Two Games From The Tarrasch - Chigorin Match With Tarrasch's Wonderful Annotations.

Afternoon Everyone! 

A couple of hours to fill between the cricket and the football here, so a special little offering today.

Recently a conversation with the inimitable @kamalakanta  turned to Chigorin. ( I have always spelled it Tchigorin, as that was how the man himself wrote it, but using the database standard here to save changing the game files!!)

I said how when I first got a copy of Tarrasch's amazing book 'Three Hundred Chessgames' I spent countless hours going over the games of the match between the two. Every move of every game went on the board. Every word of Tarrasch's incredible notes was examined - using a small, red cover, English - German dictionary. ( no google lens on a mobile phone back then guys - I had to work hard and painstakingly, learning some basic German along the way!!)

It was an amazing match, explained in a legendary book.

Yep, Tarrasch's writing gets a bad press from the ignorant - many of whom probably haven't read his writings for themselves - but Three Hundred Chessgames' is just a magnificent work.

It was also hugely influential and shaped the development of our beautiful game. My regular readers will know of my love for what I have named 'The Barmen Generation'. This was their bible, and it's influence still exists today in all the countless books on chess strategy which teach aspiring players how to think about positions.

So, let's give his introduction to the match.

(As always, apologies for the formatting - I translate these things onto a word document and then cut and paste. My tech skills are poor in the extreme.)

Quietly, in the middle of the summer of 1893, the great Russian chess master Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin - who died on January 25, 1908 at the age of 58 - and I arranged a match.

I received an invitation in the most flattering terms from the St. Petersburg Chess Society to play the match there.

I had no reason to refuse this invitation, especially as
Chigorin stressed that if the match were to be held in St. Petersburg, the game of chess in Russia would be greatly stimulated by it.

The conditions,under which the competition took place were as follows:

Ten won games on one side were to decide, but if both players had won nine games, the match was to be abandoned as a draw.
The time limit was one hour for 15 moves, and a stake of 5000 marks was to be paid by each side.

I left home in good spirits on September 30 and, after spending a few days in Berlin, I arrived safely in St. Petersburg on October 4, where I was received by the Russian chess friends in the most friendly way.

On October 8, the competition started in the very comfortably furnished rooms of the chess society,whose members, by the way, were recruited from the very highest circles of the community.

At first we fought equally, but from the eighth game, it seemed that I was going to win the match. And when, after the 17th game, I had eight wins against five, everyone - and I most most of all - thought that the match had already been decided in my favour.

However, staying up unusually late at night, as is the custom in St. Petersburg, until the match was over - until 3, 4, even 6 o'clock in the morning - had a detrimental effect on my freshness and and ability to think.
The heavy drinking, from which I could not excuse myself for 'representational' reasons, also- naturally – took it's toll.

In a nutshell, my abilities dropped all the time, and so Chigorin managed to win three times in a row, and thus to claw back the enormous lead.

I managed to summon up all the energy I still had left when, in the 21st game, I had to save my honour and my stakes.

I won it, and at least I could not lose the match anymore.
But it was not enough to win; it would also have been an undeserved victory. I lost the last game, and so the match ended in a mutually satisfying and friendly way.

After a short trip to Dorpat and Riga I returned home, enriched by a lot of new experiences, and high satisfied with the reception I had received in Russian Chess circles.
Two fascinating games with Tarrasch's notes. Just imagine - as you go through them, you are doing what the likes of Rubinstein, Vidmar, Bernstein, Alekhine etc, etc were doing over a century ago. Following in the footsteps of the legends!! As always, don't trust old analysis - I have added in a couple of my own margin notes made when I first studied the games, but not checked them.

Enjoy the chess!!

I chose this next one because I just love Chigorin's Queen maneuver over the closing moves, and Tarrasch's notes are honest and tell you a lot about chess psychology - something forgotten in today's world of engine generated 'notes'.

Like all the Bradshaw photographs, just wonderful.

Take care everyone.