This is a game I discovered in my chess research. This game is not in any of the chess databases. It was played in a match that was supposed to be for the World Chess Championship. However, the match was drawn and therefore no World Champion was declared.
I believe that in the final position in which a draw was agreed, White, Max Weiss, had a win. It is a simple king and pawn endgame. The annotator, Steinitz, said nothing about this position.
Needless to say, the full details of this match will be available soon at a bookstore near you.
So, am I right? If Weiss had played this out, would he have won this game and have been declared World Chess Champion.
Max Weiss quit chess for a career in banking right after this game and that is the reason you have never heard of him.
I seldom see games that look MORE draw-like than this one. Although my experience (and rating) is lower than many others - and as such I’ll be happy to learn where I am wrong here - I cannot see any winning advantage for White in the final position. It seems like they were both playing for a draw.
If anything, I see Black with a slight advantage - on the basis of White’s backward c-pawn, and Black’s better positioned central pawns. Slight.
Further I looked into the Chessgames database (to be able to quickly play through this one), and I see that Weiss played in tournaments after this - into 1890, at least. There are more than 20 games in the Chessgames database (which itself is not all-inclusive of chess history) after this game with Chigorin. So your statement on that point is not correct.
As such, there were 38 rounds with 10 games each round.
However, there was an unusual special rule: If two players drew their second game, that game did not count and they had to play a third game. Only if their third game was also a draw did it count as a draw.
There were 48 times that this happened. The most noteworthy time was when Max Weiss drew his second game with Chigorin. They had to play a third game and this time Chigorin won.
Since there were 48 times when the players drew their second game, there were 48 times that a new third game had to be played.
After Weiss and Chigorin tied for first, they had to play a four game match. However, all four games were draws. Both players stated that they did not want to play any more games. They wanted to go home. Weiss had come from Vieaan Austria, Chigorin had come from St. Petersburg, Russia.
Finally, the organizers reluctantly agreed to split the prize money, so the tournament concluded without a decisive result.
As there were 380 games in the regular event, plus 48 extra games because the second game had been a draw plus there was a 4 game match, this means that there should have been 380 + 48 + 4 or 432 games.
I have collected 434 games. Right now I am trying to figure out where the two extra games came from.
I will send the book to the printers by Midnight tonight or at the very latest by Friday.
Please explain why you think this is a winning position for White. As I said earlier (but your ‘reply’ didn’t come back to this at all), I think Black has a very slightly better position, but that it is probably a draw (if anything, for White). How would you win here as White?I am not trying to be rhetorical; I simply don’t see it, while you state it ‘matter-of-factly’. But I admit your rating is significantly higher than mine.
White wins by virtue of the principle of the OUTSIDE PASSED PAWN.
White can eventually get his king to f5. He then advances his pawns with g4, h4 and g5. Now, when Black plays fxg5, White takes the e pawn with Kxe5. Now, White has time to come back and catch the Black pawn that captured on g5. White has all the time in the world to mop up Black’s king side and Black can do nothing.
If Black tries to keep the white king out by playing h5, White brings his king to h4, then brings his pawn to g4. Black must play hxg4 and then White takes with the king, not the pawn, and establishes the outside passed pawn.
I am doing this blindfolded so if I have made an error, I apologize.
Of course White wins if he can get his K to f5, but he can’t accomplish that against any sensible defense. For example, 28. Kf3 b5 29. Kg4 Kg6 30. h4 h5+ 31. Kf3 f5 32. Ke2 (not 32. exf5+ Kxf5 33. g3 b4, and Black is probably winning) f4, and the draw is obvious, or 30. g3 b4 31. Kh4 Kh6 32. g4 Kg6 33. Kg3 h6, and there are no penetration squares. Unless you have some variations to offer, your claim can’t be taken seriously.
( This reminds me a little of Steve Martin’s “How to be a millionaire and pay no taxes”: First, get a million dollars.
Thanks. Exactly what I was thinking - that White had no reasonable expectation of his King dominating the position as was suggested. Sure, if someone giftwraps a passed pawn for you, then it’s a different story. But you have supported my initial intuitive impression of the position, and quantified the likely outcome in some detail… better than I could have.
I’m not sure why it’s considered important, anyway - just when I saw the first post, I was curious and indeed wanted to look at the game. (Maybe that was Sam’s idea all along.) I have seen a few dubious draws recently - giving rise to questions about motive - but I don’t think this is in that category at all. Lackluster draw-inviting play, maybe - but nothing more than that here, and nothing sinister in taking the Draw (from either side). Besides, the pace of this tournament appears to have been grueling - so I cannot really fault any players from avoiding complications in some of the games, like this one.
(I didn’t have a problem with a mis-recorded move in this record, as I went instead to the Chessgames database and found this game - which of course was convenient for quickly playing through it.)
Oh - my apologies for any typos here… I am typing blindfolded.
What is the justification for this spelling of Chigorin? I know that in French, it is Tchigorin, so as to make sure that it is a hard “ch”, but has anyone seen it spelled like this anywhere else?
“Tschigorin” was a common English transliteration common in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but nowadays “Chigorin” is almost universally used. It’s used by Hooper and Whyld, which is good enough for me. It may be worth noting that, in Russian, the first letter in Chigorin’s name is also used for Szekely, Centurini, Chekhover and Chiburdanidze.
