Vienna 1896. A Lost Tournament.

Afternoon everyone.

Sometimes digging around the side roads of chess history can be frustrating - even in the modern world where there is so much primary source material to be found online.

A case in point for me this week!

With my head back in this wonderful book - https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/a-new-book-on-winawer-a-quick-look  I came across the following - an event that I knew very little about.

Well, I knew the two brilliancy prize games - I have published the Mieses one elsewhere, and the Janowski - Marco game is in Voronkov's wonderful book on Janowski. Other than that, I knew nothing!

So, off to do some digging. What did I find? Basically nothing new at all, and no more games! The searchable archives of the Vienna newspapers give no more, no pictures and no more games. The magazines - sadly there was no Wiener Schachzeitung at the time, give nothing other than a brief report and table in Berlliner Schachzeitung. 

There was a lot of chess to be covered in 1896. St. Petersburg, Nuremburg, Budapest - from which the header picture is taken, and then at the end of the year, when the Vienna events took place, the start of the Lasker - Steinitz return match So, no room left in the columns for this very interesting looking tournament. An event lost forever. A shame.

So let's have a quick look at some chess. The Pillsbury - Englisch match was surprisingly hard fought. Pillsbury would have been the hot favourite. All the games were drawn, although Pillsbury missed a chance - I will give the game without notes, so that you can tell us all what happened!

Despite all the games being drawn it was a hard fought match with both players fighting hard to win. The semi-retired Englisch - from memory this picture emanates from Hoffer's Chess Monthly but I haven't checked.

more than held his own, as you can see from these games.

The Winawer - Janowski match was more one-sided - although the veteran had his moments against the youngster, the result was never in doubt.

Janowski looking dapper as always the next year - Berlin 1897 from Deutsche Schachzeitung.

So, to the two surviving games from this lost tournament for you to enjoy. Firstly, as mentioned in Berliner Schachzeitung.

And an elegant minor work of art from Janowski. So much simple pleasure to be had from going over his games. A little picture find that I made recently - a small montage from the       A .C.B. of 1904.

Todays little chess history lover's quiz. Budapest 1896. Can you name the players? I had to look at the cross-table to guess one. ( I have the key so can verify my thoughts!!)

No prizes - as if! - but a bit of fun.

I hope you enjoyed my quick look at the chess i have been going over this week. Back soon - take care guys!