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LXHILBUF19011894

Buffalo 1901 and 1894 Chess Tournaments

97 pages, cloth-binding/ embossed in gold, Caissa Editions

€29.95
Incl. Tax, excl. Shipping Cost
Discontinued
More Information
EAN 0939433230
Weight 350 g
Manufacturer Caissa Editions
Width 15.8 cm
Height 23.5 cm
Medium Book
Author John S. Hilbert
Language English
ISBN-10 0939433230
Pages 97
Binding cloth-binding/ embossed in gold
Publisher`s Foreword
Introduction

01 Buffalo 1901 Chess Congress Background
06 Round One
12 Round Two
15 Round Three
18 Round Four
21 Round Five
23 Round Six
26 Round Seven
29 Round Eight
32 Round Nine
35 Round Ten
38 Pillsbury`s Sixteen Game Blindford Exhibition
41 The Minor Tournaments
48 Appendix A Buffalo 1901 Crosstable
49 Appendix B Buffallo 1901 Round-by-Round Results
51 Appendix C Pillsbury-Marshall: All Known, Serious Games
57 Appendix D Buffalo 1894 Chess Congress Background
62 Round One
63 Round Two
65 Round Three
66 Round Four
67 Round Five
68 Round Six
71 Buffalo 1894 Crosstables
77 Appendix E The Chess Player`s Mind, H.N. Pillsbury
81 Endnotes
94 Player Index
95 Opening Index


Publisher`s Foreword

The two tournaments Buffalo 1894 and 1901 hitherto have remained obscure even though the brightest American chess star of that day, Harry Pillsbury, was a contestant in both. In addition, Pillsbury`s chief rival in those days, Frank Marshall, was a contestant at Buffalo 1901, though in such poor form that he finished only fifth out of six players. In fact, Marshall only escaped the ignominy of finishing last by winning both games over a talented amateur, Karpinski, who later went on to a very successful career in mathematics. Marshall`s score at Buffalo 1901 and that of Pillsbury have almost uniformly been reported erroneously, as the author`s meticulous research shows.

The ohter contestants at Buffalo 1901, Delmar, Napier, and Howell, all played an important role in the chess history of that time in the United States. Delmar was by then an old lion at the end of his career, while Napier aund Howell were very strong young players whose presence on the world chess stage was never very prominent because they chose other primary careers in preference to chess.

Allthough neither of these tournaments are among the strongest held in the United States, each has a special significance in being a training groundfor most of the best American players of that day. Buffalo 1894 was an important training event for Pillsbury, who only a year later won one of the greatest tournaments of all time in dramatic fashion over the world`s very best including World Champion Lasker. It is always interesting to see how young players of enormous talent can apparently increase their capabilities by several hundred Elo points in such a short time.

The author, John Hilbert, has done a superb job in resurrection both these tournaments from all known sources. Only one Buffalo 1901 game remains unfound, as does one game of double-round top section to the Buffalo 1894 tournament. In addition to his exhaustive research on the tournaments, he provides biographical and background material of great interest, especially to American chess aficionados.

To date no one has come close to writing a definitive history of chess in the United States before 1900. If an adequate work of that sort were to be done, Hilbert has pointed the way by his thorough coverage of source material in the newspapers and magazines of that era. Newspaper research is very tedious and time consuming, yet most of the details are in those sources along with the erratically appearing chess periodicals, which seldom gave accurate dates for chess events and relatively few scores. The tournament books for U.S. events were few and far between and often had omissions and errors along with generally low-quality notes to the games.

The notes in this book are almost uniformly those from contemporary sources except for corrections of obvious mistakes. This has the disadvantage of not providing notes equivalent to those of an Alekhine or John Nunn, but of at least giving a glimpse of the character of chess annotation of that day in newspaper sources. In addition the author has provided some notes to Pillsbury`s games from Sergeant`s book and some other more current sources.

How nice it would be if other American chess contests before 1900 were available in the same well-researched detail as these two tourneys.

Dale Brandreth
Yorklyn, Delaware, 1996
Dieser vom Volumen eher schmale Band verbirgt zwischen roten Leinendeckeln (mit Goldprägung) ein exzellent aufgemachtes Turnierbuch, das eine Lücke in der amerikanischen Schachgeschichte schließt, aber auch für den europäischen Leser durchaus faszinierend ist. Nicht nur die Teilnahme Pillsburys an beiden Turnieren, der 1901 den ersten und 1894 den zweiten Platz hinter Showalter erringen konnte, wobei das zweitgenannte Turnier sicher als Aufwärmübung für seinen nachfolgenden größten Triumph in Hastings 1895 zu sehen ist, macht dieses Buch zu einem schachhistorischen Leckerbissen. Der Autor hat keine Mühe gescheut, um aus zeitgenössischem Quellenmaterial alles zu extrahieren, was für diese Ereignisse bedeutsam war, u. a. mit dem imponierenden Ergebnis, dass lediglich nur je eine Partie aus dem Meister-Turnier 1901 und dem Pokal-Turnier 1894 nicht aufgespürt werden konnte. Die einführenden Kapitel enthalten jeweils umfangreiches biografisches Material zu den Turnierteilnehmern, dessen Ausmaß besonders bei den unbekannteren Spielern verblüfft, und jeder Rundenbericht wird mit einem Überblick über die Partien eingeleitet. Die Partiekommentare wurden ausschließlich aus alten Quellen übernommen (offensichtliche Fehler hierbei eliminiert), entsprechen also nicht dem gewohnt hohen Standard der heutigen Zeit, und es bleibt auch die eine oder andere Partie unkommentiert, dafür werden Lokalkolorit und Zeitgeist eingefangen. Der Kongress Buffalo 1894 (Pokal-Wettbewerb von vier Spielern und drei offene Turniere zu je acht) wird im Anhang abgehandelt; weitere Anhänge bieten wertvolles Material für den Leser und Schach-Historiker, so eine Zusammenstellung der elf bekannten ernsten Partien zwischen Pillsbury und Marshall und ein Artikel Pillsburys aus dem Jahr 1900, in dem er über das Blindspiel und Blindsimultanvorstellungen referiert. Eine Reihe historischer Fotos (und einzelner Zeichnungen) der Spieler sowie diverser Lokalitäten runden das Buch ab, das auch in Druck und Layout dem bekannt hohen Niveau des Verlages entspricht. Trotz des stolzen Preises kann ich dieses hervorragende Werk nur empfehlen.
(R.J. Binnewirtz), Kaissiber (Ausgabe19) 2003
Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Zeitschrift Kaissiber