Winner's POV: Graz 1880
In Winner's POV, we take a look at tournaments from the 19th century and see the games that allowed the top player to prevail. Some tournaments will be known and famous, others will be more obscure - in a time period where competition is scarce, I believe there is some value in digging for hidden gems in the form of smaller, less known events.
Graz 1880: The Tournament of Great Utility
I've decided to drop the numbered chapter system for this series, partly because it's very long, partly because a few tournaments will be taking up multiple chapters. Thankfully, this tournament is not one of them.
The Graz tournament isn't super important in itself, as it's mainly comprised of mid-high level German and Austrian players (but missing the heaviest hitters of Louis Paulsen, Berthold Englisch and their ilk). I'm discussing it today for three main reasons: it's short (the next few installments will unfortunately be rather massive), it allows me to fulfil a desire I mentioned at the close of the previous chapter, and it gives me something to do while I wait for a relevant book to arrive in the mail.
These were a busy couple of months in the European chess world. Wiesbaden's congress took place in early July, and the city of Braunschweig hosted the 13th West German Chess Congress later that same month. This congress featured many of the same players as in Wiesbaden, and produced the final scores (picture taken from Johannes Zukertort's Chess Monthly):
Why they've sorted it alphabetically remains a mystery to me, but for those who don't wish to decipher, Louis Paulsen won the event with an incredible 9/10, followed by Fritz Riemann with 7.5, and three players tying for third on 7. I likely would've included this tournament, but with three players ultimately dropping out partway through, it didn't feel like the logistics were all that great.
In any case, after a busy July, the Graz players were given the next month off before this tournament in September. Were any of them feeling burnt out after a relatively busy competition schedule, or were they excited to jump back into the arena? We'll answer that question shortly.
Format and Prizes
Eight players participated in this single round robin, as straightforward a system as it gets. The time control was 15 moves per hour, which is a little surprising as 20 seemed to be the standard for quite some time. It's not the end of the world either way.
The winner of this event would receive a silver cup from Archduke Carl Ludwig (who was the father of eventual Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which is hopefully a familiar name) valued at 200 florins. Cash prizes for the top three also amounted to 100, 100 and 50 florins respectively, following a donation by Albert von Rothschild.
Players
Edo says the top of the field is Adolf Schwarz (11th), Alexander Wittek (15th), Max Weiss (16th), and Johann Berger (17th). Not a bad field, really.
The Winner: Adolf Schwarz
The previous post was focusing on three men, with two of them being the subjects of other chapters. This post is partially dedicated to Schwarz joining that list, equalizing things a little bit. Without further delay, let's look at the Graz 1880 tournament from the Winner's POV.
Round 1: vs. Jacques Schwarz
This tournament starts out with our subject playing against his own nephew, interestingly enough. Jacques's playing history is rather spotty, with tournaments in 1872 and 1875 being what I could find (the latter of which saw both Schwarz members participate), but nothing more up to this point. I think the family drama is enough for this one game.
This game was one of those perfectly symmetric Queen's Gambit Declined games that we've covered a few times, with the symmetry only being broken at move 13. Jacques handled this unbalancing better, setting up a battery pointing at Adolf's h-pawn while creating threats along the open (but cluttered) c-file. Adolf parted ways with the pawn, and although the resulting trades didn't put him in a losing position, he was definitely the one fighting for the draw.
After Adolf declined a potential repetition, he soon veered wrongly in a Queen and Bishop endgame. He allowed his a-pawn to be captured in exchange for winning Jacques's e-pawn, which gave his nephew a passed pawn in exchange for nothing. This pawn rushed up the board, and uncle Adolf resigned his first game. Apparently, he was so mad after this game that he refused to ever play his nephew again (and a quick look at future tournaments confirms this to be upheld).
Rounds 2 and 3
I've decided to lump these two rounds together because the games played are eerily similar and very uninteresting. Zukertort notes that his correspondents say "the play throughout was marked by extreme caution, and therefore led to many drawn games." I think these two games strongly showcase this point.
Round 4: vs. Johannes Minckwitz
Minckwitz was on +1 after the first three rounds, picking up a win against Wittek. He's certainly had a fine start to the event, but we've seen what happens every other time he's been shown in this series...
The players elected to play a Taimanov Sicilian, with Schwarz taking inspiration from Wilhelm Steinitz with 6. g3. Everything was balanced until Minckwitz's 11... f5, trying to channel his inner Adolf Anderssen. Had the German followed through with a dubious (but interesting) pawn sacrifice, he may have had a case to make; when he incorrectly evaluated the position following his 15th move tactic, Schwarz took over the game.
This game was just a complete stomp, honestly. Schwarz's pieces harmonized beautifully to take advantage of Minckwitz's shoddy development, and after the poisoned pawn on b2 was taken, Schwarz sealed the deal with a pretty Rook "sacrifice." All in all, this was a perfect game to fuel the comeback as he was now back to an even score.
Round 5: vs. Josef Noa
Noa was a judge by day, though quite a strong player given his amateur status. While this would be his first event, he'll be showing up many more times in the decade, so we'll look at his accomplishments as they come.
This French was a line that Schwarz was especially comfortable in, as the two games I mention in the notes should demonstrate. As this was Noa's first tournament, it makes some sense that Schwarz was able to outplay him, and in a particularly smooth manner. This game was very lopsided, so I'll let you look at it yourself without much comment from me here.
Round 6: vs. Alexander Wittek
Wittek's only recorded games prior to this were in a match against Berger that went terribly for him (Berger won 14-4). His career was incredibly short overall, and I believe we'll be seeing him in the next two chapters and then never again. It seems like his chess playing interrupted his career as an architect, which was doubtlessly a more profitable endeavor at the time.
Schwarz shelved the QGD this game, instead opting for 2. b3? While neither player played the opening with exact precision, things were rather balanced once both players castled. Schwarz had the better chances if he had noticed a few tactics, but the caution was present in this game as well, and he instead opted for a slow plan of preparing e3-e4. Unfortunately for him, immediately after pushing it, he dropped a pawn.
In this game, Schwarz was much better at creating complications than against his nephew. His Queen and Rook infiltrated on the light squares, and aside from one mistake on move 35, it could be argued that he actually had the better game. Wittek, rather than trying to play on, found a strong way to sneak his own Queen into the White camp, and forced a draw by perpetual check. A very strong debut game from the architect, all things considered.
Round 7: vs. Emil Schallopp
This was not Schallopp's event at all, as he was at the bottom of the standings at this point. With nothing to play for except being a spoiler, what could he offer in this final round?
The players repeated their game from Wiesbaden, which makes sense for Schallopp as that game was ultimately drawn. Things got weird shortly after the deviation as Schallopp pushed g2 g4 and then later f2-f4, the latter ultimately being tactically incorrect. Schwarz won a pawn while getting his Rook to e2, cementing his advantage and giving him a very good chance of winning.
This was the one game Zukertort included in his magazine of Schwarz, and he was very critical of the man's technique. I don't necessarily blame him, as there were quite a few moves where Schwarz was just giving Queen checks that didn't lead to anything. It could be chalked up to Schwarz just burning time until he was past the time control, however, as he soon deviated for the better. The game was ultimately decided when Schallopp walked into a pin, losing him his Knight and the game.
Conclusion?
Despite the rough start, Schwarz winning three of his last four games was enough to secure him equal first with Minckwitz and Weiss. Thus, we have a three-way tiebreaker, which is settled by a mini round robin tournament like it is today (though played at the same time control, rather than rapid/blitz).
The first round was all short draws, and I'll let you go over them without comment since I don't think there's much worth talking about.
Thus, we go into the second set of tiebreaks. Schwarz's second game with Minckwitz was very spicy but ultimately drawn, and Minckwitz scored his third draw against Weiss as well. That left only Weiss - Schwarz to be played (indeed White - Black, amusingly), and while it was decisive, it was likely marred by fatigue due to this being Weiss's first event. He'll come up again in later events, so he'll get his time in the spotlight, but this event belonged to Schwarz.
Thus, the Graz 1880 tournament concludes, with Schwarz finishing atop the standings once more. It's interesting that both of his "wins" came with a three-way tie after the regular games were finished; it's nothing more than a coincidence, but it's a neat one nonetheless. We'll see Schwarz again in two chapters (his nephew competes in the next, so we won't see the good uncle), so I hope to see you there to look at his games.
