Romantic Rumble: George Mackenzie vs. Emil Schallopp
My job has turned into one where I have to wait for literal hours for my code to compile, leaving me with ample time to do chess stuff. Lucky me!
For those that don't know what this blog series is all about, please see here. For those that do, let's move on to our next match:
Today pits two players who had been active as far back as the 1860s, yet (at least in serious, recorded games) they somehow hadn't met until the 80s. With both players very heavily influenced by the Romantic school of play, today's games will be chock full of swashbuckling action. Let's have some fun.
Romantic Rumble: George Mackenzie vs. Emil Schallopp
The players wouldn't actually meet until 1885, though there were a handful of tournaments the two could have competed in together earlier. Mackenzie's only serious event in 1881, for example, was a match with Max Judd in the first few weeks of the year (Mackenzie won +7-5=1), while the Berlin tournament took place in the Summer. More interesting still was Schallopp's absence from the Vienna 1882 tournament, which was much less of a travel burden than Mackenzie's frequent trips from America. Finally, the tournaments of 1883 would have been possible, but Schallopp did not compete in London and Mackenzie (like Steinitz, Zukertort and Chigorin) did not compete in Nuremberg.
Elaborating on some results (to help inform your vote at the end):
In 1880, Mackenzie won the Fifth American Chess Congress (see here) while Schallopp came fourth at the Wiesbaden tournament (Blackburne, Englisch and Schwarz tied for first on 11/15, a half point ahead; all were ahead of Mason, Winawer, Paulsen and others).
Berlin 1881 was not good for Schallopp, who managed only 7/16, while Mackenzie actually lead the Vienna 1882 tournament at the halfway point but ultimately finished in fourth with 22.5/34.
Finally, in 1883, Mackenzie's 15.5/26 was good enough for =5th in London (with Englisch and Mason), while Schallopp's 10/18 got him 8th at Nuremberg.
1885
The two played their first game at Hamburg, with their mutual encounter happening in round 9. Mackenzie played the Sicilian, and his 8th move was the catalyst in Schallopp's grand space-gaining adventure. The German had no fewer than four pawns on the fourth rank at the time control, but then he inexplicably began to trade pieces, freeing Mackenzie's position (and the Knight specifically) as he did so. The loss of energy meant the pawns' weakness was magnified, and Mackenzie eliminated them all with a swift counterattack.
Mackenzie ultimately finished in 7th with 10/17 (1.5 points behind the =2nd crowd), and Schallopp shared 8th with Riemann on 9.5/17.
A couple weeks later, the pair met again at the Hereford tournament. I didn't cover this tournament in Winner's POV (primarily due to a lack of published games), but I will instead show a somewhat famous image from the event:
Higher quality versions exist, but I haven't used the British Newspaper Archive in a while so I pulled the one available there. Note on the left side, Thorold's and Mason's names have been switched, while on the right, Mackenzie and Schallopp are right next to each other. Very cool.
This game is one that, when I was going through it, I wished I could have saved for when I talk about Schallopp properly. His position as Black was miserable, with Mackenzie's huge space advantage crushing him. Schallopp responded to this by opening up the g-file and going after Mackenzie's King in stereotypical Romantic fashion. As is often the case, things were very manageable, but Mackenzie made two consecutive mistakes just before the time control and allowed the attack to break through. The game is lacking a flashy sacrifice for me to put on the thumbnail (if I needed one this time), but it's otherwise good fun throughout.
Schallopp finished =2nd with Bird on 7.5/10, Mackenzie was 4th with 7/10 (Blackburne won this event with 8/10), meaning this game was more important than either player could have realized.
1886
The first international BCA tournament was one where neither player did particularly well, but Schallopp at least won a Brilliancy Prize for his game against Gunsberg (I talked about it here). The balance between the two was restored as Schallopp blundered a piece on move six of their game, killing any desire I have to talk about it.
Mackenzie dropped out of the Nottingham tournament held shortly after this one, which—if we go strictly by results like with Hereford—would have been a very competitive meeting (Schallopp's 7/9 was his best event according to Sonneborn's metric).
1887
These two met for the last time in this decade at the Frankfurt tournament, which Mackenzie won by 1.5 points (see here). I talked about the game and the situation within the blog, and repost the notes here for convenience.
Conclusion?
Mackenzie's only other tournament appearance was at Bradford, where he came in clear second behind Gunsberg. His health then deteriorated to the point where he couldn't even compete in the New York tournament (he lived in the city), and so he obviously didn't get to meet Schallopp again at Breslau—the German managed only 8/17 and finished well outside the prizes.
The pair would play one more game, this time at the Manchester tournament of 1890. Seeing as it was the last tournament Mackenzie would play in before his death, I figure it's worth sharing here, even if I'm trying to keep things contained to the 80s.
With this, you should have enough information to vote on which player you think was stronger. I've given you their tournament results and head-to-head games, and I've published more games on both players if you'd like to scour my blogs for more data. Either way, your vote again determines the topic of my next blog, so cast your vote if you'd like a say. I'll leave this up for about a week like last time.
A note to the cautious, since I have been asked about this: I don't see the emails of anyone who submits a vote, Google is just verifying that only one vote is cast per account.
