Romantic Rumble: Mikhail Chigorin vs. Siegbert Tarrasch

Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to the first vote of 2026.

We have one tiny problem: these two didn't meet in the 80s.

When we encountered this problem before—in the Burn-Riemann match (see here)—we compared the players separately, qualitatively rather than in any head-to-head numbers games. I don't think we really need to do that today, as I suspect everyone is sufficiently familiar with these two gentlemen, and I'd rather save any technical breakdowns for their respective biographies. Out of respect for everyone's time, let's just jump straight to the relevant stats:

Chigorin: 3rd at Berlin 1881, 13th at Vienna 1882 (oof), 4th at London 1883, and =1st at New York 1889 (see his second half here). In terms of matches, he beat Schiffers 8.5-2.5 and Alapin 7-3, both in 1880. He also, on the back of his 3-1 score against Steinitz in their two mutual tournaments, played in the 1889 World Championship match. He lost 6.5-10.5 (+6-10=1).

Tarrasch: =2nd at Hamburg 1885, =5th at Frankfurt 1887, and 1st at Breslau 1889 (see here). He didn't play any important matches in this decade, but he had a couple smaller tournament appearances, just barely winning Nuremberg 1888 (see here) but finishing seventh out of eight at Leipzig later that year (I discussed this event at the end of my Riemann biography, scroll to the end here).

I'll share some chess in a moment, but this is really all I can give you to help with the vote. So as usual, decide who you think was the stronger player in this decade, and our second round will be complete.

Now for the purely entertainment portion of the day's proceedings. Let's cover the first meeting between these two, which is an event I wouldn't normally go over in my blog.

Chigorin - Tarrasch 1893

In the Summer of 1893, the St. Petersburg Chess Society sent Tarrasch an invitation, "written in the most flattering terms," to play a grand match against Chigorin. It was on the scale of a World Championship match, being first to 10 wins (draws counting 0), with the common "win by two" rule—if the match would be tied at nine wins apiece, it was considered drawn. The stakes were quite high at 5000 German Marks each (£250 per player), and the time control was 15 moves per hour.

I like to divide this match into three distinct phases, which we'll explore below. Very few notes will accompany the following games as I'm away from my setup for a while (I need ergonomics when sifting through Tarrasch's annotations).

Tarrasch stuck to his trusty Ruy Lopez throughout this match, playing it in 10 of his 11 White games. Spectators were apparently quite pleased with how far his games strayed from the dreary, boring maneuvering games associated with the Modern school. The first game demonstrates this clearly, with Chigorin surviving the maneuvering phase for a time, but surprisingly falling short in his tactical foresight.

The opening monotony was present with colours reversed as well, with Chigorin responding to Tarrasch's French in the same way across 10 of the 11 games, but in a novel way: 2. Qe2!? The Russian's play met expectations, with attacking potential considered at every juncture, and with persistent dynamic potential despite Tarrasch's attempts to quell it. Chigorin was positionally outplayed pretty consistently, but he somehow always found resources to generate an attack, and it helped him keep the match close.

The first draw happened in game 10, ending the first phase, at which point Tarrasch was leading with five wins to four. Below are all 10 games with no notes; do with them what you will.

The 11th game looked like it would continue the trend of the first phase, as Chigorin maintained a pawn advantage deep into the middlegame, and looked close to putting together a finishing blow. Unfortunately for Chigorin, one of his more negative patterns was his ability to make horrific blunders in winning positions; he did so in the final game of his 1892 match with Steinitz, and he did so here, missing Tarrasch's relatively obvious trick and spoiling at least six hours' work.

This phase feels distinct from the first as all of the games look as if they're going Tarrasch's way. Not just in the results—although the German did increase his lead to three wins at this point—but even the draws felt wholly dictated by him. Check out game 13 below, for example, where 23. d6 was Tarrasch playing for a draw in a mostly unclear position, denying Chigorin any chance at counterplay. The only real opportunity came in game 15, which had been incredibly tense from the get-go, but saw Tarrasch blunder into an explosive tactic right before the time control to give Chigorin his only win of the phase.

This game was followed by Tarrasch playing his only 1... e5 of the match, and Chigorin opting for the King's Gambit. It's really the only opening that's especially remarkable, as the players chopped wood and split the point after only 27 moves. Finally, Tarrasch reclaimed his three-win lead in game 17, notching eight wins against five and putting an end to the second phase. Once more, all of these games, for reference:

The third phase was implicitly announced by Tarrasch, who chose here to begin talking about the usual handicaps he faced when he started losing. This time, it was the late nights and heavy drinking spent in the company of his patrons, which would obviously be uncourteous to refuse. Game 18 seemed a little off, with Tarrasch dropping a pawn and really having to claw his way back into things, but he was able to reach a Rook ending that was technically equal. But Chigorin was always a much stronger endgame player than people give him credit for, and his skills were on display this game. He broke through on the Queenside, then took advantage of Tarrasch's impatience to build the bridge and secure the point.

The next game was honestly quite poor, with Tarrasch making multiple slow moves that allowed Chigorin's attack to smash through, while the 20th was a much more complicated Queen + 2 Knights "endgame" that Chigorin managed better. With these, Chigorin immediately caught up to Tarrasch's eight wins; the three games are given below.

Tarrasch mustered up the last of his strength for game 21, switching to 1. d4 and very easily outplaying Chigorin, winning a piece early and getting a resignation after only 31 moves. With a match loss now impossible for the German, it was up to Chigorin to win the 22nd game and tie the match. He got a pawn on e6 before the second time control, and never let it go as he ground out one last win after 58 moves. Once more, both games:

With nine wins apiece, the players split the match; a fitting result for players as closely matched as these two, though a nightmare for determining who is better in a head-to-head.

Perhaps one day, when I have access to my usual setup and much more energy (I'm still recovering from my NYE party honestly), I'll go over this match again in greater detail. But for today, this is where I leave you. Scroll back up and vote if you haven't already, and let's determine our second semifinal match.

Cheers and thanks.