposite-wing attack with a knight offered as a sacrificial lamb on g5, but Black dare not play ...hxg5. Eventually Black is able to capture the derring-do knight with their f-pawn, but the extra material is no match for the attack that shreds Steinitz's game.
Technically, this was a miniature, as Steinitz resigned before making his 20th move. Great fun, this game!
The whole purpose of this section is to address some obvious questions that might pop into your head. How come Kevin didn't talk about this? Or that? Not to mention the other thing! Well, just call me lazy! Or you could appreciate the fact I'm limiting the word count that is imposed on youš. Nonetheless, in the series I'll be using this little section to provide links to more fulsome discussions that revolve around some well-known and lesser-known facets of the featured chess giant. That will range from videos to links to other chess.com blogs, usually by Top Bloggers. Enjoy or skip, it's your call, as always.
You can read more about this interesting top player at @simaginfan’s April 2020 Szymon Winawer. Some Games and a Puzzling Picture. or his May 2023 post A New Book on Winawer. A Quick Look.
If you’d just like to know more about the Winawer French and don't feel like watching Ben's video, I’ll point you towards GM @BryanSmith’s December 2014 post The French Winawer: A History. Bryan is from Alaska…no, we are not related, to the best of my knowledge.
That's it for the eighth installment of my own take on chess.com's 50 greatest players of all time. Hope you enjoyed the blog. The good GMs named in the image below have a full selection of videos and puzzles dedicated to each of the fifty.
Cheers!
Sources for this information included chess.com, wikipedia.com, ChessBase, FIDE, individuals' websites, YouTube.com, news articles, books, and other sources. Plus, my faulty memories. I mixed, matched, cut, and pasted so much that separation is implausible, and I apologize for misattributions. Particularly with quotes which are found in a thousand repositories, not to mention book covers, t-shirts, and the rantings of chess coaches of whom I've had more than a few thanks to Chess University and @AttilaTurzo (my primary instructor and co-author of three books, for different chess strengths, we are writing on how to analyze during a game and after.)
If you enjoy reading "greatest of" lists, you might also enjoy chess.com's Every Chess 'Player Of The Decade' (From Morphy To Magnus).
Special thanks to the readers of my blogs and to the leadership teams and judges in The Blogger Awards (since closed), The Blogger Awards v2.0, and BlogChamps for motivating me to blog in the first place, to improve, and to continue the blog slog for years to come.
Here's to the next 100 blogs! Cheers!!
HoF #50: Nimzowitsch-"The Stormy Petrel"
HoF #49: Karjakin–"The Minister of Defense"
HoF #48: Portisch–"The Hungarian Botvinnik"
HoF #47: Polugaevsky–"The Great Poluga"
HoF #46: Kamsky–"London's King"
HoF #44: Leko–"The Cement Meister"
HoF #42: Najdorf–"Happy-Go-Lucky"
HoF #41: Jan Timman (The Best of the West!)
HoF #40: Mikhail Chigorin (Father of the Russian School of Chess)
