Site review - Schach-Datenbank++

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As I mentioned at the end of my last real issue (2001 no.12), I'm
going to continue the review of...

Schach-Datenbank by Wilfried Günther
http://www.schach-datenbank.de/

...by looking at Web pages which cover the great 1851 London
tournament.

First, I have a small correction to make. In no.12 I remarked that
[Günther's] 'descriptions of the events in the top-level lists are not
always sufficient to identify the event'. The site has been
substantially improved since I made that comment. Where one month ago
I saw, for example, only '1851 London m1', the description now reads
'London m1 (Buckle - Loewenthal) 1851'. While I'd like to believe that
this change was made in reaction to my remarks, it's more likely a
lucky coincidence.

What does Schach-Datenbank say about the London tournament? The
standard header information shows...

Ort / Place : London
Titel / Event : London knockout
Datum / Date : 27.05. - 15.07.1851
Nation : ENG
Spieler / Players : 16
Runden / Rounds : 4
Kategorie / Category : -
Typ / Type : k.o.
Partien / Games : 85 / 85
Download : pgn / cbh

...and is followed by the crosstables for the event, which was
organized as a series of knockout matches. The match to determine
first place was won by Adolf Anderssen over Marmaduke Wyvill (4.5 -
2.5). This victory earned Anderssen a place in the history books as
the unofficial world champion after Staunton. Wyvill is almost
forgotten today, perhaps because he competed in no more tournaments
after 1851.

'Datum / Date' says that the tournament ended on '15.07.1851'. It
would be very appropriate if I could send this issue on its scheduled
date of 15 July, exactly 150 years after the end of the London
tournament. As luck would have it, I'm away from Internet access on
that day, which also explains why you're receiving this message a few
days earlier than scheduled.

In case you're not familiar with the historical context of the
tournament, here's an excerpt from the last chapter of H.J.R. Murray's
monumental 'A History of Chess' (Oxford University Press, 1913 &
1962)...

'The year 1851 is memorable as the date of the first International
Tournament, which was held in London during the Great Exhibition of
that year. Staunton, to whose efforts the existence of the Tournament
was largely due, acted as Secretary to the influential Committee of
management. Sixteen competitors entered for the main Tournament, and
play was arranged on the 'knock out' principle, the losers in each
round retiring and the winners proceeding to the next round. In each
round the players played a small match, the best of 3 games in the
first, and of 7 games in the following rounds. Adolf Anderssen, a
Breslau schoolmaster (1818-1879), who attended as one of the
representatives of the Berlin club, won the first prize, and by so
doing became in popular estimation the first player of Europe. (1)

'The method of play adopted in the London tournament was open to grave
objections. The chance of the draw brought some of the strongest
players together in the first round, with the result that the final
order was not an order of strength of play, but depended largely on
the fortune of the pairing. In later tournaments, from that of London,
1862, onwards (2), every competitor plays against every other one, and
the final order is determined by the total number of victories thus
obtained.

'(1) The official account of the Tournament was written by Staunton,
'Chess Tournament', 1852, a book which is sadly disfigured by the
ungenerous way in which Anderssen's victory was received.

'(2) The newer method of play was first tried in a small tournament
which took place after the close of the Great Tournament of 1851,
under the auspices of the London Chess Club.'

...with the original notes renumbered. The similarity to FIDE's
current format for determining its world champion is striking. Of
course, the Elo rating system now overcomes the problem of the
strongest players meeting in the early rounds of a knockout
competition.

BookFinder.com lists two editions of the tournament book mentioned by
Murray...

BookFinder.com: author=staunton & title=tournament
http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?author=staunton&title=tournament&sub
mit=Begin+Search&new_used=*&currency=USD&mode=basic&st=sr&ac=qr

...The earlier edition of Staunton's 'The Chess Tournament. London
1851' was published by Bell & Daldy in 1873. A modern reprint was
published by Batsford in 1986. The 1852 edition mentioned in Murray's
excerpt is not listed.

---

My favorite search engine helped me to locate Web material relevant to
the Great Exhibition...

Google Search: 1851 London Great Exhibition
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=1851+London+Great+Ex
hibition&btnG=Google+Search

...The first reference, from the National Art Library, Victoria and
Albert Museum, London...

1851 Project: The Great Exhibition
http://www.nal.vam.ac.uk/projects/1851.html

...starts, 'The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all
Nations was held in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, from 1st
May to 15th October 1851. It was the first international exhibition of
manufactured products and was enormously influential on the
development of many aspects of society including art and design
education, international trade and relations, and even tourism. The
Exhibition also set the precedent for the many international
exhibitions which followed during the next hundred years'. The Crystal
Palace is described in the second reference...

The Crystal Palace, or The Great Exhibition of 1851: An Overview
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/1851/1851ov.html

...along with a photo. Several drawings of the exhibition's interior,
some in color, brighten the third reference...

The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace
http://www.victorianstation.com/palace.html

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What else can we find on the Web about the landmark chess event?
Another search...

Google search on 'chess 1851 london'
http://www.google.com/search?q=chess+1851+london&btnG=Google+Search

...returned 'about 1790' results. Searches like this are a good way to
discover chess history sites that I haven't seen before, so I decided
to look at each of Google's top references.

Unfortunately, the Schach-Datenbank site doesn't appear in the first
few pages of results. If I knew why not, I'd bill myself as a search
engine expert, but I really have no idea. Maybe it has something to do
with the use of frames. Some search engines have trouble retrieving
sites based on frames, but I didn't think that Google is one of them.
Maybe it's because the word 'chess' is missing from Günther's page.
Whatever the reason, there's a problem somewhere.

Looking at the first pages that Google does list, the number one page
was a real surprise for me...

1851 London Tournament
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/v1lon-ix.htm

...because it's a page from my own World Chess Championship site. A
quick look at the page reminded me that I had never added highlights
-- positions from specific games referenced in chess literature -- for
the 1851 event, so I did.

I decided to check the match results I list against those that Günther
lists; these should be the same and would give me some indication
about the overall accuracy of both sites. The first discrepancy I
found was in a match from the second round. Schach-Datenbank (SDB)
gives 'Williams, Elijah - Mucklow, James R 2 - 0'. The World Chess
Championship (WCC) gives 'Williams E - Mucklow J 4.0 - 0.0'. Gelo's
'Chess World Championships, 1834-1984' (McFarland 1988) also gives
4-0, which matches the PGN file.

A second discrepancy was in the third (semifinal) round. SDB lists two
matches...

Anderssen, Adolf - Staunton, Howard 4 - 1
Williams, Elijah - Wyvill, Marmaduke 3 - 4

...while WCC lists four. The two additional matches are...

Kennedy H - Mucklow J 4 - 0
Szen J - Horwitz B 4 - 0

...which were played to determine 5th-8th places. It appears that SDB
is based on a conscious decision not to list these, because there is
no mention of two additional matches that WCC gives for the final
round:-

Match for 3rd/4th places : Williams E - Staunton H 4.5 - 3.5
Match for 5th/6th places : Szen J - Kennedy H 4.5 - 0.5

Gelo adds that a match for 7th & 8th place was won by forfeit, Horwitz
over Mucklow.

As a last check, I downloaded the SDB PGN file for comparison. Like
the SDB file, the WCC PGN file has 85 games, but the round numbering
in my file was difficult to understand, so I improved it. All in all,
I was satisfied that my own page held up under comparison, and was
glad to have made three incremental improvements -- highlights,
7th/8th place, and PGN round numbering.

How popular among chess fans is the 1851 tournament relative to other
world championship events? I again turned to my WCC site and
downloaded the statistics file, a resource which is not available to
the general public. Of the 370 pages on the site, 148 serve as the
index for a specific event, with a crosstable and links to related
pages, like the event's highlights.

I calculated that the index page for the 1851 London tournament ranks
as the 86th most popular index page, receiving about two views per
day. This places it just behind the 1953 Candidates tournament and
just ahead of the 1955 Interzonal. Since the 43 least popular pages
are all women's and computer events, 1851 London is far down the list
of men's events in order of popularity.

This low ranking was confirmed by an analysis of statistics on the 146
PGN files on the site. 1851 London is the 75th most popular, getting
about one download per day.

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Returning to the Google list for the 1851 tournament, the second
reference is to...

London 1851
http://www.schachgeschichte.de/chess/turnier/1851.htm

...I'll be looking at these pages for the next site review and will
save my remarks for then. The third reference is to...

Chess History - World Chess Network
http://www.worldchessnetwork.com/English/chessHistory/salute/kings/and
erssen.php

...a biography of Adolf Anderssen : 'b. 1818 - d. 1879 World champion:
1851 to 1858; 1862 to 1866 By winning the first international chess
tournament convincingly (London, 1851), Adolf Anderssen also won
nearly universal regard as the chess world's supreme player. He became
the first tournament specialist in chess history, compiling a record
that kept him at the tournament forefront until Vienna 1873, which
marked Wilhelm Steinitz's coming of age as a modern positional
player'.

The page also gives the score of 'Anderssen - Kieseritzky London,
1851', more commonly known as the Immortal Game. Although Anderssen
eliminated Kieseritzky in the first round of the London tournament
(2.5 - 0.5), the Immortal Game was not played in that event.

The Anderssen page is a piece of a larger section on Chess History
which informs us that...

'The World Chess Network is proud to present a monograph of chess
history articles entitled "The World Chess Championship and Champions:
1747-2000" by celebrated chess journalist Larry Parr.

'Larry Parr is a former editor of Chess Life and he has received more
individual awards from the Chess Journalists of America than any other
chess writer in its history. These exclusive articles provide
fascinating details and inside information about the World Chess
Championship.'

...You might already know that in the 1980s, when Parr was editor for
the USCF's flagship magazine 'Chess Life', his opinions sometimes ran
counter to those of other USCF officials. In the 1990s, he turned to
writing for the Internet news groups where his aggressive articles
again earned him many adversaries. His early posts can be found at...

Google Search: author:75227.3707@...
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=author:75227.3707
%40CompuServe.COM+

...of which the most recent is dated 26 Apr 2000. After a lapse of
over one year, during which I suppose he was preparing the historical
material for the World Chess Network, he resurfaced as...

Google Search: author:parrthenon@...
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=author:parrthenon
%40cs.com+

...where his oldest post is dated 15 Jun 2001. If you want to develop
a history of recent controversies in the chess world, just spend some
time with Parr's posts. When Emanuel Lasker said, 'A fighter is a
target as well as a shot', he anticipated Parr, who gives as good as
he gets. He's presently participating in a circular firing squad which
has formed to settle the Winter - Evans feud.

I had seen the World Chess Network site before, but for some reason,
had neglected to add it to my list of chess history sites. I corrected
this oversight, which means that I'll be covering it for a later
review in this series.

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For the remaining pages on Google's list, the 1851 tournament is
referenced only briefly. The fourth site...

Chess - Online Guide
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/james.masters/TraditionalGames/Chess.htm

...is a page titled 'The Chess Family - History and Useful
Information', where along with Shaturanga, Shatranj, and various forms
of Oriental chess, 1851 London is mentioned under 'European Chess'.
Bill Wall's many chess history pages pop up frequently on Google's
lists. The first reference...

Chess History, 1800-1899
http://www.traveller.com/chess/history/1800-1899.html

...confirms the start/end dates:-
1851.05.07 Opening day of the 1st ever international tournament,
London.
1851.07.15 End of 1st international tournament began in London,
organized by Staunton.

while another...

Chess Trivia -- L
http://www3.traveller.com/chess/trivia/l.html

...tells us, 'Howard Staunton and the St. George's Club were the
organizers. Anderssen won a silver cup and 183 pounds. He owed 1/3 of
his winnings to Szen after a private agreement that if either were to
gain first prize, he would share it with the other'. A very unusual
reference is...

Seven Cautionary Chess Games 1834-1927, No. II
http://www.stare.com/art/chess/chess2.html

...a page dedicated to the Immortal Game. 'Adolph Anderssen and Lionel
Adalbert Bagration Felix Kieseritsky played what has become
universally known among Chess aficionados as "The Immortal Game" at
Simpson's Divan at the same time the rest of the Chess world was
transfixed by the nearby international Chess tournament. [...] A
diagram from this monumental game was immortalized on a German 75
pfennig currency coupon, along with Anderssen's austere intellectual
likeness. The loser died penniless in the Hotel du Dieu -- the charity
hospital for the insane -- in Paris on 18 May 1853; no one attended
his burial in a pauper's grave.'

I honestly don't know what to make of this page. All seven cautionary
games are linked from...

http://www.stare.com/art/chess/welcome.html

...and treat chess as an art, rather than as a game, a science, a
sport, or any of the other common classifications. Another offbeat
page from the ChessBase site...

Simpson's-in-the-Strand
http://www.chessbase.com/events/chapman/chapman2.htm

...covers the recent Kasparov - Chapman charity odds match. Here we
learn that, 'in 1851, when London hosted the first International Chess
Tournament, it was at the Grand Cigar Divan that players congregated
to practise their strategies and discuss tactics'. A description of a
German language tournament book for the event (Olms, 1983) can be
found at...

Das Schachturnier zu London im Jahre 1851
http://www.chessstore.ch/eshop/p146.html

...And, finally, don't let this title mislead you...

Marshall
http://www.cpl.org/010012/chess/Anderssen.html

...The Cleveland Public Library, home of the unsurpassed John G. White
collection, has a page on Anderssen (not Marshall; that's another
page!) in a CPL mini-site...

Paul Little and his chess scrapbooks
http://www.cpl.org/010012/chess/Paul_Little.html

Chess masters gallery
http://www.cpl.org/010012/chess/Gallery.html

...where Anderssen is the only non-American featured on this page for
'U.S. chess masters - 1945 Soviet - American radio match'.

We started with 1851 London and ended with the 1945 radio match. The
1945 event would make a good start for a future discussion of the rise
of Soviet domination in chess. The first FIDE sponsored world
championship match, featuring two Soviet players, took place in 1951,
and could have marked the centennial of the great London tournament.
The 2051 bicentennial might well be celebrated by another knockout
tournament featuring the world's 16 strongest players -- all of them
computers. The times change and chess changes with the times.

Bye for now,
Mark Weeks

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