Loser's POV: James Mason (1880-1889)

As expected, the winner of our previous vote (see here) was the person who played in a World Championship match, not the person who didn't. Isidor Gunsberg thus moves on to our second quarterfinal match, but today we pay tribute to his dispatched antagonist.

"James Mason" was born on 19 November 1849 in Kilkenny, Ireland. I put quotation marks around his name because it technically wasn't his real name—his father directed him to use this one upon the family's emigration to the United States in the early 1860s, presumably to mitigate the prejudice cast toward the Irish around this time. Mason confirmed this fact in a correspondence with Mr. Robert Buckley, a friend and chess columnist, with whom he shared his birth name: "My father adopted the name of Mason on landing in New Orleans when I was eleven. Don't split till I'm dead, and even then I would rather you didn't give the name, it's so infernally Milesian, and they'd say that all of the faults of the race went with it, particularly love of drink and laziness. I have them both myself."

Some research has been done to determine Mason's birth name, utilising baptismal records and Buckley's account. The name which seems to have the most evidence in its favour is Patrick Dwyer; Jim Hayes on The Irish Chess Union website discusses his findings (alongside a general biography) here. Since the evidence isn't concrete, and since I honestly don't care all that much, I'll leave this topic at that.

After arriving in New York in 1861, Mason spent the next 15 years working (delivering newspapers, apparently) and playing chess. His name was already appearing in the papers by 1870, and by 1876 he was achieving internationally credible results, notably winning the Fourth American Chess Congress (see here). He was sent to represent New York at the Paris tournament of 1878, and while his finish wasn't exceptional, he used this opportunity to move permanently to London. It was here that his chess career truly began.

After scoring a respectable fifth place at Wiesbaden (9.5/15, a point behind Schallopp), Mason began his streak of consistent tournament results—strong, but with untapped potential. At Berlin, he kept up with the leaders through the first two-thirds (beating Blackburne in their first-round game, see here), but failed to win a single game in the final five rounds and ultimately shared fifth place with Alexander Wittek on 9.5/16. The monster Vienna tournament in the following year had the opposite course, with Mason sharing fourth through the first half, but making the highest score in the second to ultimately finish third (23/34, a point behind Steinitz and Winawer). Along the way, he played what was considered the best game of the tournament, one cited by none other than David Bronstein when justifying why Mason was his favourite historical player.

London 1883 was another example of two different Masons in the two halves, with a second-place first half followed by only 6/13 in the back half to ultimately finish in a tie for fifth. Other examples include London 1886, where a last-round loss to James Mortimer sent our subject once more into fifth, and Bradford 1888, where he was undefeated through the first 13 rounds but scored only 2/4 at the end to finish in shared 3rd. He also finished on the podium at both Nuremberg 1883 and Hamburg 1885, but he never outright won a (non-handicap) tournament, nor were any of his other results particularly impressive.

Seeing as many of his contemporaries said that Mason had the raw talent worthy of a champion, why did he never score any major tournament victories? The answer, quite simply, was alcohol. As Mason himself alluded to in his correspondence with Buckley, he was an avid drinker; he was also not a very large man, so he didn't need much. There exist multiple stories of him arriving to the board drunk (notably he had to forfeit a round in New York due to being so badly intoxicated), and it wouldn't surprise me if many of his blunders were due to being so far removed from an optimal mental state.

At the very least, Mason was a "jolly good fellow," doubtlessly a good companion in the social phase of any event. He seemed quite content with the level of play he put out, which was enough to stay in the money while allowing him to focus on his literary works—his books weren't written until the 90s, so maybe we'll talk about them later—and, of course, imbibing. To each their own.

Opening

Mason's niche in the opening was his revival of what was known at the time as the Sarratt Attack, or as we would call it, the London System. It fit his character as someone that refused to really study or practice, given it's the opening that we commonly ascribe to those just wanting to "get a game." As Black, he primarily played the French, though whether he contributed anything of note to the theory is left for others to explore—I'm about French'd out, honestly.

In terms of openings bearing his name, there's a Mason Variation of the Petroff (which makes sense, that became one of his main weapons in the latter part of the decade), and there's a Mason Countergambit in the Latvian Gambit (which doesn't make sense, but I'll show it anyway).

Middlegame

My favourite middlegames of Mason involve crisp, dynamic pawn play. Take the above game against Wittek, where it looked like Mason was strengthening a Kingside siege, only for action to switch to the c-file and the long diagonal without warning. This "change of front" style of play often facilitated awkward angles of attack, or in the Bird game below, provided surprisingly efficient defensive resources.

Endgame

Previously, I've tried to choose endgames that somewhat reflect the player's middlegame talents, since the best endgame players (like Tarrasch) successfully treated the endgame as an extension of the middlegame. That's not exactly true for Mason, unfortunately. He was a very patient player (somewhat ironic, given many thought him to be a generally impatient person), and that certainly helped him develop into a generally strong endgame technician, but I don't think there are any grand takeaways in this case.

Conclusion

Mason will continue to be a recurring character once we resume covering tournaments from the 1890s, but unfortunately, his results never improved and he never won an international tournament. He did, however, find a little fame as a writer; his books—The Principles of Chess, Chess Openings, and especially Social Chess—were almost universally beloved, and apparently played a direct role in the development of Carlos Torre as a young player. Whatever puts food on the table and drink in the belly, I suppose.

The top half of our bracket is thus complete (see my previous post for said bracket), and now we move to the lower half, with many heavy hitters left to come. In personal news, I'll be starting up my graduate studies next week, meaning posts will be much more infrequent moving forward; if you like what you see, please let me know, I'll carve out what time I can if the desire is there.

Thanks for reading, until next time.