Winner's POV: Nuremberg 1888
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.
Nuremberg 1888: Tarrasch's Stepping Stone
This new year had two major developments in the competitive chess world: everything surrounding the upcoming World Championship match between Wilhelm Steinitz and Mikhail Chigorin (including Steinitz's tour of Havana, which would ultimately host the match), and a pair of master tournaments that would be held at overlapping times.
1888, being an even year, was earmarked for the British Chess Assosiation's biennial international tournament, which would be held in August (and will be the focus of the next chapter). Also held in August was the second Bavarian Chess Federation Congress, which normally would have posed no issue as a regional and thus lower-level event; however, in an initiative to increase the competition among German masters, it was decided that a master tournament would be held at this congress, in much the same style as Nottingham 1886 (where a master tournament was held at the otherwise amateur-only Counties' Chess Association Congress, see here). While this initiative is noble in a vacuum, the specific dates of the event(s) split the participation. Curt von Bardeleben, for example, chose to compete in the BCA event instead of this one.
Even with some scheduling conflicts, the tournament itself was rather successful, and produced some rather interesting games that we'll be going through today. Let's get started.
Format and Prizes
As only six entrants appeared for the master tournament, it was increased to a double round robin, with a time control of 18 moves per hour at the suggestion of Siegbert Tarrasch (this wasn't a completely uncontroversial decision, and apparently lead to the withdrawal of Emil Schallopp). Three games still had to be played every two days, as was tradition.
The prizes were never neatly posted anywhere, but the Deutsche Schachzeitung mentioned afterward that the prizes for the top four players were 500, 300, 200 and 150 Marks respectively.
Players
Edo gives the top of the field as Tarrasch (3rd), Louis Paulsen (18th), and Jacques Mieses (19th) who was only allowed to compete in order to make for an even number of competitors.
The Winner: Siegbert Tarrasch
One of the benefits of going over this tournament is that I get a chance to make use of the very expansive notes Tarrasch wrote in his famous book, Dreihundert Schachpartien (or at least the English translation by Sol Schwarz). Let's look at probably the most detailed set of notes I've ever been enabled to include as we go over the Nuremberg 1888 tournament from the Winner's POV.
Round 1: vs. Johannes Metger
The mystery of how exactly Metger got his master title continues. His play in this event doesn't really inspire much confidence, as usual.
Tarrasch started his campaign excellently, pouncing on an early mistake with a tenth-move novelty that gave him an almost winning position. Metger had to sacrifice a pawn to get his pieces into the game, and succeeded in complicating the waters to sufficiently negate Tarrasch's positional superiority. When the complications forced him to sacrifice a second pawn, however, more would be needed to save the game.
It's telling just how confident Tarrasch was in his ability that he used this game to test the soundness of one of Steinitz's ideas, that you should let your opponent's pawn get to "Rook's Sixth" (h3 in this case) so as to not compromise your endgame. This game was perhaps not the best counterexample, as even if the White pawn had become vulnerable in the event of 29. h3, Tarrasch's extra pawns would surely make up for that. Perhaps we'll see the idea tested in a more relevant scenario later on.
Round 2: vs. Hermann von Gottschall
Oh boy, where do I even start with this one?
This is, I think, the wildest game I've ever included in one of these posts. It wasn't particularly exciting, but the nature of the game was very unique: the position was so blocked that not a single pawn was captured for the first 70(!) moves. Tarrasch's breakthrough sacrifice is not as winning as he believes, but it's so interesting that I just had to make it the chapter's thumbnail.
Rather than go through this game myself, which would (and did) take me days, I will take this one opportunity to just give Tarrasch's notes, taken mostly directly from the book (with a few small edits for readability). That seems to me like the proper way to enjoy this game, if you can - I can't say I really did.
Round 3: vs. Jacques Mieses
As mentioned, Mieses was not a master (we covered his Hauptturnier loss against Johann Bauer, see here), but his performance here and in a December tournament would lead to him being invited to the next German master tournament. This is very fortunate, especially when you see who would win the 1889 Hauptturnier... but that's a story for later.
Mieses played what I believe is the first ever Sveshnikov Sicilian, though he played it very badly, allowing the Nd6+ trick we've seen before (albeit not since the 1850s). The Bishop pair and easy development gave Tarrasch yet another borderline-winning position out of the opening, though Mieses set many potent traps for his Master opponent. None of them stopped our subject from vaulting out to a perfect 3/3.
Round 4: vs. Max Harmonist
Harmonist started this tournament with three straight draws, including an 18-mover against Mieses in the second round. Nobody other than Tarrasch was above a 50% score at this point, so he wasn't yet in need of any desperate action.
An Exchange French possibly hinted at Harmonist's desire to make it four straight draws, which Tarrasch did his best to avoid with the optimistic 8... Na6. The imbalance he sought wasn't all that bad, though it sharpened the position to the point where any bad move could irreparably damage his game. One such move was 12... Kh8, which was based on a miscalculation and allowed Harmonist to set up a very solid formation. He saddled our subject with two different sets of weak pawns, and defending both turned out to be too difficult.
Round 5: vs. Louis Paulsen
It's clear that, at 55, Paulsen was no longer a serious contender to win most tournaments, as he hadn't even scored significantly above 50% since 1880 (when he won the West German Chess Federation tournament with 9/10). However, his staunch defence remained a tough task for any player to deal with, even Tarrasch.
In this Sicilian, Paulsen gave his younger opponent a golden opportunity to castle Queenside and engage in one of those fun Sicilian brawls, but our subject refused. He instead castled Kingside and attempted to play in his usual space-gaining style, throwing in 23. h4 to really drive this point home. Paulsen struggled to get much of a game, having to watch both the Queenside (with Tarrasch fully controlling b6) and the Kingside (with Tarrasch sacrificing a pawn to pry open Paulsen's monarch).
Tarrasch was no slouch when it came to attacking, and his (sham) exchange sacrifice very correctly forced Paulsen's King into the center. Paulsen, as is known, was arguably the world's best defender, and he found the best move time after time to stay in the game. All it took was one poor move from Tarrasch, 47. Qh6, and the attack was immediately ended. Paulsen defended the pawn-down endgame (albeit with one major slip) and held Tarrasch to his first draw.
Although this game wouldn't be finished in one day, I'll pretend it was so I can show the results at this halfway point:
Only six decisive games in 15 (four of which belong to Tarrasch) is not what I would expect from a 19th century tournament. I guess classical chess is dead... Anyway, onto the second half!
Round 6: vs. Johannes Metger
This game started out like a textbook problem, with Metger trading his Bishops for Tarrasch's Knights and immediately closing the central structure. Tarrasch, after trading Queens, played very sensible pawn breaks to dismantle this structure and open the position. One of our subject's greatest strengths is his patience, which explains why the center took so long to actually be broken down - Metger's Knights would actually become useful with the squares afforded to them.
It's hard to give much commentary for this game, because Metger did a whole lot of nothing while Tarrasch ultimately launched a Kingside pawn storm. There's a reason Metger finished in far last place (spoilers, I know, I'm sorry), and this game adds weight to the opinion that Tarrasch was just on a completely different level of chess ability.
Round 7: vs. Hermann von Gottschall
This is the one tournament game absent from Tarrasch's book. At first, it seems like Tarrasch very cleanly won in the opening, as he saddled his opponent with doubled pawns without giving him a Bishop pair to work with. No tangible advantage came of this, and as the players moved closer to the second time control, it even looked like von Gottschall was getting the better piece activity. Then, on move 37 (the move directly after the time control), Tarrasch played a natural move with his King that turned out to be the only losing move. Von Gottschall swiftly attacked, won the exchange, and gave Tarrasch his second unnecessary loss of the event.
Round 8: vs. Jacques Mieses
As mentioned in the Frankfurt 1887 post, Mieses was the world's foremost practitioner of the King's Indian Attack (or at least this proto version). Here he included a pawn push to d5, which was shunned just as Metger's was two rounds ago. This game was of a wildly different character, with Mieses pushing the pawns in front of his own King in order to get an attacking outpost for his Knight. This prompted Tarrasch to castle Queenside and pry open the White King, and his attack was leagues faster.
Although Tarrasch's decision to sacrifice the e5-pawn and open up a useful diagonal wasn't necessarily wrong, the complications gave Mieses room for counterplay, and he sacrificed the exchange to muddy the waters as much as possible. It paid off immediately, with Tarrasch making back-to-back mistakes that exposed him to the full force of the attacking mastermind. The skirmish ultimately ended with Mieses winning a piece, though Tarrasch played the endgame in such a way that Mieses had to find an almost study-like finish to win it. You'll want to go to the very end for this, more than some of the others.
Tarrasch had been leading ever since the second round, but two consecutive losses dropped him down to shared second - his and von Gottschall's 4.5/8 trailed Paulsen's 5/8 with two rounds to go.
Round 9: vs. Max Harmonist
This isn't really much of a game, which sort of makes sense given that both players lost in the previous round and were likely looking to reset before the final round tomorrow. Harmonist could have (and should have) continued playing in the final position, but he hadn't drawn six of his eight games until now for nothing - the "Viennese Drawing Master" title was not up for grabs at this tournament, unfortunately for him.
Thankfully for Tarrasch, von Gottschall defeated Paulsen in this round, so Tarrasch remained only a half point behind the leader. There's only one thing left for him to do.
Round 10: vs. Louis Paulsen
This game should be familiar if any of you have read through Aron Nimzowitsch's My System, as he thoroughly analyzed this game in that book, after defeating Tarrasch in a 1912 game from the same opening. It involves the Milner-Barry Gambit, an opening a little too ahead of Paulsen's time (and too dangerous even for Nimzowitsch) as he immediately found himself having to defend his d-pawn with his life. Not only was this a pleasant position for Tarrasch in itself, but it also afforded him the ability to watch over von Gottschall's game and adjust his play accordingly. Mieses very quickly defeated von Gottschall, so a draw would result in a four-way tie between these gentlemen. Thus Tarrasch was free to play pretty safely, not needing to over-press to ensure he received a prize.
The position developed into one that didn't really have any risk anyway, as Tarrasch had open b- and c-files to attack on while his King was quite safe on d7. The closest thing to a chance he gave Paulsen was with the move 28... h6, which later turned into something Paulsen could try and attack. Each attack came with the loss of a pawn, and both of Paulsen's serious attempts to swindle came up empty. He got one final try on move 62, but Tarrasch's tournament was not about to end with a stalemate trick.
Conclusion
A clutch win in the final round delivered Tarrasch his first master-level tournament victory, as it should. This event gave us good insights into Tarrasch's well-known ability to maneuver in closed positions, but featuring a little bit more youthful optimism before his development into the hyper-objective face of classical chess he would later become.
This tournament was also a very good one for von Gottschall, and arguably more so for Mieses, who both justified their placement among the masters. Harmonist's play left a little something to be desired, especially given how many of his draws were under 30 moves. Paulsen's performance, on the other hand, was very commendable until the final two rounds, and his victory against Harmonist (a 28-move Vienna gambit) was especially satisfying; check it out here. As for Metger, he was certainly one of the players.
The next BCA tournament will be the focus of the next chapter, which hopefully helps justify this tournament's inclusion - I wasn't about to put two BCA tournaments in back-to-back chapters (what is this, 1861?).
