Loser's POV: Siegbert Tarrasch (1883-1889)

The consistency with which you lot vote for World Championship Challengers over non-Challengers continues, with Chigorin defeating Tarrasch in the most recent bout (see here). The Russian maestro is thus our last semifinalist, and since the Mackenzie book arrived as I was writing this, he'll be the subject of our next discussion. For now, onto this guy.

Siegbert Tarrasch was born on 5 March 1862 in Breslau, the same birthplace as the original tournament legend, Adolf Anderssen. He was a book nerd from a very young age, apparently reading all of the books in his father's library from the age of six (according to his own testimony in Dreihundert Schachpartien at least). While he was introduced to the game at 15, it makes sense that his progress didn't really start until he was introduced to chess books, his first being Praktisches Schachbüchlein by Alphons von Breda (who I know nothing else about, so don't ask).

He was made a special guest of the Anderssen Chess Club when it opened in the late 70s (as he was technically underaged), though he only ever saw Anderssen from afar. This was a rather short-lived post as pressure from both club officials and his mother saw him leave the club to focus on his studies. After graduating from high school in 1880, he moved to Berlin to study medicine.

In the German capital, Tarrasch joined the Berlin Chess Club, receiving regular practice against players of the calibre of Theodor von Scheve and future master Max Harmonist (who apparently was known as "little Morphy"). He also defeated Szymon Winawer on the one occasion they played. This gave him excellent preparation for the upcoming Berlin congress, where he planned to enter the Hauptturnier. An unfortunate grouping placed him, Curt von Bardeleben, and Berthold Lasker in the same group, so the young student left empty-handed (though he redeemed a little honour by winning the consolation tournament later).

Tarrasch considered his relative failure in the Hauptturnier to be a blessing in disguise, as he proceeded to fully engross himself in his studies. After passing the first of his medical examinations, he moved to the city of Halle, which had a very serious student body (especially in the medical field) and a reasonably active chess scene. This new community assisted him with two major achievements: victory at the Nuremberg 1883 Hauptturnier (see here) and the passing of his state exams in 1885, which enabled him to work as a full-fledged physician.

From there, it's pretty easy to track his personal and chess milestones, given how sparse they were. He famously finished =2nd at his master tournament debut, Hamburg 1885. He got married in 1887 and opened up his practice in Nuremberg, a city with many fond memories (quite a few connected to chess). He was relatively out of practice come Frankfurt 1887, so his =5th finish was arguably better than expected. Regular activity with the Nuremberg Chess Club helped him win its national tournament in 1888 (see here), but shockingly, he scored only 2.5/7 at the other national tournament of the year, in Leipzig that December. This latter event was apparently the wake-up call he needed, and he committed to concentrating fully on every serious game he played thereafter. The first fruit of this labour was harvested at Breslau 1889, where he won the event by over a point (see here). He closed out the decade as the only German player to win a German Chess Association tournament. 

Despite not yet being the face of the Classical school, it didn't take long for Tarrasch's style to look exactly how you'd expect. Let's break it down.

In Dynamic Chess, R.N. Coles describes the Classical school in terms of its four core elements: the element of material; the element of time, which he associated with Paul Morphy (time meaning development, tempi, and something resembling initiative); the element of space, which was naturally given to Tarrasch; and the element of position, a term coined by Capablanca which referred mostly to the pawn structure and the strategies it endorsed. To demonstrate the Classical style (as part of the preface, after which he would contrast it with the "dynamic" and Hypermodern styles) he showed the following game. It goes to show you just how early on Tarrasch began adopting his future, solidified ideas.

Tarrasch's interpretation of the Classical school would be further described as taking Steinitz's ideas (primarily those surrounding space, holes, outpost squares etc) but with more of an emphasis on development—no practical player could hope to take on some of the positions Steinitz allowed (and usually defended, somehow), so in a sense, Tarrasch was less dogmatic than Steinitz, which is, like, ironic, I think. I've never really understood the whole "Tarrasch is dogmatic" talking point outside of the hypermodern slander, and with Aron Nimzowitsch only being three years old at the end of this decade, I don't think it's worth discussing today.

And now, onto some things that are definitely worth discussing.

Opening

It took exactly one master tournament for Tarrasch's future openings to be effectively decided. By this, I mean that the Hamburg 1885 tournament is the only one where Tarrasch doesn't really look like Tarrasch, with the Scotch being his opening of choice. From there, he switched almost exclusively to using either the Ruy Lopez or the Four Knights, which would be his main weapons for more or less his entire career. As Black, he was a French player from the first day, which we'll discuss more in the next sections.

As for the openings bearing his name—3. Nd2 in the French and 3... c5 in the Queen's Gambit Declined—there's not much to report. We did see the Tarrasch QGD twice in Breslau, with so-so results, and that's about it. There were a couple of lower-importance games recorded in Dreihundert Schachpartien that I share below, but I'm going to delay seriously talking about these until another post.

Middlegame

Tarrasch's play is at its most straightforward in this era, with consistent development, an aversion to weaknesses, and a desire to gain space whenever it's allowed. He was a huge benefactor of people still being somewhat unwilling to adopt Steinitz's ideas, as it allowed him to get very comfortable positions regularly. A lot of his games culminated in quite powerful attacks, as opposed to the slow endgame grinds that would be required once everyone was on board the Tarrasch Train (meaning everyone is playing "correct chess" or whatever).

Endgame

I'm honestly not super impressed with Tarrasch's endgame play in this decade, though that's not too surprising. It wasn't until after Leipzig 1888 that he became this wholly dedicated, hyper-focused calculator, and thus he didn't quite hit his peak as an endgame machine quite yet. The majority of his games were decided in the middlegame, but every so often he'd give a taste of what he's capable of.

Conclusion

I didn't anticipate this taking so long to write, but such is the graduate school life. 

I hope you all enjoyed this first look into a future main character in this blog. Our semifinalists have been confirmed, and the next match will finally force you, my beloved democracy enjoyers, to vote out a World Championship Challenger. But before we can jump in to that, I have a George Mackenzie biography to read, and then a George Mackenzie biography to write, so we'll resume the voting process in February. It'll be a blast.

Cheers