The Chess Player Who Defeated An Emperor

The story of 'The Mechanical Turk,' the chess-playing automaton, has captured the hearts and minds of great thinkers and writers alike. Although 'The Turk' would end up being one of the greatest hoaxes of all time, over 200 years ago, it was a terrifying thought that a sentient lifeless machine could demolish all-comers at a board game made for great thinkers. Even today, although machines have taken over many repetitive menial tasks, the thought of a machine being able to outwit the greatest thinkers is still a worrying prospect. For chess players, however, this harsh reality was achieved only a mere 25 years ago (1997). Garry Kasparov, a sitting world chess champion at the time, was defeated by the ingeniously designed IBM chess computer, Deep Blue. The development of chess AI has improved so much since then. Today, a chess app on your phone, that can take up around 100 megabytes of space (much less space than Deep Blue's storage,) would be able to roundly defeat Magnus Carlsen. 

Garry Kasparov playing against IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue in 1997

Napoleon Bonaparte's meeting with 'The Turk'

In 1809, in the packed-out palace of Schonbrunn, one of the greatest military generals of all time, Napoleon Bonaparte sat down against a most mysterious opponent - one that he had never faced before. Napoleon, a keen chess player himself, could not believe his eyes - that his opponent, far from being a human, was in fact a mechanical automaton, known as "The Turk."

A recreation of "The Mechanical Turk" - It was believed that a chess player could in fact sit inside the automaton and through a series of levers control the automaton's actions 

Dressed in Ottoman garments, a contemporary stereotype of magicians and conjurers at the time, the chess-playing automaton was about to face his most famous opponent:

According to the Wikipedia article on this particular episode in chess history, accounts of this game are rather sketchy and often contradict each other. It was unclear that this game had existed at all. It was even uncertain whether the Emperor sat opposite his imaginary foe or if two cornered areas were created: One for the emperor and one for 'The Turk.' The moves of each player would then be relayed by the current owner of this machine, Johann Nepomuk Malzel, who was leading this exhibition. This would make sense to allow the audiences of each player to view the match without there being a huge crowd around one table.

What certainty we have about this match is based on a number of eye-witness accounts. They agreed on the following:

• A chess game did take place between 'The Turk' and Napoleon Bonaparte which Bonaparte lost.
• Napoleon insisted on playing the white side - This was against the norm as normally the white pieces would be positioned on 'The Turk's' side.
• Napoleon is reported to have cheated against 'The Turk' on three occasions - perhaps in an attempt to test the machine. On the first occassion, 'The Turk' moved the piece that committed the illegal move back to its initial square. On the second occasion, the Turk once again moved the piece back before making his own move instead. On the third and final occasion, "The Turk" would sweep the pieces with his arm knocking over all of them to indicate that the game was over. 
• That there was in fact a chess player hidden within the machine who operated 'The Turk': Johann Bapiste Allgiaer.

The latter point will be the focus of this blog. We often attribute the victory against Napoleon to be 'The Turk' but it was in fact, Allgiaer a chess player, who soundly thumped Napoleon in their game.

Johann Bapiste Allgiaer 

Not a huge amount was known about Johann (I couldn't even find a picture of him for this blog!). When he died, evidence of his entire existence seemed to completely vanish. Quite simply, he was a man who wished to live a rather unassuming life. Thankfully through the laboured work of Daniel Fiske, a chess historian who travelled to Vienna in 1862-63, an oral historical account of his life was pieced together by those who knew him personally. Fiske's account provided the following fragments of crucial life information about Allgiaer. Johann was born in 1763 in the Duchy of Wurttenberg (near modern-day Stuttgart). His father was a 'hofmeister' of a monastery - a man employed to be in charge of the education of rich and noble families. Johann would receive a Catholic education with the intention that he too would follow in his dad's footsteps in studying towards theology. However, as fate would have it, on a trip to Poland, he was introduced to chess by a Polish Jew. This new interest would become his main interest at the unfortunate cost of his interest in his studies. At the age of around 25 years old, Johann moved to Vienna and then joined the Austrian Army where he was able to practice his chess skills outside of his military duties. 

Allgiaer, through playing in the chess cafes, began his meteoric rise to the top. At the end of the 18th century, he reportedly would win an important match to decide who the best player in Vienna was, landing him an impressive purse of 1500 florins as prize - To put that into context, Beethoven reportedly only received a yearly salary of 4000 florins! 1500 florins was about $52500 in todays money, if a florin from 1809 is worth about $35 - His victory in this particular match captured the attention of the Viennese aristocrats who employed him as a chess teacher. Allgiaer would end up landing an impressive gig, giving lessons to Emperor Francis II's sons and brothers. 

In 1809, during the height of the Dalmatian Campaign, Allgiaer, already employed in the army, would work in a field hospital. However, he ended up getting very ill with chronic asthma, a condition that affected him for the rest of his life. For his services in the war, Allgiaer received a modest pension from the Emperor which allowed him to live out the remainder of his life in relative comfort. It was reported that often Allgiaer could be found in Zur Goldenen Krone, one of the popular meeting places for the best chess players in the capital. According to oral accounts provided by various players who knew him, Allgiaer would often play chess for money, and against weaker opponents would charge extra expenses by providing a lesson afterwards. Sadly, these chess lessons, along with his modest pension, were not sufficient for Allgiaer to escape future financial problems. When he died in 1822 from dropsy, according to a close friend of his, Anton Baron Reisner, he died in a public institution, proof of his financial woes. Although financial woes would make Allgiaer's later life difficult, it would perhaps explain why he was one of the people chosen to operate Malzel's automaton - often the financial reward draw strong players to operate the machine. 

Allgiaer's influence on the game

As is often the case with many chess writers who wrote before Wilhem Steinitz's Classical chess revolution, Allgiaer's influence on chess is largely a product of his own time. For those of you who have heard of his surname, you can perhaps attribute to him a rare, and rather brave variation, in the King's gambit known as the Allgiaer variation:

This line, named after him, is featured in Allgiaer's chess publication, Neue Theoretische-praktische Anweisung zum Schachspiel (roughly translated as New theoretical-practical instructions for playing chess) - It features in the 4th edition onwards*. It was considered, at the time, the best piece of chess work receiving many reprints, the last reprinting being the 7th edition in 1843, twenty-one years after his death. Allgiaer's had a wide breadth of literary knowledge and it was clear from his writings that he knew about the treatises that proceeded him. His writing was influenced heavily by François-André Danican Philidor and the Modenese Italian school of chess. In agreement with Philidor's principles he argued in favour of the the kingside expansion of pawns after the following opening - 1.e4 e5 2.f4 - The King's Gambit. Against the castled king, it was argued, this pawn formation helped allow for a kingside attack. However, in contrary to the Frenchman, he advocated that the move 2.Nf3 was also fine for white. 2.Nf3, as the Modenese school also believed, allowed for fast development of pieces and moved white one step closer to castling. 2.Nf3 was something that Philidor argued was incorrect as it blocked in the f-pawn, essential for white's kingside expansion. Philidor's belief was largely accepted throughout the 'Romantic era' of chess with the most popular opening being the 'do or die' king's gambit filling game collections of the time. Allgiaer stood in the middle of Philidor and the Modense school - 2.f4 was best but 2.Nf3 was fine as well. In fact, the development of pieces was to be favoured as piece play allowed for faster attacks instead of the snail-paced Philidor movement of pawns. With modern day analysis, we now know that 2.Nf3 is the slightly favoured move as it develops a piece towards the centre and does not jeopardise White's king's flank.

Johann's bold style of play

Pg. 208 - His first analysis on the line that would be named after him - The Allgiaer Gambit.

This game is more of a lesson of what not to do as white here who falls very far behind in development. The following analysis is from the early 19th century so play will perhaps not be perfect. It is still interesting to go through some of the positions and see what he thought was winning for white/black and the best moves to play at the time:

Discussing a different queen move 

Some more analysis on the Allgiaer gambit with suggested improvements at end point

Sadly, in recent times, this line has been littered with some disasters for white. However, there are some great modern games which have employed this gambit line which I have included below: