Winner's POV Chapter 12: Dundee 1867
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.
Chapter 12: Dundee 1867
Two proper international tournaments in the same year? You bet your Bishop.
The British Chess Association held a meeting in 1866 (which I'll talk a little more about in the next chapter), and it was then decided that the next meeting should take place in Dundee, Scotland. The late 1850s was dedicated to reorganizing the BCA to be more inclusive of everyone in Britain, but this is the first congress that I know of to be held outside of England, which is a step forward I suppose.
As was tradition at BCA congresses in the 1860s, there were multiple tournaments, namely the "Grand Tournament" as well as a handicap tournament, like in 1862 (chapters 9 and 10). Because this was the first major congress to be held in Scotland, there was also a "Scotch Tournament" that was functionally the first Scottish Chess Championship. Our focus will, of course, be on the grand tournament, but I'll reference the others when they're relevant.
Format and Prizes
The round robin format was starting to become the norm for these tournaments, with Dundee adopting a single round robin format. Their spin on the format was that, for the first time ever, draws were not replayed and instead counted as half a point to each player. While this is good news in itself, it took some time for future tournaments to catch on, as we'll see moving forward. The time control was four minutes per move, which was likely enforced as 15 moves per hour.
The tournament book only references the total prize fund of £70, with the accounting section failing to mention the spread. Chessgames.com claims that the prize fund was £40, £20 and £10 for the top 3 prizes, so let's go with that. £40 in 1867 is apparently worth £5300 today, lower than the prize fund of top tournaments today, but not bad for about 2 weeks worth of work.
Players
This list can informally be cut in half, with five players who were world-class(-ish), and five Scottish amateurs, as is the norm for most tournaments in this era (having a mix of top competitors and locals).
The Edo rankings haven't changed since Paris, with the top field being Wilhelm Steinitz (3rd), Cecil De Vere (6th), Gustav Neumann (7th), George MacDonnell (14th) and Joseph Blackburne (21st). The highest Scottish local on the list is George Fraser at 69th, for comparison.
The Winner: Gustav Richard Ludwig Neumann
I mentioned that I couldn't find much about this guy, and that search has been frustrating still. Documentation is pretty much nonexistent for his 34/34 score at Berlin 1865 (and since this is a superb achievement, I would want to know as much about it as possible), and it's hard to find much else besides him just being a strong German master. I know that, in 1864, he and Adolf Anderssen founded a German chess magazine, however Neumann left that behind in 1867. Let's just say that this guy is a really strong player, and it's him we'll be following as we look at the Dundee 1867 tournament from the Winner's POV.
vs. Cecil Valentine De Vere
As I mentioned in the previous chapter, De Vere won the first British Challenge Cup at the 1866 BCA congress, however there weren't enough games available for me to cover it. The next chapter will be dedicated to the second Challenge Cup, so I'll see what I can talk about there. Until then, just know that De Vere is functionally the reigning British Chess Champion.
At Paris, these players played a grueling draw in the Dutch, and they decided to try it again here (albeit with a very early deviation). Neumann's Kingside was compromised early, forcing him to play actively - which he did. His pieces sprinted into De Vere's camp, and after the Englishman lost a pawn, he sacrificed a second to trap the Black Queen behind the enemy lines. Although Neumann was able to extract her, the initiative went to De Vere and he attacked with everything he had.
The position became rather sharp, with Neumann needing to defend quite accurately. He sacrificed a piece at the critical moment, though it wasn't too hard of a decision as he gained another pair of pawns. With four pawns facing down De Vere's extra minor piece, the resulting endgame was complicated and unusual. As is the case with most Romantic-era endgames, the technique was a little all over the place, so I'll let you judge how well Neumann converted.
vs. James Alexander Robertson
We last "saw" Robertson at the London 1851 Provincial tournament (he lost the first round to eventual runner-up Charles Ranken) when he was a Major in the 82nd Regiment of the British Army. He would gain the rank of Brevet-Colonel (Brevet means that he was symbolically a Colonel, but functionally only a Lieutenant-Colonel) before his retirement in 1858 at the age of 55. His two main hobbies post-retirement were writing and chess, so he was certainly a practiced player.
Playing his second Black game in a row, Neumann declined Robertson's gambit, instead playing a Giuoco Piano to try and relax after the previous round's intensity. He still played actively, winning the Bishop pair and castling Queenside when it made sense. The following few moves saw a bunch of pieces flying off the board, and while Robertson had to give up material, he had a Rook for Neumann's two Bishops, which wasn't the worst situation to be in.
Unfortunately for Robertson, he wasn't paying quite enough attention when he thrust forward his f-pawn. His Rook quickly got trapped in the center of the board, and I thought the final position looked so nifty that I made it the thumbnail for the blog image. So pretty.
vs. George Alcock MacDonnell
When we last saw MacDonnell at London 1862, I noted that he played the Sicilian in a much more principled way than Anderssen's previous opponent. However, in this game, the Sicilian was extremely weird, and had a novelty on move 4. It was incredibly strange, and seeing as it ended as a 61-move draw, I didn't really feel like analyzing it too much. Have at it, if you want.
vs. Joseph Henry Blackburne
Blackburne had really been getting into the chess professional bit following the 1862 congress. He began charging to give blindfold simultaneous exhibitions, as well as gambling on individual chess games (I'm sure many of you know the justification for an opening bearing his name, the Blackburne-Shilling Gambit). Though he missed out on Paris, it's good that he participated at Dundee, since his skills were doubtlessly greater than they were five years prior.
Despite being remembered as the textbook Romantic, Blackburne had a fondness for rather passive openings as Black like the French, or the Philidor in this case. Despite aggressive options existing, Blackburne found most of his pieces stuck on the first two ranks, a dangerous prospect given that the Kings castled in opposite directions. There was potential when Neumann allowed Blackburne to push Queenside pawns in response to Neumann trying to maintain a piece on e6, but after Blackburne missed a crucial exchange sacrifice, he was doomed to suffer.
Neumann began piling up pieces on the Kingside, and Blackburne's cramped position made resources few and far between. He ended up finding the exchange sacrifice later, but this one followed with a Queen trade, condemning the Englishman to playing the exchange-down endgame. Still, Neumann didn't have good Kingside pawns, so the result was not yet certain.
Blackburne's last tangible mistake came when he allowed Neumann to get a passed a-pawn, which ended up costing Blackburne his Bishop. Though the engine has trouble evaluating the endgame at certain points, it was clear that Neumann's Rook was easier to use than Blackburne's pawns, and Neumann won his third game in four rounds.
Having played three of the strong masters already, there was only one left to get through before the (relatively speaking) easier games. But the "final boss" as it were was quite the player.
vs. Wilhelm Steinitz
Neumann was actually one of Steinitz's biggest roadblocks at the Paris tournament, winning and drawing a game against the Austrian master. Steinitz was doubtlessly looking to settle the score, and the game certainly reflects as much.
Steinitz broke out the Steinitz Gambit for this game (4. d4) and it immediately became clear why it was only him playing it: his King ended up on g3! He eventually managed to "hide" it on f2, and while it was still vulnerable, Neumann actually wasn't able to find a way forward. Once the Queens came off the board, Steinitz's King was revealed to be quite safe, and the myriad of weak Kingside squares made Neumann's position rather uncomfortable.
Though he hadn't yet fully fleshed out his new system, Steinitz's understanding of positional chess was quite apparent. His pieces quickly infiltrated, and Neumann was outclassed on all fronts. This game feels like it was a lot longer than 34 moves, but that's how long it took for Neumann to resign his first game of the tournament. Revenge successful, I assume
Despite this result, Neumann still scored a respectable 2.5/4 against the top half of the field, so the tournament was still well within his grasp.
vs. James Cunningham Fraser
Dr. Fraser gained his medicine degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1855, though he stood out much more in the chess world, being generally regarded as the strongest player in Scotland. He won the Scotch tournament at this congress (eight player round robin, he won with a score of +6-1) as well he tied for first with Steinitz in the Handicap. He defeated Blackburne in the first round of the tournament, so he was certainly a player worth watching.
The good doctor played the Evans Gambit, and much to the delight of everyone watching, sacrificed three pawns in total. There was doubtlessly compensation, and Neumann had to be very particular with some of his moves, but it wasn't clear that all three pawns were sufficiently accounted for.
When it became clear that there was no attack on the King, Fraser turned his attention to Neumann's Queen. He was able to win it, but he had to give up more material in the process. Neumann had to part ways with his Queenside pawns, but eventually cemented his d5 pawn. The army of pieces eventually proved to be better than the Queen, but Fraser's intriguing idea was interesting and exciting nonetheless.
vs. Walter Spens
Spens suffers from having fewer recorded games than history thinks he should. He was a member of the Edinburgh club, and won team competitions against the rival Glassgow club in 1865 and 1866. His biggest achievements would be winning the Scottish Chess Championship in 1894, and winning a game against the visiting world champion Emanuel Lasker in 1899.
Neumann approached the Giuoco Piano with a rather specific plan in this game: open up the Queenside and attack along the c-file. Spens had trouble figuring out how to correctly negate this pressure, his harassed Queen having to find asylum on the Kingside. It proved useful there, however, as Neumann missed a tactic that dropped a pawn and caused the Queens to leave the board.
Things were never too terrible for Neumann, as he won the Black c-pawn and his passed d-pawn was much stronger than the opponent's passed a-pawn. His piece play was more precise than Spens's, as the latter dropped the exchange and couldn't find a way to complicate before pieces and pawns came flying off the board. Spens resigned rather than forcing Neumann to show the win in the exchange-up endgame.
vs. Sigismund Hamel
I know next to nothing about this guy, and the game is short but brutal. Just take a look at it.
This gave Neumann an overall score of 6.5/8. Steinitz finished his last game and ended with a score of 7/9, dropping games to Blackburne and De Vere. Thus, Neumann needed to win this last game in order to clinch the tournament without any tiebreaks.
vs. George Brunton Fraser
Usually known as Mr. Fraser (to distinguish him from Dr. Fraser, James Cunningham from earlier), the two Frasers were generally considered to be the best Scottish players. George Fraser finished third in the Scotch tournament, however he lost the first round of the handicap where he had to give pawn and two moves to Spens (ie Fraser removed his f7-pawn and Spens started with a pawn on e4). Would he be able to prevent Neumann from winning the tournament outright?
Neumann went for the same weird Cozio Defense that Kolisch tried at Paris, and he got a lot of favourable imbalances: the Bishop pair, Kings castling in opposite directions, and an opponent that seemed to be playing for a win as well. Neumann went on the attack first, but he wasn't able to find any decisive breakthroughs, and he eventually gave Mr. Fraser the chance to attack. The game was a real back-and-forth brawl for King domination.
Fraser missed a defensive tactic that Neumann had at his disposal, which won the German a pawn and killed all chances of a strong attack. With the momentum in his favour, Neumann set up his remaining pieces aggressively, looking to finish what he had started. While Fraser fired his passed pawn up the board, Neumann delivered a checkmate with his Rook and Knight, winning the game and the tournament with the best final game we've had all saga (so far).
Conclusion
As expected, the gap between the top and bottom five is quite pronounced, a trend that will continue for many round robin tournaments to come. However, at the top of the standings is Gustav Neumann, who failed to hold off Steinitz in their individual game, but managed to place higher than him this time around (Neumann finished 4th at Paris, one spot behind Steinitz). This mini rivalry will reach its conclusion in 1870 with the last tournament these two play together, but that's not for a few chapters yet, so we'll revisit this topic at the appropriate time.
Chapter 10 (contains links to chapters 6-9)
Chapter 5 (contains links to chapters 1-4)
