Loser's POV: Max Weiss (1880-1889)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Zukertort won the vote given in our previous discussion (see here). Unlike with Riemann's chapter (see here), today's exploration of Max Weiss won't really be a biographical one, since details of his personal life are rather slim. He was more than likely a Math Professor at the University of Vienna (where he received his own education), though The Chess-Monthly posited that "his pronounced talent for Chess, however, may have induced him to devote himself, like [Chigorin], entirely to the game."

We examined Weiss's career in this decade thoroughly enough in the previous chapter, though it's worth a brief rehash here. He emerged as one of Austria's top talents at the Graz 1880 tournament, and cemented this reputation with credible results in other national-level events. His international results took some time to catch up, with 16.5/34 at Vienna 1882 and 9/18 at Nuremberg 1883 signifying little. Out of nowhere, a switch seemed to flip in 1885 and his results improved dramatically: =2nd at Hamburg 1885, =2nd at Frankfurt 1887, =6th at Bradford 1888, and (undoubtedly his magnum opus) =1st at New York 1889 (see his perspective here).

The New York chapter serves as a pretty complete overview of Weiss's play on its own, but for such a scientific player, we should do a more scientific analysis.

Opening

Weiss was a very classical player, almost always opening 1. e4 and playing the Spanish if given an Open Game. Even in "offbeat" openings like the French and Sicilian, he stuck to mainline theory (Nc3, Bg5 and e5 in the French; Nf3, Nc3 and d4 in the Sicilian). He was mostly the same as Black, responding to e4 with e5 and d4 with d5, with some exceptions. Most notable among those exceptions were the four times he played the Caro-Kann at Nuremberg, years before either Caro or Kann played it, with which he scored a whopping 3.5/4. 

Middlegame

When I was writing his New York 1889 chapter, it felt like most of Weiss's games followed a pretty typical pattern: he would play rather normal moves to get a playable middlegame, and either wood would be chopped, the position would become permanently blocked, or his opponent would make a single mistake and suddenly the entire position would fall apart. In the interest of trying to be more informative, let's try to break down this phenomenon.

Weiss was very skilled in maneuvering in calm, static positions, and was especially strong when it came to identifying the "critical square." The critical square was a square that, once occupied, would allow Weiss's pieces to exert maximum influence. In the second game against Zukertort discussed last week, that square was c6; in the following two games, it's the hole on d5. In both games, Black's position was very playable despite the weakness, but they had to be careful to properly keep an eye on it. As soon as a White Knight entered, things became difficult.

The second aspect of Weiss's play can be broadly condensed into "consolidation." The Vienna players as a whole were known for rather boring draws, and Weiss was certainly no innocent party when it came to mass exchanges and drawing in ~30 moves. But it was also very common for Weiss to pick up a pawn or otherwise get an advantage, and suddenly the game was simplified into a relatively straightforward endgame. As I said in the New York segment, it's games like these where chess looks so easy.

Endgame

It's something of a prerequisite to be a strong endgame player if you want to play in this style, and Weiss was definitely among the better endgame players of his time. The critical square themes pop up often in his endgames as well; at New York, it was often a Bishop leaving a key diagonal that permitted infiltration, while in the following two games, it was the Knight outfoxing the Bishop on its opposite colour that paved the road for the King to do his job.

Conclusion

There's little more to talk about with respect to Weiss's career, as he ceased international tournament play in the 90s and only ever played strong national-level events in Vienna—I'm hoping to cover two of these at some point.

Weiss's departure means we have our first quarterfinal matchup ready to go, but before that, we have six more pairings to go through in the starting round of Romantic Rumble (check out what the heck we're doing here). Next, we'll be discussing two properly Romantic players with a good deal of history between them: George Mackenzie and Emil Schallopp. It'll be good fun, you'll want to be there.

I'll leave you with this surprisingly energetic game from Weiss, partly because it's quite entertaining, partly because I needed an image for the thumbnail. Thanks for reading.