Nothing New In Chess. A Chain Of Thought.
O.K. Got a day off today. So my head has done one of it's Dylanesque chains of thought from my last offering, and I have thrown this together.
Last time round I mentioned a book project that i have been involved in. The author of that project also has another one in the pipeline that I am really excited about.
Over the past couple of years or so, chess in Victorian England has been really well researched by fine authors. Two names that I am interested in have, so far, gone without books on them, but that will soon change.
The players? John Wisker
and the wonderful William Norwood Potter, seen here next to Bernhard Horwitz - chosen because Potter's game notes to follow mention Horwitz!! ( and you guys think I just throw together whatever is in my head!!!)
A couple of links to old blogs of mine.
https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/john-wisker-a-player-that-time-forgot
https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/zukertort-potter-the-miracle-save
But back to the title. A quote of Alekhine in the tournament book of New York 1924.
''If this is not a new move ( in these days one can hardly make such a claim, for, sooner or later, some person will come forward and prove black on white that he used this move decades ago in some class c tournament or perchance in a coffee house game and hence demands parental recognition ) it has nevertheless been well forgotten''.
Last time round I gave a Tarrasch - Lasker game where Black adopted a defensive set-up in the then comparatively new Tchigorin Defence to the Ruy Lopez. Neither player - nor Tchigorin for that matter, would have known about an obscure predecessor to both the defence, and the defensive set-up in question - that set-up later featured in the games of Rubinstein. Here is the precedent game, and a very fine game on Wisker's part it is too. Well worth studying.
His opponent was this man -
Line of thought into Rubinstein, and a defence named after him in the Four Knight's Game. Actually, he came up with it as a modification of an idea of Marshall's. However, it wasn't new when Rubinstein played it!
Another forgotten game, played between two fine English players.
C.E. Ranken - a significant figure in English chess for many years - Fischer owned one of his books by the way. A few bits here :-
http://britishchessnews.com/2020/04/12/remembering-rev-charles-edward-ranken-05-i-1828-12-iv-1905/
and a rather more obscure one, Frederick Ward, who was a fine player in his own right. One needing more research!!
And Potter fits in here for what he did so well - he is absolutely one of my favourite game annotators ever. The notes here are from his column in Land and Water. May 1881.
The Rev Ranken at Hereford 1885. In the key you should transpose Mason and Thorold!
