"Winner's POV": New York 1889 Part 3

I have some rather annoying brain fog today, but at the same time I'd really like to wrap up this particular project, so it's a good thing (for all of us, really) that today's post is not a traditional Winner's POV.

As the title suggests, this is the third part of my writeup of the New York 1889 tournament; if you haven't already, please read part 1 here and part 2 here.

Let's begin with a nice picture. The following originally appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (vol. 68, p. 264), however simaginfan has graciously provided me with a much higher quality photo than what you'll find if you (as I often do) go digging through Google Books:

If I had to guess, I'd wager this is the Weiss-Chigorin game from round 28, which was a real marathon 95-move fighting draw. Blackburne is probably seated on the far right (he seemed to go through phases with and without his beard), and Gunsberg is more than likely the bloke over Chigorin's right shoulder - identifying everyone else might make for a fun puzzle.

Once more, a big thank you to simaginfan for such a high quality piece of visual media.

Tiebreak: Chigorin vs. Weiss

Let us, for the final time, consult the scores at the conclusion of the event:

Because the potential to play a match for the World Championship partially depended on who was first, a tiebreak match had to be played, much to the players' chagrin. The rules for this all-important match were laid out in the tournament book:

First to two, or leader after four draws. Simple enough.

Game 1

In my opinion, this is the only game worth looking at. Weiss played with uncharacteristic aggression, delaying castling so he could justifiably play a Kingside pawn storm, and ultimately castling Queenside. Chigorin punched back with equal aggression, and while his defence was objectively questionable, it also made Weiss question himself. He faltered, and Chigorin wasted no time launching a Queenside counter-storm, sacrificing a pawn to put Weiss on the defensive. The dynamics of the two time controls could not have been more different.

The critical moment came at move 32, where Chigorin had the opportunity to break in the center, regaining his pawn and keeping up the pressure. He delayed this break for two moves, and in that time Weiss was able to construct a defence that not only repelled the attack, but forced Chigorin to come up with a creative sacrifice to not lose the ending. The Russian did exactly that, and despite Weiss carrying his extra pawn all the way to the end, he couldn't turn it into a win.

If this game was the only tiebreak game, it would have easily made it into part 2 (and part 3 might not even exist).

Games 2-4

Unfortunately for us, the rest of the games are really not worth looking at. It seems, unsurprisingly, that the players were not really interested in playing more chess after a two-month long tournament, and the remainder of the games are about as dry as they come. I include them here for completeness, but I promise that there are much more interesting things to talk about moving forward.

With that, Chigorin and Weiss were officially declared co-champions, splitting the prize money and complicating the supposed Championship Match. This match didn't end up materializing, with Weiss stepping away from international chess altogether, and both Chigorin and Gunsberg playing future matches against Steinitz anyway.

A tournament of this size, scope and ambition couldn't have gone off without a hitch. The above result is one such hitch, and I'd like to share two more with you.

The Judd-Chigorin Episode

Many times in my notes for the games have I drawn attention to how this era's handling of threefold repetition was different from our own; players would frequently repeat a position three, four, sometimes five times before continuing. A related rule that we've not yet discussed is the 50-move rule, which did actually exist at the time, albeit in a slightly different form.

In round 6, Max Judd had the White pieces against Chigorin. This was the position after Judd's move 46. a4:

At this point, Judd "claimed a fifty moves count," which means that we're once again dealing with a different rule than what exists in our time. 

To fully understand what's going on, let's first take a look at how the Americans handled the fifty move rule. The United States Chess Association used the rules outlined in the book of the Fifth American Chess Congress, which explains the fifty move rule thus:

So a player can begin a fifty move count, and at the end of the fifty moves, the umpire can either terminate the game as a draw or allow the game to continue if the result should be decisive.

Now's as good a time as any to show the game, with the last fifty moves being the narratively important ones. All comments are Steinitz's, straight from the book.

Ignoring the comment at the end of the game for a moment, once the 96th move was played, the game was initially declared a draw. According to contemporary reports, Chigorin was incredibly livid, and a couple of theories exist as to why.

The first, as speculated by the German papers, is that Chigorin was following the European fifty move rule, which was codified in the London 1883 tournament book:

This rule looks quite similar to ours inasmuch as captures and pawn moves reset the counter, and given that both captures and pawn moves happened in the game, this would be a valid issue if the players were following the European rules.

The important question, then, is what set of rules was the tournament following?

That looks pretty conclusive to me. Chigorin was known to have something of a temper, but I find it unlikely that he would raise such a stink if he was objectively in the wrong. I thus find the second theory more credible: the umpire's decision was wrong.

This tournament's umpire was a man named Frederick Rose, who I know very little about, but I can safely assume he was a weaker player than the Americans in the tournament (or else he'd probably be one of them). Given that much of the game had been Judd giving checks with his Queen, and that more checks could be given in the final position (97. Qd6+ to start), Mr. Rose evidently declared the game a draw - the umpire having such power was fairly common in amateur games, for example in inter-club matches that had to be started and ended in one day. Rose's decision was objectively incorrect in this instance, with the final position being a winning one for Black, and Chigorin knew it. Thus, he appealed the decision.

In most events, a committee of some sort was appointed to settle disputes, and at this tournament there were two tiers: a 12-person jury and a panel of three judges. Chigorin's appeal was presented to the jury, who deliberated it the following day. It was during the dinner adjournment that the jury revealed to Chigorin that they upheld the umpire's decision, but he could appeal this decision to the judges, who would have the final say. Chigorin did just that, but not before declaring that he was incapable of playing that evening, and he ended up losing his game against James Mason on time.

Here's that game, why not? Once more, all comments come directly from Steinitz.

The three judges at this event were Harry Davidson (third place finisher at the 4th ACC), William de Visser and Philip Richardson (accomplished members of the Manhattan Chess Club). It was only when these three gentlemen looked at the position was it correctly adjudged as a winning one for Black. Finally, after almost two days, Chigorin scored his well-deserved point. The rest, as they say, is history.

Brilliancy Prize Controversy

There were two brilliancy prizes of $50 each for the best game in each half of the tournament. When the prizes were announced, George Gossip was publicly outraged that his first-half game against Jackson Showalter - a game which Steinitz himself called "one of the finest specimens of sacrificing play on record" - was passed over. The finish is indeed quite pretty, and worth showing:

There are two reasons why I think this game didn't win the prize. The first is that, aside from the final combination, Black's play isn't too special; Game Review gives Gossip an accuracy of 88.2, if that means anything to you. The second, and probably bigger reason, is that the winning game has a heavy amount of Steinitz's influence within.

Brilliancy Prize Games

The first prize was awarded to Gunsberg for his sixth round win over James Mason (the round before his forfeit win over Chigorin, funny enough). The theme of this game is holes, which is where Steinitz's influence comes in, through his notes on Mason's moves 8. a4, 19. c4 and 20. g3. Each one of those moves left a hole that would be filled in by a Black minor piece, culminating in Gunsberg's 29... Nb3, arguably the best non-sacrificial move of the tournament (ok it's technically a sacrifice, but come on now):

The second prize was won by brilliancy-prize-chaser William Pollock for his 35th-round win of Weiss. Of the two games, this game seems to have received more positive comments from internet folks than Gunsberg's, and it makes sense why: free from the influence of Steinitz's modern school, this game is just pure sacrificial brilliance, and unlike in Gossip's game, it's completely sound and correct throughout. It's both the best candidate for the thumbnail photo and, I hope you'll agree, the perfect game to cap off this chaotic tournament recap. Thanks for reading.