London 1851 chess tournament

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Adolf Anderssen
Adolf Anderssen

London 1851 was the first international chess tournament.[1] The tournament was conceived and organised by English player Howard Staunton, and marked the first time that the best chess players in Europe would meet in a single event. German Adolf Anderssen won the sixteen-player tournament, earning him the status of the best player in Europe.[2][3]

Contents

[edit] Preparation

The Committee of Management was under the leadership of the Duke of Marlborough, but Staunton was its Secretary and most of its members were from Staunton's chess club, St George's. Rivalries in British chess at that time led the powerful London Chess Club to boycott the competition, and George Walker used his column in Bell's Life to try to disrupt the tournament preparations.[2] Despite these obstacles, Staunton raised £500 for the prize fund, a considerable sum in 1851.[4] Subscriptions were obtained from chess clubs in England and overseas. From France, collections were made at the Café de la Régence, and from India, John Cochrane sent £20 and the Calcutta Chess Club £100.[2] The tournament was scheduled to coincide with The Great Exhibition in London,[4] and began on 26 May 1851.[3]

[edit] Players

The tournament was organised as single elimination of sixteen of Europe's best players. Invitations had been extended to foreign masters Vincent Grimm, József Szén, and Johann Löwenthal from Hungary; Adolf Anderssen, Bernhard Horwitz, Carl Mayet, and von der Lasa from Germany; Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant and Lionel Kieseritzky from France, and Carl Jaenisch, Alexander Petrov and Ilya Shumov from Russia. The British players were to be Howard Staunton, Henry Thomas Buckle, Marmaduke Wyvill, Elijah Williams, Captain Hugh Alexander Kennedy, Samuel Newham, and Henry Bird.

Grimm was unable to attend as he was exiled in Aleppo after his participation the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Löwenthal had also participated in the failed revolt but fled to America, where he established himself in business. Löwenthal left his affairs behind to travel to London to play. Saint-Amant was unavailable as he had been sent by the French government to California as a diplomat following its independence from Mexico during the California Gold Rush. Von der Lasa and Petrov were also unable to attend. Jaenisch and Shumov could not arrive in time to play. Jaenisch arrived in London late, and played a post-tournament match with Staunton that Staunton won +7−2=1. Buckle also did not make the tournament, and as he was generally considered second only to Staunton among British players, he was the strongest British player missing. British players were substituted to fill the vacant spots: E.S. Kennedy, Edward Löwe, James R. Mucklow, and Alfred Brodie. The dispute with the London Chess Club prevented Daniel Harrwitz from playing, and also weakened the pool of substitutes available, as George Walker, George Perigal, and George Webb Medley could have made for a stronger field if not for the boycott.[3]

[edit] Tournament

The tournament was organised as single elimination matches, with the eight losers in the first round being dropped from the tournament. Each first-round match was a best-of-three games, draws not counting. Subsequent rounds were best-of-seven, and losers played consolation matches. The pairings were made by chance, a significant weakness in the tournament design as an unfortunate pairing could match two favorites in the first round ending the tournament early for one of them. It also made it impossible to determine a true ranking of the players, since half the field was eliminated after the first round of short matches. This did happen in the tournament, as Kieseritsky, Bird, and Löwenthal all lost in the first round. Anderssen beat Staunton soundly, 4–1 in the third-round semi-final. In the fourth-round final Anderssen beat Wyvill to take first place. Wyvill had had a relatively easy draw in the tournament to finish second. Staunton suffered a bitter defeat to Williams in the last round consolation match to finish a disappointing fourth.

[edit] Aftermath

Howard Staunton
Howard Staunton

Despite the obvious flaws in the knockout format of the tournament, the outcome was just as Anderssen was the best player.[2][4] As provided by the rules of the tournament,[3] Staunton immediately challenged Anderssen to a twenty-one-game match for a £100 stake. Anderssen agreed to the match, but could not play right away as he had been away from Germany and his job as a school teacher for over two months. In the end, the match was never played.[2] As a result of winning this tournament Anderssen was popularly recognised as Europe's best player. The idea of a World Chess Champion, however, was not widely accepted until many years later after the 1886 match between Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort.

Staunton wrote the tournament book, which he titled The Chess Tournament (1852). Although an excellent description of the event,[5] it was marred by ill grace with which he received Anderssen's victory.[6] Staunton blamed his poor showing on the strain of his duties in organising the tournament, and also thought that he suffered from a weak heart since an illness in 1844.[2] He condemned the pursuit of chess as a profession, writing

Chess never was, and while society exists, never can be a profession. It may to a great extent strengthen the mind of the professional man, but it must never become the object of his life. It is because its true character has been lost sight of by the zealous or the mercenary, that victory at any cost has become a more important object than the advancement of the science.

At least in part, this was the complaint of an ungracious loser, as most of Staunton's income was derived from his skill at chess.[3]

Staunton was also concerned with the lack of time limits on play. After some experimentation, time controls would become standard in all serious tournaments some years later. The weakness of the knockout format, a kind of hybrid between match and tournament play, was eliminated by adopting the round-robin format beginning with the London 1862 tournament.[2]

The famous Immortal Game, Anderssen–Kieseritsky, London 1851, was played as an offhand game during a break in this tournament. It was not one of the games of their first-round match.

[edit] Scores

[edit] Final

Place, name, country, and number of points for the top finishers:

  1. Adolf Anderssen Flag of Germany Germany 15
  2. Marmaduke Wyvill Flag of the United Kingdom Great Britain 13
  3. Elijah Williams Flag of the United Kingdom Great Britain 13½
  4. Howard Staunton Flag of the United Kingdom Great Britain 11
  5. József Szén Flag of Hungary Hungary 12½
  6. Hugh Alexander Kennedy Flag of the United Kingdom Great Britain 10
  7. Bernhard Horwitz Flag of Germany Germany 5
  8. James R. Mucklow Flag of the United Kingdom Great Britain 2

[edit] Round 1

  • Anderssen (GER) 2½ – Kieseritsky (FRA) ½
  • Staunton (GBR) 2 – Brodie (GBR) 0
  • Wyvill (GBR) 2 – Loewe (GBR) 0
  • Szén (HUN) 2 – Newham (GBR) 0
  • Capt. H.A. Kennedy (GBR) 2 – Mayet (GER) 0
  • Horwitz (GER) 2½ – Bird (GBR) 1½
  • Williams (GBR) 2 – Löwenthal (HUN) 0
  • Mucklow (GBR) 2 – E.S. Kennedy (GBR) 0

[edit] Round 2

  • Anderssen 4 – Szén 2
  • Staunton 4½ – Horwitz 2½
  • Wyvill 4½ – Capt. Kennedy 3½
  • Williams 4 – Mucklow 0

[edit] Round 3

  • Anderssen 4 – Staunton 1
  • Wyvill 4 – Williams 3
  • Szén 4 – Horwitz 0 (Match for 5th - 8th place)
  • Capt. Kennedy 4 – Mucklow 0 (Match for 5th - 8th place)

[edit] Round 4

  • Anderssen 4½ – Wyvill 2½ (Match for 1st and 2nd place)
  • Williams 4½ – Staunton 3½ (Match for 3rd and 4th place)
  • Szén 4½ – Capt. Kennedy ½ (Match for 5th and 6th place)
  • Horwitz won as Mucklow defaulted (Match for 7th and 8th place)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Byrne, Robert. "Chess", The New York Times, January 14, 1997. Accessed January 6, 2007. "Indeed, it was not until the International Tournament of 1851, held at the Crystal Palace of the London Exhibition, that tournament play entered the chess scene."
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Eales, Richard [1985] (2002). Chess, The History of a Game. Harding Simpole, 142–145. ISBN 0-95137-573-3. 
  3. ^ a b c d e Olson, Calvin (2006), The Chess Kings Volume One, Trafford, pp. 33–36, ISBN 141203907-X 
  4. ^ a b c Golombek, Harry, ed. (1977), Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess, Crown Publishing, p. 185, ISBN 0-517-53146-1 
  5. ^ Hooper, David & Whyld, Kenneth (1992), The Oxford Companion to Chess (2 ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280049-3 
  6. ^ Murray, H.J.R. (1913), A History of Chess, Oxford University Press, pp. 887–888, ISBN 0-19-827403-3 

[edit] External links