Romantic Rumble: Isidor Gunsberg vs. James Mason

This next match is probably going to be my favourite of the entire round:

Romantic Rumble: Isidor Gunsberg vs. James Mason

When comparing which of two things is "better," you obviously have to define what exactly you're measuring. In our case of comparing Gunsberg vs. Mason, there are a handful of sensible metrics:

- Sonneborn's score (discussed here) clearly gives the win to Gunsberg; not only is his average higher (144 vs. 125), he also had the better "best" event (230 vs. 157) and even the better "worst" event (40 vs. 38).

- Head-to-head scores will be discussed later as usual.

- Head-to-head scores against everyone in the cohort... This was a metric introduced by kahns in his Century of Chess series (one example here), and while it's not how I'd like to rank people, the results are pretty amusing:

Since this thing is an unreadable mess: James Mason "placed third" in this hypothetical tournament, while Gunsberg was dead last. This reaffirms what was believed about the players back in the day: Mason played excellently against strong players but relaxed (and often lost) against weaker ones, and Gunsberg (especially at the start of his career) lacked the steadiness to compete with top players but had a playstyle that decimated the lower half of any crosstable.

Keep these things in mind and weigh them against the results and qualities of the upcoming games. There are a lot of them, so get comfy.

Nuremberg 1883

This was Gunsberg's first international event, and even if you didn't know that, this first game betrayed his lack of top-level experience. He was pushing Queenside pawns from the very beginning, but his lack of proper development meant he didn't get to really work on any attack before Mason was going on the other side of the board. If I'm allowed to read into this game a little further (which I am, unless you think you can stop me), I'd say this game also highlights Mason's reported laziness; his play after the exchange sacrifice was only "good enough," and he would have had to win it all over again had Gunsberg found a more tenacious defence (34... Qf7 instead of Qc6).

Mason finished this tournament in sole third with 12/18, Gunsberg was third from the bottom with 5/18.

Hamburg 1885

Between these two events, the players traded tournament wins, with Mason winning the grand handicap in London in 1884 (see here), while Gunsberg won the British Chess Association's first major tournament in June 1885. They finally got their rematch in July, with the players playing in the opening round of Hamburg. I previously covered this game and the event (see here), and repost the game verbatim for you here.

Gunsberg won this event with 12/17 (thereby winning two big tournaments within a month), while Mason was in that large group on 11.5/17.

Hereford 1885

Their second meeting of the year took place at the first Master tournament run by the Counties' Chess Association. I didn't write about the event explicitly, as it was one in a string of Joseph Blackburne wins, and I'm not really going to write about this particular game either as it's a bit of a nothingburger.

The placements themselves were also a wash, as the players shared fifth place with 5.5/10.

London 1886

At the start of the year, the players met at the "British Chess Club Master Tournament," which was again dominated by Blackburne who scored 6.5/7. Not only did Gunsberg beat Mason in their individual game (not published as far as I know), but he also finished higher, sharing second with Bird on 5/7 while Mason was sole fourth with 3.5/7.

The BCA's first international tournament in July was Gunsberg's first title defence opportunity, and he started very strong with 5.5/7, but then fell victim to the Brilliancy Prize winner Schallopp (see that game, and others from Schallopp, here). Mason, meanwhile, was on a more tame 4/7 (1 bye) going into their ninth-round encounter.

The timid play that earned Mason four draws in his seven games continued in this Giuoco Pianissimo, with his Kingside attack never really materializing. Gunsberg's counter-operations on the d-file worked to perfection, however, and he traded down into a comfortable endgame going into the third time control. The veteran put up just enough resistance to trick Gunsberg right before move 60, sacrificing a pawn to create a fortress and earn a fifth draw. 

Gunsberg's 8/12 ultimately left him in shared third, a half point behind a potential title defence. Mason could have joined him, but a surprise loss to James Mortimer in the final round meant he instead finished fifth with 7/12.

London 1887

Mason played neither Nottingham nor Frankfurt, meaning the two would have to wait over a year until their next encounter in December of 1887. This was another first-round encounter, and another game I've already covered (check out Gunsberg's perspective of the tournament here). This game was given extra energy due to Gunsberg's decision to castle on the Queenside, and thankfully for him, this was one of the games where the decision ultimately worked out.

Gunsberg shared first with 8/9, while Mason had the worst tournament result of his whole career by scoring only 3/9.

Bradford 1888

I stand by my comment when I covered this game in the dedicated Bradford chapter (see here). Why this game was published is beyond me.

Gunsberg won yet another BCA event, this time with 13.5/16. Mason's 11/16 was good enough for shared third with Curt von Bardeleben.

Another unrecorded draw was effected in a large handicap tournament held at Simpson's Divan in 1888 (the same host as Mason's 1884 triumph). Gunsberg won every other game, scoring 14.5/15, while Mason conceded a couple other draws and scored 13.5/15.

New York 1889

The final year of the decade was by far the busiest for these two, with them playing a grand total of six different times across their four shared tournaments. We'll go over five of them, as their draw from London 1889 was not recorded (Gunsberg again shared first, this time with 7.5/10, while Mason shared third with 5.5/10. See Henry Bird's perspective here).

Their first game at New York is yet another that we've already seen, as it was one of the Brilliancy Prize games covered in "Chapter 3" of the tournament. It's a pretty convincing win, bringing Gunsberg into the lead with three wins to two (both recorded wins were with the Black pieces, curiously enough).

The second game was played in round 25, and for the first time in four years, Gunsberg got to play White. It didn't actually matter, as Mason was (at least) equal by move 10 and secured a draw on move 23, but still.

Since the first draw had to be replayed at this event, the players had a rematch eight days later. Mason switched up his Petroff and allowed a Double Spanish, with Gunsberg choosing that early c6 exchange which rarely seems to go well when we look at it. This game looked to be another of those times, as Mason channeled his true strength through the first two time controls and used his Bishop pair to augment his Kingside pawn storm. Although his position was incredibly promising, Mason decided to start aimlessly shuffling around move 36, declining all attempts at progress and accepting a draw at move 45. 

Disappointing stuff, that. Anyway, Gunsberg finished this tournament in third with 28.5/38, half a point shy of the winners, Chigorin and Weiss. Mason was further back, scoring 22 points and finishing in seventh.

Breslau 1889

Their next encounter happened in round four of the large German tournament. Gunsberg had two draws and a win over Johann Berger, Mason had two losses (to Mieses and Minckwitz) but scored a win over Gossip in the third round.

Gunsberg broke out Mortimer's Defence in the Spanish, and while the opening moves were pretty strange, the opposite-sided Castling position was much better for him due to Mason's pieces on the c-file. Black pawns flew up the board, and Gunsberg found some nice moves to keep the initiative (for example his 15th, which confused the tournament book). However, starting at move 23, Mason found a clever path to start exchanging pieces, working toward an endgame—one where he was doubtlessly worse, but I believe he thought himself to be the better endgame player.

This decision by Mason ultimately paid off, as Gunsberg was objectively better for the entire endgame, but the draw was agreed right at the move 40 time control. It's a bit of a frustrating pattern, both players getting promising positions and then agreeing to premature draws, and will doubtlessly not help their cases when one of them moves to the next round of our tournament (the most prestigious of all, I hope you'll agree).

Gunsberg was in the group on 10/17 that shared fourth, while Mason's 9/17 was only good enough for shared eighth with Blackburne.

Amsterdam 1889

The final recorded encounter between these two was not a very good one. Theirs was played in the seventh of nine rounds, and both were playing a leader in the next—Gunsberg was going to play Amos Burn, Mason was slated to play the young Emanuel Lasker. I would have expected both players to try a little harder to ensure they were in the money, with their fates more or less in their hands for the final rounds, but instead we got... this.

Mason finished in third with an undefeated 5.5/8, while Gunsberg's 4/8 was only good enough for fifth.

Conclusion

Of the 13 games shown or mentioned today, Gunsberg won three (one unrecorded), Mason two, and eight were drawn. I would thus have to conclude that in terms of raw chess ability, there was probably not much separating these two. However, I've provided you with a fair amount of data, and so you have the freedom to compare these players using a handful of different measurements. 

Once again, the choice is yours as to which player you believe to be better. I'll leave the poll open for about a week; the winner moves on to the next round, the runner-up will be the subject of my next blog. Thanks for stopping by.