Winner's POV: London 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.
London 1889: He Finally Won One
By its merits alone, this tournament probably shouldn't be its own post; a lot of the games are missing, the level of the players is rather low, and the games are sometimes of questionable quality. This tournament wasn't in my roadmap when I was planning out this part of the series, and especially after my reflections in the Nottingham 1886 chapter (see here) I figured I'd be skipping over events like this. So what gives? I have two main reasons for this.
There's a Latin aphorism that many of us, especially historians and biographers, should take to heart: De mortuis nil nisi bonum, or "of the dead, speak no evil." Obviously there are some exceptions to this rule - biographies of genuinely evil people exist - but we're here to discuss chess players, so it generally applies. I've not followed this advice too closely myself, and particularly when it comes to today's subject, I have to right some wrongs. Working toward this objective is my first reason for making this post; the second reason will be discussed shortly.
There's very little to talk about with regards to the logistics of this tournament. As before, the British Chess Association held congresses every year, alternating between national and international affairs. With Bradford being international (see here), this event would be British-only. With the country having so many talented players, these events had the potential to be quite impressive on their own, as was the case in 1887. Unfortunately, as we'll discuss in a moment, this event was a bit of a letdown in that regard.
Format and Prizes
11 players ultimately took part in this single all-play-all, with the usual time control of 20 moves per hour, but with only one game needing to be played per day - a welcome reprieve from the challenging schedules of previous tournaments, no doubt.
The prizing for this event constitutes the second reason for me making this post. This tournament was the first where the prizing was dictated according to the Sonneborn-Berger system (SB hereafter). The gist is that a player's SB score would be computed, and they would receive a proportion of the prize fund (£50 plus the sum of the entrance fees) equal to the proportion of SB points they scored relative to the total number of points available. If this explanation doesn't make sense, fear not: it's a nonsensical system. I'll try to break it down a little more at the end of this post, when we discuss the prizing.
Players
Amos Burn was somewhat expected to compete, though this obviously didn't happen; likewise, George Mackenzie was hopeful but was suffering badly from the illness that kept him away from New York. Joseph Blackburne's no-show is why we have an odd number of players.
The 1889 Edo list gives the top of the field, perhaps unexpectedly, as Isidor Gunsberg (9th), James Mason (23rd), and Henry Bird (31st). A far cry from 1887, where over half of the field was comprised of established masters. I miss Johannes Zukertort already.
The Winner*: Henry Bird
I never thought the day would come where I would write a full post about this guy - I almost didn't, were it not for the reasons mentioned above - but here we are. Under conventional scoring, Bird would have actually tied with Gunsberg (hence the *), but Bird's SB score was higher and thus he was awarded the win. So, for the first (and probably only) time in this series, let's observe none other than Henry Bird and his unique chess as we explore the London 1889 tournament from the Winner's POV.
Round 1: vs. Oscar Müller
I was not expecting chessgames.com to have such a crisp photo of this guy. Müller was, as the name suggests, born in Germany, but had been living in London for a little while. He won a handicap tournament in October ahead of Bird, beating him in their individual game - we're already starting with a score to settle.
This really doesn't feel like a Bird game, aside from the opening - he was the one person advocating for the Sicilian Dragon. But there were absolutely none of the aggressive fireworks with which we usually associate the opening, but instead lots of trades took place, with Bird capturing on d4 no fewer than four times in the first 20 moves. We're actually starting off this chapter with a Henry Bird endgame grind.
As expected, the technique wasn't as convincing as a Blackburne or Tarrasch game, but Bird ultimately worked out the critical winning attempt shortly after move 30. His plan ultimately paid off, as Müller first allowed the Rook to infiltrate on the fourth rank, before blundering at least two pawns with his 40th move. A relatively professional win from Bird to kick off this campaign, and a nice game with which to open this chapter's festivities.
Round 2: bye
Seeing as Gunsberg "tied" Bird for first, I'll sprinkle a couple of his games in here as well. After a win over Joseph Blake in the first round, he got his rematch against another Amsterdam competitor, Louis van Vliet. The Dutch native held Gunsberg to a draw in Amsterdam, and had serious chances of winning the Black side of this King's Gambit, but one mistake on move 21 saw the advantage slip to nothing despite the two extra pawns in the endgame.
Round 3: vs. George Gossip
We don't actually have the moves for this game; all we know is the final position.
Gossip (White) played Rf2+ and Bird (Black) had no way to approach the pawns with his King, so the game was a draw. This was arguably a better result for Gossip, who managed only three draws in this event.
Round 4: not recorded
This round saw Bird draw Blake with the Black pieces - three Blacks in three games is a little unfortunate, but not too uncommon at the time.
Gunsberg had the bye in round three, and in round four he squared off with George Wainwright, presently the leader of the tournament with 2.5/3. It was typical Gunsberg goofiness with a Queenside castle in an Italian game, and once again it was a one-mover that decided things when Wainwright blundered the exchange rather directly. It was noted that luck played a much larger role in Gunsberg's score than Bird's and while we'll see some pretty lucky moments from our subject, these two games should hopefully reinforce that opinion.
Round 5: vs. Louis van Vliet
When we last saw van Vliet (aside from the game above), he was on the receiving end of a wicked tactic from Burn that won a pawn and lead to the loss of the game. The day before this, he was on the receiving end of a wicked tactic from Mason that won a pawn and lead to the loss of the game. Van Vliet is a consistent player, if nothing else.
I am even more certain that van Vliet was a very studious fellow, as he followed Bird's game against Gunsberg from Bradford for the first 11 moves. His deviation was rather harmless, and Bird was completely equal by the end of the first time control. Although there were some potentially interesting moments (most obviously after van Vliet's 24. Bb4), the players ultimately ended up in an opposite-colour Bishop endgame that should have, as usual, been a draw.
The first major mistake didn't happen until move 53, where Bird stubbornly held onto a pawn at the cost of allowing van Vliet's King to enter into the position, which should have been losing. The second major mistake was when the players agreed to a draw after Bird's 57th move, despite the win being relatively simple as far as endgames are concerned. While I still believe that Gunsberg was on average luckier than Bird, I would consider this to be the overall luckiest moment in the tournament.
Round 6: vs. George Wainwright
Wainwright was an Oxford University graduate who appears to have played on their university team since 1881. He finished third at the 1887 BCA amateur tournament, and won this year's edition ahead of Frederick Anger (runner-up in 1887) and Antony Guest (winner in 1888 and still not in the master's section for whatever reason).
We finally get to see Bird with White, and naturally he went for Bird's attack, with his first eight moves making up a system that I can finally get behind (I've been vocally critical about Bird's openings before, and I'm certainly not alone). As is typical for Bird games, things became quite hectic rather quickly, with both players making inaccurate moves leading up to the time control. Just like against Gunsberg, Wainwright made the most clarifying mistake, refusing to recapture on f6 right at move 20 and opening his King up to the decisive attack.
Rounds 7/8: not recorded
This section is my biggest frustration with this tournament, as Bird's games against Lee and Mason (a win and a draw, respectively) weren't recorded. Showing games between the masters is kind of the point of this series, but alas, here we are.
Since we're not going to naturally look at a Mason game this chapter, I suppose I'll show off his round 7 win over Gossip. I'll leave you to look over most of the game yourself; the part that I'll be showing off is this cute Knight trap in the endgame, which is something of a coincidence given the end of the Gukesh - Carlsen game from today (I'd picked this game out a few days ago, I didn't plan this).
Round 9: vs. James Mortimer
Mortimer had already improved upon his 1887 performance back in the second round with a win over Gossip, though he would only improve his ranking by one spot, finishing second-to-last with 3/10.
There's often one game per chapter that I really struggle to write useful notes about, and this game is the choice for this chapter. It's a wild game that I can't really follow, and given that I'm on something of a tight schedule (more on that later), I'll leave you to go through it yourself, if you're interested.
Round 10: vs. Nicholas Miniati
Miniati was the "champion" of the Manchester club and its Honorary Secretary - an important position given that Manchester would host the BCA's international congress in the following Summer. His only serious tournament experience until now was at the Hauptturnier of the Amsterdam tournament a few months ago, where he finished in third.
Bird essayed a different system in this game, one he had previously tried against Mason in 1888. He surrendered any rights to the center, but was rewarded when Miniati captured on c4, opening up the b-file. This meant that, whichever direction Miniati castled, Bird would be able to attack in some capacity. He decided to castle Queenside, shifting Rooks to the Kingside in an attempt to counterattack right away, but there are very few people who can go toe-to-toe with Bird in these types of positions.
Bird started with a quick (sham) sacrifice that made our thumbnail photo for today, before opening up lines for his pieces and pushing everything forward. Move 24 is probably the most impressive, with Bird refusing to pick up his opponent's Queen, instead keeping every piece on the board and ultimately breaking through on the b-file. There's a very good reason why this game won the Brilliancy Prize for this tournament, and hopefully you all agree with this decision.
Round 11: vs. Isidor Gunsberg
These two were tied on 7/9 going into the final round, meaning winner took all. One criticism of the prize scheme was that there wasn't too much riding on this result, as a single win wouldn't adjust the distribution as severely as in a more traditional scheme - take 1887, where the difference between first and second was a whole £10. However, both players were incredibly active fighters, meaning that this game was never going to be boring.
In response to Bird's opening, Gunsberg played a double fianchetto, and his novelty on move six ensured we would not be treading on orthodox waters. He did ultimately take his share of the center, and it had to have given him some advantage as Bird was nowhere near as prepared for a Kingside attack as usual. He worked to amass his forces there, but in the meantime Gunsberg was rolling down the Queenside, and especially once Bird saddled himself with a permanent weakness on b2, it seemed like our subject wouldn't be fast enough.
The second time control saw Bird completely stall out, repeating moves and shuffling back and forth while Gunsberg continued pressing on the Queenside. It wasn't until move 37 that Bird finally began fighting back, breaking in the center in a way that should have lost him the game, but he actually had a reasonable defence after the Queen trade. He fired his c-pawn up the board, and suddenly it was anyone's game.
The critical moment was probably on move 44, where Gunsberg was doubtlessly rattled at Bird's sudden counterplay. Rather than react calmly, I think he still believed he was winning, and he sacrificed his Bishop in exchange for two of Bird's pawns. It certainly complicated things, though not in Gunsberg's favour; his 47th move was a mistake, and had Bird gone for the attack in his usual manner, he might have taken sole first. But he was also probably still in survival mode, and he made one slow move that allowed Gunsberg's pawn wall to set itself up. The players played on until the third time control, but without a clear win in sight, they agreed to a very interesting draw and were official co-champions (barring unfinished adjournments, which I've not really been tracking).
Conclusion
In addition to the usual crosstable, I've included each player's score according to the SB system and the percent of the prize fund each player should have received. My numbers don't quite match the official record; I'm about 2 shillings off both Bird's and Gunsberg's recorded winnings, for example. Given that I have Excel and they had to do everything by hand, my assumption is that my figures are correct. For reference, here's what the press had to say:
Not included is the £1 1s Bird won for his Brilliancy Prize.
At long last, Bird had finally finished in first place in a tournament of any importance. Gunsberg's top should surprise nobody, though perhaps it was expected that he'd do even better. James Mason had another easy tournament to finish in the top half, and he probably would have done better depending on the reasons why he lost against Müller and Miniati - he was notorious for losing games to weaker players, characteristic of his easygoing approach to the game.
In personal news, I'll be starting a new job tomorrow, so I naturally won't have as much time to research and write, meaning my posts will be much slower - I'm actually quite proud of myself for getting out posts in three consecutive weeks, but that streak will now be broken. However, I have (what I think to be) a very fun series of posts planned, and I hope that the extra time I'll necessarily need to take on them will ensure they're of the highest quality. We'll see what happens when we get there.
