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Article Number
LXMARKAR1907CE

Karlsbad 1907

451 pages, cloth-binding/ embossed in gold, Caissa Editions, 1. edition 2007, original edition 1907

€54.25
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Discontinued
Publisher's Foreword
In this year, the hundredth anniversary of the magnificent chess tournament held at Karlsbad in the late summer of 1907, it is a pleasure to bring to chess aficionados an English translation of the well-known book by George Marco and Carl Schlechter. Not only was the tournament itself distinguished by a very strong entry, lacking only the presence of Lasker and Tarrasch, but the games themselves were of a high order, perhaps due to the inclusion of the strong younger players Rubinstein, Nimzowitsch, Vidmar, Duras, Spielmann, Tartakover, Dus-Chotimirsky, Johner, and Erich Cohn, as well as the established players Schlechter, Marshall, Teichmann, Maroczy, Leonhardt, Mieses, Salwe, Marco, Chigorin (his last tournament), Berger, Wolf, and Olland.
The German tournament book for this event, graced by the perceptive and often philosophical notes of Marco and Schlechter, was reprinted by Caissa Editions in 1979 and by Olms a few years later. Among the cognoscenti of chess tournament literature, both the book and the tournament itself have long been recognized as superlative. George Marco is famous for his witty, humorous style and for the depth and ingenuity of his annotations, while Carl Schlechter is renowned for his great strength as a player and for his hard work as a meticulous commentator. Marco had a style of annotation all his own, one that has to be sampled to get the unique flavor of his discourse. In addition to his revered analytical abilities, he was himself a tournament player of note who had first-hand knowledge of all the great masters of his day from his frequent interactions with them.
We are fortunate to have the thoughtful translation by Robert Sherwood, a player of master strength, who has used the new program Rybka to check much of the analysis, adding additional comments and corrections where needed along with many extra diagrams. These additions in extenso constitute a significant strengthening of the analysis from a technical viewpoint and must add to an appreciation of the games themselves.
For the great number of tournament book connoisseurs I hope this will be a feast of chessic pleasure and enlightenment, and a nostalgic trip back to the good old days of grand chess tournaments held in wonderful, stately hotels with German Gemütlichkeit, good beer, and Strauss waltzes in the ballrooms during the evening.
Dale Brandreth
Yorklyn, 2007

Translator's Preface
The present volume is a translation of Das Internationale Schachmeisterturnier in Karlsbad 1907, by Georg Marco and Carl Schlechter. Every care has been taken to make it a faithful rendering of the German original.
The authors have created a masterpiece of chess literature. The book not only presents the games with unusually detailed notes, it also portrays the mood and feeling of the tournament -the atmosphere, the personalities, and the myriad of creative talents and human foibles at work in each game. Marco's round introductions make us feel that we are there, evoking in us just the right frame of mind to fully appreciate the games that follow.
I have striven to preserve the style and nuance of Marco's highly individual manner of expression. He has a feeling for the grandeur and magnificence inherent in chess - stemming from a deep love of the game - that leaves behind the merely intellectual and competitive attitudes that are so often found in the world of chess. The reader can be assured that the grand and sometimes elaborate expressions found here are Marco's own; in rendering the passages I have often had occasion to smile at the irrepressible exuberance of the man. Schlechter's notes, as we would expect, are more spare and straightforward, focusing succinctly on the main points.
Marco annotated games 1 through 151 and game 206; Schlechter provided notes to games 152 through 205 and to games 207 through 210.
I have added a number of my own comments, enclosed in brackets and signed "RHS." I have included these in the spirit of wanting to look deeper into the seemingly inexhaustible depths of chess. The notes are the sum of my own level of skill (about 2400 Elo) plus a number of corrections and further explorations from the Rybka analysis engine.
I'd like to thank publisher and friend Dale Brandreth for taking on a new, unknown chess translator for such a major project. This is the first of several efforts that we will do together. Also a hearty thanks to Vasik Rajlich for his superb work on Rybka, a tool not just for competition but also for a true exploration of chess. And a warm hug for Annamarie, who was a lot more patient with this monster of a task than she should have been.
Robert Sherwood
Dummerston, VT
April 2007

Introduction
In the year 1840 our continent, in terms of chess, was a wasteland. At that time there certainly were important chess masters and self-sacrificing chess devotees, but their intentions and yearnings had no chance of being realized. The intellectual seeds that were to be sown remained in a latent state; it was reserved for a later time to bring them to flower and ripeness.
The muzzling of the various chess clubs and of the press made the exchange of ideas for the most part impossible. The exorbitant postage fees at that time made the sending of letters a privilege of the rich. The book tradetoday a world-transforming powerwas still in diapers. The publication of books was therefore a very risky venture for the publisher and a hardly sensible enterprise for the author. Consequently, new ideas could find only a limited distribution.
The result was the complete stagnation of intellectual life in all fields. The launching of a chess column in the Leipzig Illustrirten Zeitung (1846), and, in a few years, the founding of the Deutsche Schachzeitung, signified the beginning of a new era in the art of chess. It was an occasion to rejoice (a fact that probably can no longer be appreciated by today's generation) when the Austrian censor board graciously permitted their beloved "subjects," who up to that time had been limited to the meager diet of the official Wiener Zeitung, the additional reading matter in the Leipzig Illustrirten. This paper and the Deutsche Schachzeitung were the centers around which the scattered atoms of the chess world became crystallized. A fresh stimulus was provided by the international tournament at London (1851), the first event of its kind, in which a German, Anderssen, won the first prize and with it world fame.
Since then, Europe has become a dense network of chess locales, and hundreds of chess columns in the best-read journals report weeklyand, on important occasions, dailyon the various occurrences in the chess world. Evidently, chess, like theater and music, was now a cultural necessity in many circles. Private and municipal corporations now came to the aid of those patrons who promoted chess. The Bank of Monte Carlo organized four international tournaments under the protectorate of Prince Albert of Monaco. The Kurhaus administration at Ostende arranged several splendidly endowed grandmasters' and masters' tournaments. The hotel corporation Rider, with the assistance of the Erie Railway Company, staged an international tournament at Cambridge Springs (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.), in which the most important American and European players took part. The municipalities of Munich and Düsseldorf, through a substantial grant of seven thousand marks, made possible an inspiring world championship match conducted by the Deutsche Schachbund.
It will always be to the glory of the city of Karlsbad that, even earlier, her city fathers showed a proper appreciation of chess. In August 1901, Karlsbad hosted the Albin-Marco match; in 1902, she sponsored the match between Janowsky and Schlechter. Both spectacles took place thanks to the initiative of the Karlsbad Chess Club and the munificence of the Karlsbad city council.
The Karlsbaders had even loftier intentions: an international tournament. City councilman Victor Tietz, the world-renowned president of the Karlsbad Chess Society, was the spiritus rector and genius loci of this undertaking, as he was of the earlier efforts.
The proposals issued by this distinguished friend of chess met with agreement on all sides: from the Karlsbad chess club, the Karlsbad city council, and the city's most distinguished mayor, Dr. Josef Pfeifer. The preparations were quickly settled, the invitations to the experts on chess art took flight in all directions, and twenty-one masters pursued their honorable profession. The elite of the international master circle were present at Karlsbad, and for a month's time the public's interest was concentrated on the tournament in this smallest of world cities. After passing the prescribed "Becher," the devotees of chess made their pilgrimage into the high, airy colonnade of the Kurhaus, where, daily, they were offered rich intellectual stimulation. Although they did not find a feast for the ears as in a concert hall, or the sensual delights found in the theater, they took the greatest interest in everything that occurred in the course of the struggle. This is proof that mankind is becoming more serious, and that with the progressive development of the intellect we are able to be enthusiastic also about the wholly abstract. Today, chess is not merely a game that offers us a pleasant diversion; it is an art upon which genius has imprinted its stamp. It is a science that grants a progressive thinker insight into a microcosm that is the innate creation of his spirit. This three-fold root of our most noble spiritual recreation has in barely sixty years conquered a world.
For visitors to the spa, however, chess has yet another prominent significance. Used in moderation it is a healing factor of the greatest hygienic value. It helps us through the gloomy periods that so often beset the infirm; it diverts us from the moody self-reflections for which the capriciousness of human nature gives abundant reasons. The delight in combinations exhilarates the soul, and the ability to look into the future heightens one's mental powers and brings an intellectual pleasure that hardly any other mental recreation can offer. Chess, then, is a dispeller of cares and worries. It preserves, strengthens, and exhilarates, thereby working in a direct way to prolong our lives. The lively activity of the central nervous system prevents the stagnancy of blood circulation that is characteristic of those who resign themselves to intellectual inactivity.
The Karlsbad tournament offered the chess world in both hemispheres an abundance of excitement; chess journalism was given excellent material for a lengthy period. And when the tournament came to its conclusion many may have thought, "A few more weeks of this really would not be bad."
First class in its cast of players and its achievements, in its enjoyments for those who sojourned at the site, and in the excellence of the tournament direction, of which councilman Mr. Tietz assumed the burden, the tournawas a source of pleasure and instruction for the participants, the spectators, and for all those who, far from the spectacle of the struggle, turned their attention to the study of the games.
And all those who took part in the tournament hope for an early reprise of the event in similar circumstances in this El Dorado for the healthy and the infirm.

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More Information
EAN 0939433672
Weight 850 g
Manufacturer Caissa Editions
Width 15.5 cm
Height 22.5 cm
Medium Book
Year of Publication 2007
Author Georg MarcoKarl Schlechter
Language English
Edition 1
ISBN-10 0939433672
Year of Original Version 1907
Pages 451
Binding cloth-binding/ embossed in gold
Diagrams 685
i Publisher's Foreword
ii Translator's Preface
iv Introduction
xxiii Crosstable
xxiv Round-by-Round Scores
Games of the Tournament
001 Round 1 (Games 1 to 10)
020 Round 2 (Games 11 to 20)
042 Round 3 (Games 21 to 30)
065 Round 4 (Games 31 to 40)
087 Round 5 (Games 41 to 50)
114 Round 6 (Games 51 to 60)
140 Round 7 (Games 61 to 70)
161 Round 8 (Games 71 to 80)
184 Round 9 (Games 81 to 90)
205 Round 10 (Games 91 to 100)
235 Round 11 (Games 101 to 110)
263 Round 12 (Games 111 to 120)
284 Round 13 (Games 121 to 130)
309 Round 14 (Games 131 to 140)
326 Round 15 (Games 141 to 150)
349 Round 16 (Games 151 to 160)
364 Round 17 (Games 161 to 170)
385 Round 18 (Games 171 to 180)
398 Round 19 (Games 181 to 190)
416 Round 20 (Games 191 to 200)
433 Round 21 (Games 201 to 210)
449 Some Statistics on the Karlsbad 1907 Games
450 Index of Openings
451 Index of Games
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