Loser's POV: George Mackenzie

Right, this has been quite the sequence break. However, I'm finally able to read some good material on this lad:

As this book has cleared up quite a few rumours and falsehoods about Mackenzie, especially relating to his military career, I'd like to do a slightly more detailed biography portion than usual. This post is going to be on the longer end, for better or worse.

George Henry Mackenzie was born on 24 March 1837 in North Kessock, Ross-shire, Scotland. Probably due to the early death of his father, Mackenzie spent a lot of his early life traveling, spending his post-school years studying the mercantile trade in France (Rouen) and Prussia (Stettin, modern day Szczecin, Poland). Hilbert suggests that it was in this latter country, around 1855, where Mackenzie first started seriously studying up on the theory of the game.

"Captain" Mackenzie had a military reputation which started in May 1856, when he purchased a commission in The King's Royal Rifle Corps, Second Battalion. This battalion was present for the Indian Mutiny of 1857, though it's not clear if they actually engaged in combat (Mackenzie, however, did engage in combat over the board with the top Indian players). When Mackenzie was promoted to lieutenant in late 1858, he was ordered to join the Fourth Battalion back in Dover. This battalion was eventually stationed in Dublin, whose chess scene benefited from the frequent visits of a prominent London player, George MacDonnell; it wasn't much for military activity, however, and Mackenzie ultimately sold his commission in April 1861, moving to London shortly afterward.

Unsurprisingly, Mackenzie played a lot of chess while in the unofficial chess capital of the world. Most of his surviving games from this period were played at some sort of odds, which he received from players like Ernst Falkbeer, Ignatz von Kolisch, and even Adolf Anderssen. While the latter was easily successful in their first encounter, Mackenzie would get the last laugh when he toppled Anderssen en route to winning the Handicap Tournament of the London 1862 congress (see here).

Mackenzie moved to America in 1863, and that November, he received his next commission: he was a captain in the 10th Regiment U.S. Colored Troops (USCT), Company G, stationed in Virginia. Before he could see any action, he apparently escaped by boat to Baltimore (some witnesses claimed he said he had no love for the government, given that he wasn't a citizen, though it begs the question why he signed up to fight in the first place), and was dishonorably discharged in July for his desertion. He was arrested in Massachusetts mid-October, and with various bureaucratic delays preventing his trial from ever really starting, he was passed between various prison camps until his ultimate release the following March from a camp in Virginia. Destitute and alone, he made his way north to New York, though his personal, non-chess achievements are scarcely recorded.

At the start of 1866, Mackenzie won a knockout tournament hosted by the New York Chess Club, scoring 11 wins to one loss. This caught the attention of the Philadelphia chess circles, who proposed a match between Mackenzie and their strongest player, Gustavus Reichhelm (who was also a columnist, and who had corresponded with Mackenzie frequently while the "captain" was deployed). Despite being billed as a match between the two strongest active (read: not-Morphy) players, Mackenzie rattled off five straight wins to end the contest in under a week. Although no formal prize was offered for this match, the publicity it garnered won Mackenzie his real prize: steady employment as the chess columnist in the New York Albion.

This concludes the bulk of the biographical work I'd like to share. Let's now summarize some of Mackenzie's chess achievements through 1880, to drive home just how dominant he was (and to cut down on the length of what will be yet another of my unruly beasts):

• May-June, 1867 saw Mackenzie's rematch with Reichhelm in Philadelphia. Mackenzie scored another shutout, 7-0 with two draws.

• The New York Club tournaments of 1867-70 were all won by Mackenzie. These were large (~20 player) double round robins, and also handicap tournaments, so repeated victory was far from assured.

• The Cafe Europa tournaments of 1868-69 were similarly large handicap tournaments, and while Mackenzie did win the two that he entered, they're probably better known for being the first public tournaments of James Mason.

• The Second and Third American Chess Congresses (ACCs) were both won by him (see here and here).

• Despite not entering the Fourth ACC, he won the Café International tournament of early 1876 ahead of Mason and the visiting Henry Bird.

• Finally, and most importantly, his international debut was quite successful; he finished =4th-5th at the celebrated Paris 1878 tournament, defeating Bird 2-0 in the tiebreak match.

And this is just some of the stuff that took place before the 80s (which I guess we're supposed to focus on). If there's one thing to take away from this whole circus, it's that, when wondering who was the leading American player between the reigns of Paul Morphy and Harry Pillsbury, the answer is, objectively, Mackenzie.

Moving on to the 80s, Mackenzie started the decade by winning the Fifth American Chess Congress (see here), his third win in as many attempts. This tournament was more notable for what Hilbert calls "The Chess Scandal of the Century" than for any of the actual chess.

The story went that the eventual runner-up, James Glover Grundy, allegedly offered his last-round opponent, Preston Ware, $20 if he would play for a draw, and thus guarantee Grundy a good prize—Grundy was very poor, so the $300 second-place prize was quite alluring. However, with both Mackenzie and the eventual third-place finisher, Charles Möhle, winning their games, a draw would force Grundy to play off with Möhle for second and third prizes. Thus Grundy started playing his game for a win, and Ware's position went from promising, to equal, to eventually lost, allowing Grundy to finish in a tie for first.

On the day the playoff was supposed to begin, Ware approached the organizing committee and confessed to his, and Grundy's, crimes. Grundy initially denied everything, and as things were presently just "he said she said," the playoff was allowed to continue. However, well after the conclusion of the tournament, Grundy met in private with one of the organizers and wholly admitted to attempting to bribe both Ware and another competitor, John Ryan. He then claimed that he would retire completely from chess, and after his next business venture had concluded, he would return the $300 prize to the organizing body. 

All of this, perhaps unsurprisingly, never happened. In my ACC post, I briefly mentioned how Grundy was in charge of the stakes for an 1877 match between Zukertort and Blackburne, which was cancelled on account of Blackburne's stakes never being deposited (hmm...). After the tournament, he was reported to be in Toronto, and later in Chicago and St. Louis, playing chess the whole time. He also went to the press repeatedly to plead his innocence, calling the whole thing a conspiracy to prevent him from playing Mackenzie for the title. The damage this did to the reputation of chess in America is, perhaps, partly to blame for why there wasn't another major tournament for almost a decade.

Thankfully these issues didn't materially affect Mackenzie's tournament career, as he would only play internationally for the rest of his life. His tournament appearances include:

• =4th-5th at Vienna 1882 with Zukertort (22.5/34)

• =5th-7th at London 1883 with Englisch and Mason (15.5/26)

• 7th at Hamburg 1885 (10/17)

• 4th at Hereford 1885 (7/10)

• =7th-8th at London 1886 with Zukertort (6/12, his worst result)

• Lastly, his magnum opus: 1st at Frankfurt 1887 (15/20, see here)

He also played a good number of matches during this period, notably defeating Maxx Judd in 1881 (+7-5=1) and Samuel Lipschutz in 1886 (+5-3=5) to maintain his reputation as the American #1. On the other hand, he performed worse against Wilhelm Steinitz in 1883 (+1-3=2) and Amos Burn in 1886 (+4-4=2), so while he was safely in the world's elite, he couldn't raise much higher than that.

Frankfurt was the last landmark success for Mackenzie, both in chess and in life. He travelled frequently to Havana, Cuba in the latter half of the decade, like Steinitz before him, and like Chigorin, Gunsberg and others after; on his return trip in 1888, he contracted a severe case of typhoid fever, from which he never fully recovered. His condition ebbed and flowed, and it's quite lucky that the Bradford 1888 tournament took place during one of his better patches. He was able to travel relatively safely, and acquitted himself remarkably well, finishing second (12/16, 1.5 points behind Gunsberg but a point ahead of Bardeleben and Mason).

Things only got worse, as soon after, Mackenzie was diagnosed with full blown tuberculosis (I'm sure my friend simaginfan is less than thrilled to have another name for our list). He was present for the New York 1889 tournament, and even got paired for the first round, but it was abundantly clear that he was in no condition to play a serious game (let alone such a mammoth tournament), and he withdrew. He only managed one more serious event in his lifetime, which was the next international tournament of the BCA, Manchester 1890; he finished =3rd-4th with Bird (12/19). Almost every report concerning Mackenzie talked about how unhealthy he looked, and the more forward authors insisted he wouldn't live much longer. He lasted another seven months, succumbing to his illness on 14 April 1891 at the age of 54.

Hopefully the biography portion of this blog has been sufficient. Anyone looking for a proper biography can pick up a copy of Hilbert's book, which not only contains numerous details about every public moment of Mackenzie's life, but also a surprising amount of details about all of his antagonists, something I haven't really seen in these biographies (and I've read a few). 

In concluding today's discussion, it's about time we properly discuss Mackenzie's chess.

Opening

While Mackenzie was perhaps not a devout Romantic, he did tend to do most of his battling in Open Games. The opening bearing his name—the Mackenzie Variation of the Spanish—is about as open as it gets, with all of the central tension being dissolved immediately, yet with White maintaining a development lead that resulted in some surprising attacks. What really surprised me is how frequently Mackenzie essayed the English opening, which certainly has the potential to develop into the unbalanced, attacking positions he loved so much (even though it usually didn't). He messed around with the Sicilian as Black as well, though nowhere near as successfully; check the Frankfurt post for a handful of examples.

Middlegame

Although he had cooled off by the 80s, Mackenzie was always a Romantically aligned player. He wasn't really a gambit player, but he loved pushing pawns, and would often force confrontation just for the sake of action, disregarding any objective evaluations. Having looked through some of his better middlegames, it seems quite often like his position is just barely surviving, and if his opponent finds the right path at the critical juncture, his whole house of cards could fall over. But Mackenzie was an incredibly active chess professional, playing regularly in America to earn his living, and he had a knack for posing problems that were just slightly too difficult to solve.

Endgame

While Mackenzie wasn't quite as bad an endgame player as some of his peers, I don't think this phase was his strong suit. He was surprisingly adept at playing Rook endgames, but other than that, I'm not particularly inspired by what I've seen. Where Mackenzie really carved his niche, I think, was in resourcefulness and swindling in these low material positions. Mackenzie, like Burn, was a very active and incredibly strong odds-giver, and so he was doubtlessly used to saving horrible positions with his ingenuity. So, rather than focus on any technical grinds or patient maneuvering, I'd like to highlight the following two games where Mackenzie won dead lost positions against two World Championship competitors.

But, like most masters, Mackenzie was quite competent in the endgame, and generally handled an advantage well. I'd like to end this section the same way I've ended the past two chapters about Mackenzie, by looking into the future and stealing a game from the Manchester 1890 tournament. It's made even better by being played against Blackburne, who I maintain was perhaps the strongest endgame player in the 1880s. It includes very stereotypical features for both players: Blackburne's bad French Bishop getting him in trouble, and Mackenzie seeking dynamics in every position and ultimately breaking down the enemy's defences, even with low material.

Conclusion

I can't tell you how glad I am to get this off my plate. If we do this again for the 90s (which I hope to), I'm going to try and stagger my book purchases such that I never have to do one of these sequence breaks again. But that's an issue for another day.

With this, our quarterfinal matches and biographies are finished. The semifinals will start with the next post, wherein I will finally force you people to vote out a World Championship Challenger. The carnage will be glorious.

Cheers, and thanks for the support.