Lasker - Schlechter. Before the Title Match.

Recently there was a wonderful article by @ddtru here on the 1910 World Championship match. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you put an hour aside and go take a look. It's high quality work!

There I commented that the previous meetings between the two players were not a big factor in the match, and I thought that some of you may be interested in the previous games.

I will give them here with contemporary annotations, from a number of sources.

Just because I can, I will go into a  little detail about some of the sources. I love old tournament books! I have supplemented the notes with a few of my own insights. I hope that you will enjoy them, and find them interesting.

I am fortunate  enough to have what was possibly the first copy of the Hastings 1895 Tournament Book out of the box! Sheer luck! Delivering down on the South coast some 25 years or so ago, I was able to park near a second hand book shop, and went in for a browse. There was a first edition of the Hastings Tournament Book. £15-00. Bargain

 When I got it home, I found that the inside page had stuck to the cover with damp. On a whim, I gently steamed it open to have a look. 

This is what I found. 

Herbert E Dobell was the secretary of the tournament, and the man most responsible for it taking place.

@ddtru mentions the Fleissig - Schlechter game in his article. Here is the Schlechter entry from the 'biographies section of the book.

 O.K. After that brief detour, I had better get to the actual chess!

One curiosity is that Schlechter had White in all but one of the games - and that was from a double round tournament!

Notes to the first game by Pillsbury, from the above book. ( Most of the players contributed notes to the book - but not to their own games.) Also Nunn annotated it in his book 'Complete Chess Course'.

On to Nuremburg 1896 - the book of which I have had my head in recently. The notes are my own - Tarrasch did not spend much time on the game for the Tournament Book.

Nuremburg. !896.

London 1899 was a huge, double round event. The Tournament Book is a bit of a mixture, but I cherish my copy. There is a mass of fascinating background material, but sadly Hoffer - who's notes are of his usual questionable  quality - was in charge of the games! 

The games are arranged by opening, so i had to go through it and hand-write a round by round results table.

The first game has my own notes.

The second game was a theoretical battle, where Schlechter came off second best. Hoffer's notes tell the story.

Their game from Pariis in 1900, is the one that I find the most interesting of this collection. I could easily have written an article on just this one game.

The tournament book was put together by that fascinating character Samuel Rosethal. Notes 'R', are his, 'M' are by Georg Marco, in Wiener Schachzeitung, and 'T', by Teichmann in B.C.M.

 The game from Cambridge Springs in 1904 is, frankly, a complete rout, and one of the worst games that Lasker played in his mature years. It was awarded the first Brilliancy Prize.. Schlechter's play was perfect, it has to be said!

If you visit this page  you will find mention of a tournament bulletin published later by Reinfeld and Schroeder - I am lucky enough to  have a copy of that one - but the notes to the games are extremely skimpy, and so I have done my own.

And on to the last game between the players before their match. At St. Petersburg in 1909, we again get a first round pairing of Schlechter - Lasker! There is  story about this game that I have not been able to verify. It is said that lasker was late for the start of the game, and when he arrived, Schlechter went for a walk util the clock times were equal. 

The Tournament book - from which I have taken lasker's notes - has a picture of the two players. Unlike most of the other photographs in the book, it seems to be a posed picture - there are no clocks, and the position doesn't seem to be from the game, which may bear out that story!?

I am lucky enough to have a high quality Russian version of the book, which is looking a bit battered from use these days!!

It is a beautiful book - in particular, the quality of the illustrations is probably the best of any book from the time that I have seen.

The game.