Winner's POV: Amsterdam 1889
In Winner's POV, we take a look at tournaments from the 19th century and see the games that allowed the top player to prevail. Some tournaments will be known and famous, others will be more obscure - in a time period where competition is scarce, I believe there is some value in digging for hidden gems in the form of smaller, less known events.
Amsterdam 1889: Business as Usual for Burn
1889 was already a busy enough year, but it could have been even more so due to the 1889 Paris Exposition - such World Fairs historically came with international chess tournaments (as in 1867 and 1878), and there were plans to host another one in August, shortly after the end of the Breslau congress. Unfortunately, due to lack of funds, the congress never came to be, dealing a big blow to two somewhat overlapping parties: the chess world at large, but more specifically the Dutch Chess Association.
The DCA had been hosting national congresses for the past two decades or so, and in 1889 they decided they would try their hands at hosting an international congress. The initial plan was to host the congress immediately after Breslau, which would have been convenient for all involved, especially the English masters; they could travel directly from Germany to The Netherlands, and then return home to England at its conclusion. However, in anticipation of the Paris event, it was delayed until the very end of August, about a month after the conclusion of Breslau. This was somewhat inconvenient from a travel perspective, and resulted in a lower turnout than what would have been possible under the initial plan. Alas, these things happen.
Despite the awkward timing, a decent mix of Austrian, English and German players ended up competing, and the result was a very compact tournament that has to be considered an overall success. Let's dive in.
Format and Prizes
Nine players (perhaps the biggest blemish) competed in a single all-play-all, with the usual time control of 20 moves per hour and something similar to the "three games every two days" schedule - the nine rounds were completed in six days, but you can check the dates of the games to see the distribution wasn't as consistent.
The prizes, per the tournament book:
400 Dutch guilders (the f is supposedly derived from florins) was worth about £35 assuming I've done my math right. That's less than half of what Bradford offered, but with the field being half as big, and with fewer top-flight players, it's not the worst deal.
Players
This tournament predated Wijk aan Zee for being the premiere tournament mixing established masters with the most promising up-and-comers:
Using the 1889 Edo list, the top of the field is Emanuel Lasker (3rd in the world, a little premature but such is the way of historical rating systems), Amos Burn (6th), Johann Bauer (7th), and Isidor Gunsberg (9th).
The Winner: Amos Burn
Burn had a real knack for absolutely dominating these smaller tournaments; recall Nottingham 1886 (see here) and to some extent London 1887 (see here although that was just a marvelous performance all around). He's the subject of a third chapter in the four years he's been competing, and it's just as well, as he would completely disappear from the chess scene until the celebrated Hastings 1895 tournament after this win. But that's a discussion for another time; for now, let's explore the Amsterdam 1889 tournament from the Winner's POV.
Round 1: vs. James Mason
We're starting off this chapter with a pretty uneventful grandmaster draw. Let's just get it out of the way so we can get to more interesting things.
Round 2: bye
Seeing as the bye came before any compelling narratives were brought about, let's instead take this moment to look at the most famous game from this tournament: Lasker's double Bishop sacrifice against Bauer.
The game itself was rather straightforward; Lasker played a Bird's opening, set all of his pieces up for maximum aggression, and Bauer was way too careless in his defence. The double Bishop sacrifice is, of course, incredibly pleasing to look at, though it only works if you find the subtle 18. Qg4+ as Lasker did. I present it with rather minimal commentary.
Round 3: vs. Johann Bauer
Oh hey, it's this guy again. It probably comes as no surprise to hear that these two drew their game in Breslau, though it should be noted that Bauer had the better game on the Black side of a Scandinavian.
The solid Bauer messed up as early as move six in this game, offering a Queen trade that gave Burn complete domination of the Queenside. He defended well enough, and had things more or less under control as the first time control came and went. But all hell broke loose just before move 30, with Burn getting connected Queenside passers while Bauer opened up the center and looked for compensation in the capture of the White King.
When Bauer sacrificed his c-pawn to get his Rook into Burn's camp, it looked like we were in for a very complicated few moves leading up to the second time control. But he immediately went astray, offering a trade of Knights before allowing the once-active Rook to get traded as well. What was left will become a common theme among the remaining games of this event: Burn gets a pawn-up endgame and doesn't leave his opponent with much hope.
Round 4: vs. Arnold van Foreest
Van Foreest was one of the principle organizers of this congress, and was also the Dutch champion in 1889 (which took place after this tournament, I think). He's also the great-great grandfather of the chess-playing van Foreest siblings that are active today. The game evidently runs in the family, more than we already knew.
Van Foreest played a Semi-Tarrasch, and actually handled his IQP quite well for the first little bit of this game. Had he relieved himself of this pawn on move 13, his position would have been incredible; instead, he allowed Burn to slowly activate his own pieces, and things were balanced right around the first time control. Burn launched an attack with his 21st move, and van Foreest placed his Knight on the wrong square in response, dropping a pawn.
This endgame was among the more defendable ones we'll see today, and it was defended well enough up to the 40th move, where van Foreest failed to win a crucial tempo before going on a useless pawn-grabbing spree. The final position is actually quite amusing, with Burn having only one pawn left, but it's a pawn whose promotion could not be stopped.
This round was quite crucial for the standings as Lasker, who was 3/3 going in, lost his game against Louis van Vliet. He was thus tied with Gunsberg and Mason on 3/4, while Burn and van Vliet "trailed" with 2.5/3 (I will never know how to properly track scores when byes are in play).
Round 5: vs. Rudolf Loman
Loman was born in Amsterdam but had been living in England for many years. He was the Dutch champion in 1882 and 1888, but also took part in the Nuremberg Hauptturnier in 1883 and the Counties' Chess Association "Class 1" in 1884, among other non-Dutch chess affairs.
This Italian game was chock full of the needless aggression that players were leaving behind as we enter the Modern era. Loman also made a mistake on move six, trying to get an early attack going but doing nothing more than forcing exchanges that allowed Burn to develop his Queen with tempo. He allowed Burn to take the pawn on f7, before enacting a defence that only allowed Burn to trade the Queens. There's relatively little substance in this game.
Round 6: vs. Louis van Vliet
Van Vliet is probably the one I know the least about. The San Francisco Mechanics' Institute has records of him playing among their ranks from 1886 (and doing quite well), and after this tournament, he competed in the BCA tournaments of 1889 and, more impressively, 1890. Couple that with him handing Lasker his only defeat of the tournament so far and it's clear that this guy is no pushover.
The players started with some of Burn's preparation from the New York tournament, with van Vliet deviating from Blackburne's game on move nine. He played well enough, countering Burn's space grabbing with a handful of exchanges, likely looking for a draw. However, when he traded pawns the wrong way on move 19, he allowed Burn to play the exchange sacrifice that made it into our thumbnail today.
Had van Vliet accepted the sacrifice, he would have had to defend a bad endgame with less material. He didn't accept the sacrifice, and instead had to defend a (slightly better) bad endgame with less material. The defence was, once again, pretty solid until move 40, where he misjudged a tactical sequence that won Burn a full exchange seven moves later. I reiterate that this guy is no pushover, but he's also no Amos Burn.
Round 7: vs. Robinson Leather
Leather was one of Burn's teammates for the Liverpool Chess Club for their inter-club matches (maybe I'll get around to writing about them one of these days). He played no other tournaments of note, and in fact has no other tournaments I know of after 1889, before dying in 1895 at the age of ~30.
This game is one of the more overt displays of Steinitz's influence on Burn, as our subject played his 7th and 8th moves in this popular variation of the Double Spanish. His play was sensible, and as Leather's development was clunky (look at his fianchettoed Queen), he positioned his pieces for a Kingside attack. As the notes will show, Leather really just never had a chance in this game, as the tactics were always flowing in Burn's favour.
This round was when Lasker got his bye, so this is the first time I can say that Burn was objectively ahead of him, scoring 5.5/6 to Lasker's 5/6. Mason scored many draws and was still undefeated on 5/7, but he would have to defeat Lasker in round eight (before he gets his bye in round nine) if he wanted to win this event.
Round 8: vs. Isidor Gunsberg
We're saving some of the best for last today. Gunsberg was performing rather poorly, sitting on 3.5/6 going into this round, and it's hard to tell why. One possible explanation is that he intended on attending as a reporter only - it was Blackburne's withdrawal that caused him to enter (though there would have been eight entrants had he sat out, which would make my life easier. I guess he didn't consider me when he made this decision).
Gunsberg traded on f6 early in this Classical French, which was a controversial decision that was met with Burn jamming c5, trading Queens and opening up the position. The Black King was cut off from the Queenside where Gunsberg had his pawn majority, which explains why he tried to advance those pawns, though this was a bit premature. Burn's dark-square Bishop made an impact on move 15, forcing Gunsberg to isolate a pawn that was won right at the move 20 time control. This will be today's final entry into the "Burn won a pawn and then converted the endgame" ledger.
Round 9: vs. Emanuel Lasker
I'll go back to more conventional Lasker portraits in future chapters, but this one is just too fascinating for me to give up just yet. Anyway, as Lasker couldn't manage more than a draw against Mason in the last round, this encounter was a proto armageddon - Lasker needed to win this game to share first in the tournament, otherwise Burn would win it outright.
As is often the case, the final game in this chapter is a little underwhelming. My theory is that this was primarily a financial decision on Lasker's part; a draw would give him a clean 225 Guilders, worth about £20 or 400ish German Marks, and Lasker was incredibly poor at this time so he would take all the money he could get. A loss would force him to split the second and third (and potentially fourth, if van Vliet won his game) prizes, so this allowed him to lock in his payday without much risk. It's not great from a sporting point of view, but such is the consequence of existing in the real world.
Conclusion
Once again, Burn absolutely demolished a smaller tournament, finishing undefeated and winning the tournament by a point for the second time in this series. Lasker's performance was almost as impressive, with the one blemish being his loss against van Vliet - Lasker played a dubious opening gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Bg4 4. dxe5 Nd7!?) and was crushed quickly. Mason played a classically easy tournament, really only facing serious resistance from Lasker and van Vliet but otherwise comfortably taking third. Finally, van Vliet's performance as a newcomer also has to be commended, scoring wins against both of the young masters and setting himself up well for the future.
On the flip side, Gunsberg's 50% score has to be very disappointing, though he did earn the fifth prize so he wasn't completely out of the money. Bauer's performance wouldn't have been so bad had he not done well in Breslau; if I didn't know some unfortunate facts about his near future, I would say that he also had quite a bit of potential (we'll cover the relevant tragedies in a later chapter).
That's all for the last international tournament of the year. The final post of the decade will cover the biennial BCA national master tournament, which I very nearly skipped for similar reasons as the first back in 1885. When it comes out (ideally in a week or so), you'll hopefully understand why it needs to be shared.
