Adolf Anderssen - Later Years (Part 8)

1866-1879

By this time tournaments were becoming more frequent, and the general adoption of the round-robin format meant that the occasional lost game was not such a disaster. Anderssen took advantage of these developments to compile a very successful tournament record in the late stages of his career (starting at age 50!): 5 first places, 2 second places, two third places; and a 6th place in the final year of his life, when his health was failing. One of his first places was ahead of Steinitz, Gustav Neumann, Joseph Henry Blackburne, Louis Paulsen and several other very strong players at the 1870 Baden-Baden tournament, which is regarded as one of the 20 strongest tournaments ever despite the proliferation of "super tournaments" since 1990. One of Anderssen's third places was at the strong Vienna 1873 tournament, when he was 55. About half of Anderssen's tournament successes came at regional championships of the German Chess Federation (DSB); but these were open to all nationalities, and most of them had a few "top 10" or even "top 5" competitors.

Matches continued to be Anderssen's relative weakness; his only win in this period was in 1868, against the 26-year-old Johann Zukertort (8 wins, 1 draw, 3 losses).

The Deutsche Schachzeitung noted his death in 1879 with a nineteen page obituary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Anderssen