A Quick Visit to the Cafe De La Regence.
In fact a quick visit to the https://lecafedelaregence.blogspot.com/ website!!
For chess history lovers like me, it is a little goldmine. Full of fascinating bits and pieces and a lot of great pictures One example is a great picture of the famous bust of Morphy.
You get the details that it is by Eugene Louis Lequesne, from a sitting on September 15th, 1858 and the detail that the sculptor played in the famous blindfold exhibition on 8 boards which Morphy played a couple of weeks later.
One post -
https://lecafedelaregence.blogspot.com/search/label/Saint-Amant%20Pierre%20Charles%20Fournier%20de?m=1
has a nice story which I had seen elsewhere recently, about the famous Alexandre Deschapelles
but it includes a game fragment which I don't - off the top of my head - recall seeing. ( my memory is not great)
So, a quick google translate version of that article - details as in the above link. The translation may not be 100% accurate - it is in my head that Rook odds were given - but it's interesting material.
Let’s give the floor to Deschapelles:
(...) “In 1806, the French army arrived in Berlin almost immediately after the Battle of Jena. Some ladies having expressed their astonishment at the speed of our march, one of our officers said to them: We would have arrived twenty-four hours earlier, without some small obstacles that we found along the way. These small obstacles were an army of three hundred thousand men which had to be overthrown. I was staying with a colonel of the national guard who, from the first evening, took me to the famous chess club established by the Great Frederick.
A numerous and select company welcomed me like a visiting brother; the battlefield was prepared; the three strongest players in the circle were opposed to me. In the conversations which preceded, I inquired about the strength of the club; I asked if any foreigner I knew had been admitted before me. I was shown on a register a number of English, French and other names, none of which belonged to the followers. Who was the winner? I then said to the club members. I was told from everywhere and quite briskly that the club was in a position to win everything that presented itself.
- Well ! I replied, it will be different today.
- How ?
— The club will lose.
We cannot imagine the agitation that my words excited in the club. Numerous groups formed, and all I heard around me were these exclamations, which I understood very well, although German: See what chatter! what presumption! He will be punished for it.
However, the moment had come to confront us; conventions had to be stipulated. I first declared that I had never played even, and I proposed a pawn and two moves. How much do you want to play? I am told. Choose, I replied, from one franc to a hundred Louis. Then it was pointed out to me that the club never played for money. It was well worth asking myself the rate of the stake to then arrive at this singular outcome.
Finally the three strongest players placed themselves in front of me. Not only did they direct the game, but I authorized each member of the club to advise them if necessary. We had decided that we would play evens; they had obstinately refused the advantage I offered: I resigned myself.
The line was drawn, it fell to me. I gave them the King's Gambit, which they accepted and defended. As I had been a little embittered by everything that had just happened, I stood up at the thirtieth move, and told them, rather stiffly, that it was useless to continue the game, and that after seven more moves they would be mated, a sad truth that I demonstrated to them immediately. Here is the position of this problem of which I am sure, while regretting not having so well preserved the thirty moves which led to it.
It's up to White to play and checkmate in seven moves.
A lovely picture from the site - I am deliberately limiting myself here, I could do a whole blog of the wonderful images there- of the cafe as it was on it's site at the time, in 1922. ( there are maps and many images on the site of the various locations across time.
O.K. Let's look at some chess. the site has a lot on the Paris Tournament of 1878. In there you will find a picture of the exhibition hall where the tournament was played.
I haven't posted any Anderssen
stuff for a while, so I will quickly look at four of his games. He was quite old at the time - and not in great health - and died a year or so later, but he could still play!! Probably the most misunderstood of all the great players, I have tried to put the facts in my blog before now.
Four games to enjoy and ponder over. The von Gottschall references in the game notes are from his book on Anderssen.
The first one I will give comes from the very start of the tournament.
