A Book, A Painting and A Curious Chess match.

A cheery 'Good Morning' to chess history lovers and any casual passers by joining me for the first time.

Well, some time ago now I posted this https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/a-book-to-look-out-for  and the book in question duly arrived this week. Happy days!

As expected, given the outstanding quality of the authors, it really is a wonderful piece of work. I am desperately trying to make time to look at it properly, and will no doubt be back with more about it's subject matter at a later date.

One thing that has struck me - as a lover of old chess images - is the quality of the illustrations; many of which are totally new to me. In particular there is a photograph of Neumann, found by Renette, that is much better than the well known 'Neumann in a hat' one. 

Also there is a snapshot of part of the above painting - giving the bottom left hand corner - showing the only image I had of Hirschfeld, before the book arrived.

The Painting is one that I found a while ago, whilst researching something else (usually the way with me! My researches tend to be a Dylanesque meander that end up miles from where I set out to get to! That is why I could never do this stuff for a living)

I think it is a really valuable and important resource . The painting is 'Chess Players' by Rosenbaum, and is NPG3060 in the National Portrait Gallery collection. ( Curiously, trying to get back onto their website yesterday I couldn't get through!?) I assume that any 'for profit' uses would need a licence from them, although there are various versions about, in both book form, and on the internet - the Simpsons in the Strand website has this version, for example, copied from an old black and white photograph.

Bottom left is Dr. Ballard, who I recognised at once, as he also features in one of my articles.

https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/the-gastineau-garden-party-1873-a-chess-photograph  

You can find a full analysis of it all, here  including the index to the players.

By the way, if you have any links to any old chess images - open source or fair usage, and definitely not chesshistory.com - that I may not have seen before - I am not great on the internet - let me know!

It is a portrait compilation in the style of the Victorian era -there are various similar chess related ones around.

O.K. On to some chess, that I hope you will find entertaining -  with a special THANKYOU to messrs Renette and Zavatarelli for inspiring me to get out of bed early and make the time to get back to the kind of digging around in chess history, and thinking about things, that I used to do before work and family rather got in the way.

The Kolisch - Hirschfeld Match. !864.

For me, 1864 was a big year in the development of chess. There were a lot of matches, with Anderssen, Paulsen,  Neumann and Suhle of 'Germany', and the 'Hungarian on Tour' Kolisch (I think his birthplace is now part of Slovakia, but may be wrong!) involved. There are also quite a few 'off hand' games in existence involving those players, along with a young Schallop,( there is a post waiting to be written there!!),  Zuckertort, and others.

They all benefited from the experience, and chess history entered into a new era in many ways.

Perhaps the most curious of these matches took place in Paris in August 1864. Three of the games are in  The Oxford Encyclopedia of Chess Games, and I came across the material in 'The Chess Player's Magazine' whilst researching my article on Cecil De Vere  

Like I say - I start studying one thing, and end up somewhere else!! One of Hirschfeld's wins -it is in the 'book to look out for' post - has stuck in my head, so I took an interest.

Enough nattering!

With the kind permission of Hans Renette  https://www.chess.com/member/like-a-hurricane  on this site, I give the introductory page to their work on the match in the above book.

You can find some stuff on the Kolisch book mentioned;  here 

Some of the original source material. Sadly for me, as someone who loves this period of chess history, there is not so much available from that point in time.

The Chess Player's Magazine 1864. pages 323 and 324.

And page 334 ibid.

And the original from Le Palamede, 1864 pages 35, translated in full above in the book. ( I would give 'decisive' rather than 'effective'.)

As you can see, the terms of the match were that it was to be decided by either player taking a lead of two clear games, and was declared drawn at 4-4, with no drawn games. Looking at the actual games, I have come to a theory that explains not only the 'two clear games' idea, but also some of the chess!

The theory may be utter rubbish, but it does explain some things.

I reckon that the match was played in pairs of games, starting with prearranged opening positions - each player having the first move in one game of the pair.( It appears that Black moved first in the games - something I learned from the book. White moving first was still not standard practice at the time) If that is the case, then the order in which the surviving games was published in Le Palamede may not be the  order in which they were played.

There are examples of this kind of agreement in the Victorian era - a match between Bird and Blackburne, and Harrwitz' futile efforts - a post that I have never got round to - to induce Staunton to play a match with all games beginning with 1. e4 e5 come immediately to mind.

I have done some brief notes to the games - if you want the full contemporary comments, along with the author's own additions, then go buy the book, and support the hard working authors!!

Philipp Hirschfeld as he appears in the painting.

And 'game 8'. I forgot to input the details properly!