Romantic Rumble: Amos Burn vs. Johannes Zukertort

Things are about to get increasingly interesting around these parts.

If you think about it, we're over halfway done; we've covered eight matches and eight biographies, and there are only seven matches and eight biographies remaining. Welcome to the back half of this project, thanks for coming along. Let's begin straightaway.

Romantic Rumble: Amos Burn vs. Johannes Zukertort

While all players change and evolve through the years, no player had quite so sharp a decline in this decade as Zukertort, making him a somewhat challenging figure with which to compare. This issue is compounded when facing a player like Burn, who exclusively played him in the latter half of the decade. An integral part of any matchup, but moreso in one as unbalanced as this, is the result of each player's individual campaigns. Let's recall each player's major tournament results in which the other person did not participate:

Zukertort: 2nd at Berlin 1881 (11/16, Blackburne won with 14), =4th at Vienna 1882 (22.5/34 with Mackenzie, Steinitz/Winawer won with 24), and 1st at London 1883 (22/26, Steinitz was second with 19. See here and here). In match play, he defeated Rosenthal in 1880 (+7-1=11) and Blackburne in 1881 (+7-2=5), but then lost to Steinitz in 1886 (+5-10=5) and Blackburne in 1887 (+1-5=8).

Burn: 5th at Bradford 1888 (10.5/16, Gunsberg won with 13.5), 5th at New York 1889 (26/38, Chigorin/Weiss won with 29), 2nd at Breslau 1889 (11.5/17, Tarrasch won with 13), and 1st at Amsterdam 1889 with 7/8 (Lasker was second with 6. See here). In match play, he tied Bird (9-9) and Mackenzie (5-5) in 1886, and apparently lost to John Owen in 1888 (3-5, but I haven't found a contemporary source yet, only Richard Forster in his Burn biography).

How you compare and contrast those individual results is up to you. For now, let's move on to their mutual encounters.

The two played their first game at London 1886, which was Zukertort's first post-Steinitz-match tournament, and Burn's first international tournament period. It was a very chaotic Queen's Gambit Declined, with Zukertort losing castling rights but gaining a huge share of the center, and Burn having to make sure it wasn't his King getting checkmated from the resulting attack. The game was overall quite intense, but the intrigue was extinguished when Zukertort missed a relatively simple one-move trick that cost him his Queen.

Burn finished =1st with 8.5/12 (losing the playoff to Blackburne), while Zukertort's 6/12 saw him finish 8th of 13.

A few weeks later, the two played their second brawl at the Nottingham tournament. Burn won that event quite handily (see here), but their game was quite balanced, with a sharp position correctly navigated by both and rapid liquidation into an equal endgame. It's easily the most accurate game we'll see today.

Again, Burn won this event with 8/9, while Zukertort finished =3rd with Gunsberg on 6/9.

Their next meeting was at the Frankfurt 1887 tournament, which was not a good one for either of them. Neither one won a prize, much to the dismay of themselves and their fans (both back home and in Germany where they were both highly anticipated). Their game was also a letdown, with Zukertort getting into a rough position and dropping a full Rook within the first 20 moves. 

Burn's 9.5/20 was good enough for 12th, while Zukertort finished even lower, scoring only 8.5/20 and ending up in 16th, sixth from the bottom.

Their final mutual event was London 1887, another that Burn "won" (see here). Zukertort saved the best for last, apparently, as this was a rather dominant win for him. It involved a classic pawn imbalance in the hanging pawns, which historically, Zukertort had played rather well against (like in his second-round game against Blackburne in London 1883). He played well with it here, as after Burn started an improper Kingside demonstration, Zukertort's 23... d4! hit like a truck, blasting things open in a way Burn wasn't remotely prepared for.

Burn won all of his other games, finishing =1st with Gunsberg on 8/9. Zukertort lost some others, finishing fourth with 6/9.

Conclusion

Burn thus won their head-to-head 2.5-1.5, which is a point in his favour. He also won more tournaments than Zukertort, notching three(ish) to one. However, Zukertort's margin of victory at London 1883 was incomparable, and it was the catalyst for his challenging Steinitz for the official World Champion title. In short, both players have very impressive resumes.

The choice, as usual, is yours. The format has not changed: vote for who you want to move on to the semi-finals, and I'll write a tribute post for the runner-up. I'll keep the poll up for about a week, but as we're getting into exam season, don't expect the next post for a week or two after that. Thanks for stopping by.