The London Rules. The End Of A World Championship Dream.

This is an article that I have been meaning to put together for quite a while now. Vidmar's take on the 'London Rules'. I suspect that the material will provoke some interesting views! For that reason I present it with no comments of my own - better to leave you to form your own independent opinions, with no thoughts that you might be influenced by mine, and then we can all debate our views in the comments. Let us begin!

The London Rules. For those of you who are unfamiliar with them, you can find a full discussion of the technical details on Edward Winter's site. 

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/london.html  

One of the signatories was one of my favourite players and authors, the wonderful Milan Vidmar.

He gives his account of events in this fascinating book.

The relevant material is on pages 175-179 of the version I have.

I have never seen it reproduced anywhere, which is a shame, and I will put that right here!

Vidmar must have learned German whilst studying in Vienna in the very early years of the 20th century. His use of language is very much from that period and rather idiomatic into the bargain - as such it is difficult to translate!

Luckily my friend Terje - a.k.a @Terlito   on this site, has been generous enough to do the translation work for me - for which I am very grateful. A big thanks mate.

                                                                Chapter Eight

                                      The End of a World Chess Championship Dream

One afternoon, towards the end of the London Grand Tournament of 1922, World Champion J. R. Capablanca invited some of the tournament leaders, including yours truly, to a glass of wine in one of London's finest hotels, which is one of those leading down from Trafalgar Square to the Embankment, in order, as he put it, to discuss and finally settle a very important matter.

Accompanying Capablanca was one of the leading editors of the London Times, the well-known newspaper, to which the World Champion delivered a detailed and, it must be admitted, substantial report on the major chess matches that had ended each day. Representatives of the powerful newspaper of the "Ministers of Finance" of the conference to be held.

The World Champion treated us to an excellent champagne. All my life I have had little relationship to alcoholic beverages, but I still knew how to distinguish a fine drop from an ordinary wine. Therefore, as soon as we sat down to discuss it, I knew that there was undoubtedly a very important problem in the chess world to be dealt with.

The fact that Capablanca carried around in his heart the burning desire to be able to stay on his chess throne for a long time could not be blamed on him. It was also understandable that he wanted to know how he would have to defend his chess crown. However: His ancestors in the chess realm, Steinitz, and Lasker, were always ready to face the challenger. As far as I know, they never tried to throttle the approach of the supposed world championship candidates as much as possible with obstacles that were too difficult to overcome. That Capablanca was striving to put a stop to it in this direction was clear to us, his opponents who might want to get up, after enjoying the first wonderful drops of champagne.

However, all participants of the memorable World Championship Conference thought of the fact that at last the chess world   

(end of page 175)

had to be told what they owed their respective champions. The times of miserable struggles for daily bread, we thought, should finally disappear forever from the great chess masters and therefore from the greatest of them, the world champion, in the dark past of world chess history. And that is why Capablanca found no resistance in the group of the then leading great masters, well chosen by him, when he put his proposals for the regulation of the future competitions for the world championship on the table.

I clearly remember the most important provisions of the "London Statutes for World Championship Fights," which were later discussed so often: The challenger of the world champion had to raise 10,000 (ten thousand) dollars, but in addition he had to take care of the travel and accommodation expenses of the two players. A further provision of the statute provided that the victor should receive 6000 (six thousand) dollars and the loser 4000 (four thousand) dollars. There were several further clauses for the protection of the respective world champion in the "London statute". We may have been a little hasty in approving them. I do not remember them anymore, although I was one of the "signatories" of this great world chess treaty.

We who attended the conference gave our signatures without reluctance, and J.R. Capablanca was evidently very pleased with us. We drank our glasses to his health. At that moment, chess history began a new chapter.

Oddly enough, when I signed the "London Statutes", I did not realize that my youthful plan had failed, that my dream of becoming a world champion was finally over. It should have been clear to me immediately that I had not the slightest chance of raising ten thousand dollars for my challenge, unless I had immediately liquidated my activity in the electrical engineering world and gone out into the wide world in search of a generous patron.

A. A. Alekhine undertook what was impossible for me. But he, alas, found what he was looking for in distant South America, in Buenos Aires. In addition, he still had to overcome a few difficulties anchored in the "London Statute", which Capablanca knew how to exploit quite skilfully before he challenged his opponent to play.

Capablanca was not at all willing to immediately face the first challenger that came along. He acted as if there was still a big problem as to whom was the most qualified heir to the throne. He said that once the financial preparatory work had been completed, the competition for the World Championship was by no means secured or clearly defined. Poor Alekhine had great difficulties with the throne holder leaving him in a strange mist. In the end, he had no choice but to submit to Capablanca's insistence that a Candidates Tournament first determine the most obvious challenger. That this Candidates Tournament

    (end of page 176)

finally took place in New York in 1927 is well known. Equally well known is the fact that although Capablanca won the Candidates Tournament, the second prize-winner, Alekhine, finally had to concede the right to challenge. So, in the fall of 1927 came the change of throne. I could not have taken on Alekhine's efforts to compete in the world championship for the reasons already given. I have always pursued my life plans with an indomitable will, but never with the ardour that finally burned out Alekhine. This is not to say that Alekhine was not full of energy, but it is to indicate that my great love was not chess, but my electrical engineering problems.

I have already mentioned that the London Times expressed the opinion after the end of the major tournament in 1922 that chess had lost the world champion in me to electrical engineering I was firmly convinced that the World Chess Championship was within my reach. In 1927, during the Candidates Tournament, the tournament director Maróczy surprised me by saying to some of the tournament participants that I could “undoubtedly” become world champion if only I were ready sacrificing electronics to chess I must, however, have some serious misgivings about all these assessments of my chess abilities.

It seems right and important to me to only bring up the purely chess concerns at this point. They should not be covered up by false modesty, because it must have been true that I only needed thorough preparation for the decisive advance against the world chess throne. Were? When? This last question goes to the heart of the problem raised here.

(There follows a discussion of how various World Championship matches had been conducted, as well as other, related, matters before adding the following, on page 178. Simaginfan.)

If, after all this, I critically examine the above-mentioned temptations of the world chess throne, which my well-meaning friends worried my heart, which is still listening to the youth plan, today, after decades, I have to realize that at the end of the Major London Tournament in 1922, that is just at the moment when I signed the "London Statute" described above, the hour of fate struck. At that time, I was 37 years old, close to my chess peak. I was already satisfied with my career that I could no longer leave it. The chess world lost next to nothing when a possible heir to the throne turned his back on it. On the other hand, I have never regretted not having pursued the highest honours attainable in the chess world.

O.K. On to what you would expect of me - some wonderful chess and images! The whole chapter is 50 pages long with Vidmar discussing, in his own inimitable way ( I just adore his writing!!) his chess experiences between London 1922 and Bled 1931. 

Some great reminiscences, chats about various player, and some wonderful games complete with Vidmar's magnificent annotations. I have mentioned elsewhere that his game notes are classics of chess literature. Not exactly languageless informator style notes or modern engine analysis based 'knowledge'. Fantastic stuff.

I give two here, with my own - non-literal - translations. With Vidmar's notes - despite the difficulties of unravelling the language - you have to try to capture the spirit of his comments rather than treat them as an academic exercise in translation for an exam paper! 

You could do a whole article on the games between the wonderful Fred Yates https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/fred-dewhirst-yates-some-games-and-pictures   

and Milan Vidmar. fantastic chess battles!

Having brought Alekhine into this, I will give this game, with the appropriate picture.

As I say, feel free to give your own thoughts on the material presented here - our thoughts are just as worthy of discussion as those of anyone else. Take care everyone.