Milan Vidmar. Some of the Greatest Game Annotations That You Will Ever See.
Back with some more stuff - and if you don't enjoy this, I will give up and start writing cricket history instead!! 
In my last posting I quoted a little of Milan Vidmar on Tarrasch, and realised that I had never got round to translating the full version of the material. So I took the excuse to dig out one of the great chess books :-
https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/my-10-favorite-chess-books
and go do some work. Vidmar was just a joy to read - albeit one who is difficult, for someone of my limited education, to translate. SO, the notes here are my own translation. Very much non - literal. They are an attempt to capture the spirit of the original, not an attempt to pass an exam. I have also left out some of the material, due to the time factors on the one hand, and my inability to translate some things, in a way that I am satisfied with, on the other ( better to leave it out than to detract from what is there with something ugly - just my feelings)
Likewise with some other games that I have added from here :-
https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/milan-vidmar-some-games-and-writings - an article that most of you won't have seen.
As I say, Vidmar was a superb writer, but one rather tricky to translate. As with Three hundred Chess Games, Blockade, and My System, amongst others, if you have any knowledge of the language it is better to read the Germanic originals. ( In fact, I learned more German studying Three Hundred Games than I did in the little time I spent at school.)
O.K. Let's spend an hour with the wonderful Milan Vidmar.
First up, the Tarrasch game. There is some background in the book that I haven't added in to the notes.
At thie time of the game Vidmar was not recognised as a 'Master' in the terms of the time, despite two near misses at gaining the title ( for the story of one, there is another of my old posts you might like to take a look at, here :- https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/barmen-1905-the-battle-for-the-master-title ) and so was not eligible to take part in the tournament. desperate to play, he wrote a letter to Tarrasch - the tournament was in Tarrasch's home town of Nuremberg - and the great man got him admitted to the event.
According to this web posting https://chesspro.ru/_events/2011/mihalchihin3_enc.html That was something that Vidmar felt Tarrasch later regretted. The whole story tells you something about Tarrasch the man.
Personally I am more interested in his chess and his legacy, but that is just me. After all, as with Lasker, Kasparov and many, many others, his/her personality was a part of their chess, and to understand the chess, sometimes you have to understand the player!
Enough of my waffling - enjoy the chess, the stories and the magic of Vidmar's writings.
Neumann
was one of the players who had blocked Vidmars progress to the Master title - at Coburg in 1904. Vidmar had won a game from him the year before. Again the notes here are not everything in the book!
All of the games between Vidmar and the great Rubinstein are worth studying. You get a sense of how Rubinstein was viewed by even the stongest of his contemporaries form the following notes.
Another game from the same year which I had spent hours with before I got my hands on Goldene Schachzeiten. It has some surprising an unusual moments!
Time to throw in a picture! Sadly I have mislaid the original source.
I could happily write a whole article just on the games between the two. Fantastic chess, full of twists, turns and surprises. The following game was an important one for both players. Not perfectly played on either side, but wonderful! And as for Vidmar's notes, well, what can you say without running out of superlatives?
A cartoon - there are some nice ones of Vidmar about - from London 1922, playing Maroczy.
A nice little story, from a game at that tournament, to finish up with.
