Romantic Rumble: Siegbert Tarrasch vs. Johann Berger
I lost my image editing software when my Windows got corrupted, so I made this thumbnail using a Python script. Hopefully it looks alright.
Romantic Rumble: Siegbert Tarrasch vs. Johann Berger
I don't think anyone would necessarily feel slighted if I didn't make a post for this matchup; I'm going to ask you to vote at the end, and I hope you do, even if we all know who the winner will be (For those asking what exactly you're voting on, please see here). This post is mostly just a formality, but given that I'll be away for the rest of the month, I figured we should at least spend one more post discussing this lovely game.
Back to this pairing, these two have four recorded tournament games together. We'll cover three of them today, with the fourth coming in its own tournament post once we resume coverage of the 1890s. Let's begin.
Hamburg 1885 was Tarrasch's first serious tournament, and one where Berger infamously scored 14 draws across the 17 rounds (his one win came at the expense of the tournament winner, Gunsberg. See here). Tarrasch tried to break this trend by playing the Sicilian Dragon, but a few subpar moves ultimately gave Berger a sizeable advantage. But the Austrian master was something of a caricature of the Viennese school, and he traded down into an equal endgame rather than push any sort of attack. Even there he got some chances after Tarrasch was incorrectly ambitious, but they amounted to nothing.
Tarrasch won the rankings matchup, sharing second with 11.5/17 while Berger couldn't even score above 50% (+1-2=14).
Frankfurt 1887 was infamously a bad tournament for Tarrasch, and this game was no different. In a different structure in the Sicilian Dragon, Tarrasch once again found himself having to defend a worse position, but this time Berger applied significantly more pressure. All of the White pieces amassed on the Kingside and pressured the weak squares "defending" Tarrasch's King, and anyone could be justified in calling it a winning position early. But Tarrasch kept defending, and shortly after the time control, Berger agreed to a draw in an objectively better position. You're perhaps starting to see just how Berger consistently drew so many of his games, I think.
The players shared the fifth and sixth prizes with 12/20 each, though they got there through wildly different processes—Tarrasch scored +11-7=2, while Berger retained his Drawing Master title with +6-2=12.
Breslau 1889 was their final meeting, and their game was already covered in the tournament's dedicated chapter (see here). It was a much more technical game, and one where Berger had a much harder time steering the position toward anything like equality. Things were ultimately decided in a King and pawn endgame where both players missed crucial resources, but Berger made the final mistake. I'm rather happy with my notes from that chapter, so I repost them here.
Tarrasch won this tournament with 13/17, beginning his legendary four-tournament streak; Berger, meanwhile, managed only 50% (8.5/17) and lost his Drawing Master title (achieving nine draws to Johann Bauer's 10).
Conclusion
We all know how this is going to go, but I would appreciate if you did the thing regardless. Thanks for reading.
