Romantic Rumble: Joseph Blackburne vs. Louis Paulsen

Apologies for the slightly ugly bracket:

Romantic Rumble: Joseph Blackburne vs. Louis Paulsen

Today's matchup is the one with the most history, as these two have games spanning almost three decades; it was Paulsen's blindfold exhibitions back in 1861 that got Blackburne interested in blindfold chess, and in the 80s the Englishman was arguably the world's foremost expert in the discipline. Perhaps one day I'll add a follow-up to this post discussing the rest of their history, but for today let's continue focusing primarily on the 1880s.

One of the nice things about studying Blackburne is because he played in basically every tournament, we can directly compare results with his opponents without having to judge the merits of other tournaments. Let's dig in, shall we?

Starting at the start, the players' first encounter was at Wiesbaden, where Blackburne ultimately finished as co-champion (see here). I covered their game from the final round in that post, and I do so again here with updated notes. Contemporary writers put a lot of the blame on Paulsen's time mismanagement, noting that he was a slow player and couldn't operate well under the 20 move per hour time control. My assessment was that his opening experiment was not as solid as he may have suspected, and he failed to properly recognize the danger until it was too late.

Blackburne scored 11/15, while Paulsen managed exactly 50%—7.5/15. Paulsen couldn't even claim to be the highest-placing German as both Emil Schallopp and Johannes Minckwitz finished above him, but he was able to successfully defend his reputation at a national tournament in Braunschweig later that year (edochess).

When the players next met at Berlin 1881, circumstances were much better for Paulsen: the time control was a more generous 15 moves per hour, he had the White pieces, and Blackburne was an avid French player—an opening Paulsen had devoted plenty of attention to. He indeed got a healthy advantage in their game, but Blackburne demonstrated a quality we'll doubtlessly explore more later: an ability to control the pace of the game. He kept some semblance of an initiative for most of the middlegame, and Paulsen never found the proper way to transition from defence to counterattack.

At Berlin, Blackburne was more or less invincible, and this game was probably the most impressive of his wins. Paulsen's advantage gradually shrunk from minor to nonexistent, and he even managed to lose the endgame after Blackburne's Knight outfoxed his own. It's an incredible display of fighting spirit from both sides, and a testament to Blackburne's ability to both pursue an initiative and convert an endgame.

Blackburne famously dominated this event with 14/16 (see here), while Paulsen could only manage another even score with 8/16. 

Vienna 1882 would be the location of their next two battles, with the first game featuring the opening for which Paulsen was really known: the Sicilian. Despite being known primarily as a defender (and for good reason), Paulsen was a very dynamic player, and introduced many of the most unorthodox, combative lines in this rarely-played opening—I can't think of a player other than Henry Bird who played the opening as much as the brothers Paulsen.

I should probably preface this whole thing by mentioning that most of this game was spoiled by Blackburne's really weak play shortly after the first time control, but the opening moves are still quite interesting.

Their next game wouldn't be played until 17 rounds later (blimey what a massive tournament). Blackburne played the Philidor, a rare choice for him, and one that Paulsen also had a hand in sculpting—see my comment to move four. This game also didn't go well for the Englishman, who couldn't properly coordinate his pieces in the cramped structure and tried to sacrifice a pawn to make things work. While Paulsen navigated the sharp follow-up quite well, he made one trade too many, ending up in an opposite-coloured Bishop endgame that Blackburne held rather comfortably. Let it be known once more that Paulsen was arguably the more prolific opening theoretician, Blackburne was indisputably the endgame expert between the two.

Blackburne once again finished ahead of Paulsen, scoring 21.5 to 18.5 out of the 34 games played.

Their final game in the first half of the decade came in Nuremberg, where the players met in the third round—Blackburne had scored two wins, while Paulsen managed only two draws. This game was also a draw, but it was far from dull, with Paulsen forcing a wild material imbalance early on. The most action, of course, can be found right before the time controls at moves 20 and 40, as my notes hopefully demonstrate. Ultimately, Blackburne would have had the edge had he completed the Queen trade with his King, but recapturing with the Rook allowed Paulsen to hang on and even be the one pushing at the end.

Blackburne again finished higher in the standings, coming in 2nd place with 13.5/18 compared to Paulsen's miserable 8/18.

It would take another four years for the two to play another game, with Frankfurt being the next time Paulsen even played another tournament. It's a very strange game, and not all that good. Paulsen's novelty was bad, but it could have won him a piece if he had played the correct ninth move, which both players missed. He ultimately got a wide-open position with the Bishop pair, one that a modern master would gleefully push for as long as possible. Paulsen, on the other hand, didn't, and only scored the win after Blackburne refused to take the draw by repetition (from an inferior position, no less). A win is a win, however, and this allowed Paulsen to level the score at two wins apiece.

Blackburne finished higher yet again, coming in second with 13.5/20, while Paulsen's 11/20 didn't even get him a prize.

Their final encounter took place at Paulsen's final tournament: Breslau 1889. In the second round, the players repeated the Vienna Gambit, with Paulsen choosing a more orthodox fifth move. The game was incredibly complicated, and I fully admit that my notes will not do it justice—I'm hurriedly typing these out on Thursday evening so I can spend Friday doing homework But it's mostly moot as, in typical fashion for this blog, things were ended with a rather anticlimactic blunder.

Paulsen finished higher in this event, scoring 10/17 and splitting the 4th-7th prizes, while Blackburne's 9/17 left him empty handed. For those keeping score, this was the only tournament where Paulsen finished higher.

Conclusion

Despite the tournament results ultimately going Blackburne's way, he lost his individual matchups against Paulsen (+2-3=2), though Paulsen played White in five of their seven games. Given that this was a match between the #2 seed and #15, that's still quite an interesting score dynamic. Whether that affects your decision is ultimately up to you, as once again, you get to decide who moves on (since I've not linked it yet, check out what this is all about here). 

I'll leave the poll open for about a week, then write up the ceremonial post for the runner-up in, like, eventually, I guess. Cheers.