Winner's POV Chapter 7: Cambridge 1860
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 7: Cambridge 1860
Welcome to the 1860s! This decade would give us our next big shift in the competitive chess scene, mainly in the format used for the majority of tournaments. However, we still have a couple more smaller Chess Association tournaments to get through before we see these changes, so let us get on with the next one.
The Cambridge tournament of 1860 was a significant downgrade from its predecessor, in terms of both participation and prizes. Were it not for the list I had previously designed, I probably would have skipped it; the tournament does, however, have some significance both in and out of its role as a Chess Association event, so it makes some sense to talk about it. It's quite bite-sized, so hopefully not too offensive.
Format and Prizes
Eight man knockout, first two rounds were first-to-two-wins matches, with the finals again being first-to-three.
There was supposedly a tournament book created, or at least a report of the congress, but I can't find it. It's been reported elsewhere that the prize fund was £8 for the winner and £4 for runner-up. This would mean a grand prize of £1081 in 2022 pounds, which is the second lowest prize fund thus far (the Ries' Divan tournament of 1849 was smaller, with a grand prize of £3 only).
Players
John Fitzherbert Bateman
Edwin Geake
Benjamin Horne
Ignatz Kolisch
Arthur Puller
Frederick Rainger
Charles Henry Stanley
Adolf Zytogorski
Looking at the 1859 Edo list gives us the top competitors as Kolisch (5th) and then a very large gap until Zytogorski (44th) and then Stanley (64th). As you can see, attendance was a little lackluster. This would be partially fixed in the following year, so let's get through this quickly.
The Winner: Ignatz Kolisch
Kolisch made his tournament debut here, and while his career would be brief, it included a couple of tournament victories (including this one, evidently). Prior to this, Kolisch's biggest proof of skill in chess was a drawn series of games he played against Adolf Anderssen earlier in 1860 in Paris, scoring 5.5/11 (+5-5=1). With that brief introduction being suitable for this brief chapter, it's time to look at the Cambridge 1860 tournament from the Winner's POV.
Round 1: vs. Edwin Geake
I rarely say this, but I have absolutely no idea who this guy was. I found a handful of his puzzles in Howard Staunton's 1859 edition of Chess Player's Chronicle (his magazine, for those who don't know), but otherwise, I couldn't tell you a single thing about him. Thankfully, his games are short and sweet here.
In the first, Geake played a strange sacrifice on f7, which deprived Kolisch of his castling rights... and that's about it.
In the second, we saw the same line of the Philidor that Paul Morphy faced in his eternally famous Opera Game. We saw the same result, too.
Round 2: vs. Adolf Zytogorski
Zytogorski's name pops up frequently when you look into the club tournaments taking place in Britain, tournaments that show up in magazines like Staunton's but aren't quite at the level of prestige that'd make them worth an article. Zytogorski often placed among the top in these tournaments, and hence why he was the second-highest rated player in the field; as far as British amateurs were concerned, this guy was pretty good.
Unfortunately, it seems like he withdrew from the tournament after the first round. There are claims that he played a single game with Kolisch before doing so, but I couldn't find a game between them. Let's move right along to the finals, then.
Round 3: vs. Charles Henry Stanley
The 1845 US Chess Champion was originally born in England, and first returned there earlier in 1860. Prior to that, he took part in the New York 1857 tournament, losing the first round to Theodore Lichtenhein 2-3 (Stanley was quite ill, however, so perhaps a healthy Stanley would have advanced further). By the end of the year, he had relinquished his US title to Morphy. 1858-1859 saw him mostly publish, including many selections of Morphy's games, and his own book, The Chess Player's Instructor. His return to competitive chess was thus far successful, scoring 2-0 against Rainger and 2-1 against Horne in rounds one and two respectively.
In a French, Kolisch quickly found himself defending as Stanley moved many pieces to the Kingside and began firing pawns down the board. As with most Romantic era attacks, there were usually ways to defend them, and Kolisch found the most active. His 24. Bg5 was especially nice, giving his pieces an inlet into the Black position and making Stanley's life difficult.
It quickly became apparent that Stanley had over-pressed, and as he was forced to defend for longer and longer, his position became too cramped and could not stop Kolisch from breaking through. A proper battle of a first game.
Stanley was able to break out his favourite Vienna line in the second game, though Kolisch's rapid Queenside expansion certainly brought into question who was actually happy. It was actually Kolisch who first went wrong with 13... d5, where the exchanges favoured Stanley after a timely 16. Qg5, netting him another strong army with which to go on a King hunt. However, the position required care that Stanley wasn't able to provide, and Kolisch was able to trade down into an extremely unbalanced - but mostly safe - middlegame.
Stanley was an attacker at heart, and it's this disposition towards aggression that was likely the driving force behind his decisions in this middlegame. Rather than trading down and accepting the draw, Stanley looked to keep as many pieces on the board as possible in an attempt to go after Kolisch's more exposed King. This lead to Kolisch gaining an extremely dangerous passed pawn, which ended up netting him the game after the longest struggle of the tournament. An exhausting game, which no doubt affected the older Stanley much more (he was 48 at this time, while Kolisch was only 23).
The concluding game, as is so often the case thus far, was quite anticlimactic. In another Exchange French (albeit a wildly different one than the first game), both players played with in-fashion principles: Kolisch developed his Bishops to d3 and e3, while Stanley brought his Queen's Knight to the g-file to set up Kingside activity. However, the old American champion never got anything going, and his thrusting of the f-pawn had the opposite effect with regards to Kingside attacks. Kolisch's superior coordination allowed him to tactically dissect Stanley's King, and without suffering a single speed bump, won him the third Chess Association Tournament.
Conclusion
Despite being the second shortest collection in this series (only beating Manchester 1857's three games), this introduction of Kolisch as a top British chess master was important. He would become the strongest player in the 1860-1862 period to reside in England, even having ambitions of challenging Paul Morphy. To facilitate this, he would play a serious match against Anderssen in 1861, losing by the odd game with a score of +3-4=2. This match was the first to formally introduce a time control, and for a few other reasons, would be deserving of its own essay; if I were to do a series on important matches, however, I would be old and grey by the time I left the 1850s. But who knows, perhaps that'll be another point of interest at some point.
We'll see Mr. Kolisch again - even before we hit the 1870s - so I'll leave his arc where it stands. As for the chess, we're quickly approaching another era-defining tournament, so I hope that these smaller, less important events serve as a palate cleanser before the next big show.
Chapter 5 (contains links to chapters 1-4)
