Evans On Chess. May 17, 1996. Copyright Chesstours. All rights
reserved.

                             TEN CHESS LANDMARKS

"The player who plays best in a tournament never wins first," quipped
Savielly Tartakower. "He finishes second behind the guy with the most
luck."

THE GREAT CHESS TOURNAMENTS AND THEIR STORIES by Andy Soltis is a
colorful blend of anecdotes and games. The book transports us to ten
landmarks in the annals of chess.

1. LONDON 1851. The first great modern tournament. A series of knockout
matches among 16 leading amateurs established German math professor Adolf
Anderssen as the unofficial world champion.

2. LONDON 1883. The use of chess clocks to time moves brought a new
element of drama into the royal game. Three years later Johannes
Zukertort, the victor, lost the first official title match against his
runner-up Wilhelm Steinitz.

3. HASTINGS 1895. Harry Nelson Pillsbury, 22, an unknown American,
crossed the Atlantic to conquer a stellar field including Chigorin,
Lasker, Tarrasch and Steinitz, and then set a record of 21 games played
without sight of the board before his untimely death 11 years later.

4. ST. PETERSBURG 1914. Czar Nicholas organized this event to pit
titleholder Emanuel Lasker with two arch rivals -- Jose Capablanca and
Akiba Rubinstein. But Lasker's triumph didn't deter his foes from
gloating over how this "gentleman farmer" tried for months to mate two
pigeons so their offspring would take top honors at a poultry show. Alas,
both pigeons were male!

5. NEW YORK 1924. Despite losing the title to Capablanca three years
earlier, Lasker at age 56 won this grueling double round robin against
all the top contenders of the day.

6. NEW YORK 1927. The invincible Capablanca now dominated chess and was
so far in the lead that he agreed to draw with his last four opponents in
advance. The Cuban scribbled a note to Aron Nimzovich during their game
which said, "Please make better moves. I don't know how to avoid a win."

7. NOTTINGHAM 1936. The crossroads of the old and the new featured three
past world champions (Alekhine, Capa, Lasker) plus the incumbent (Euwe)
with rising Soviet star Mikhail Botvinnik, who tied for first with
Capablanca.

8. HAGUE-MOSCOW 1948. This five-man duel was designed to fill the crown
left vacant by the death of Alekhine. Botvinnik's victory, amid cries of
foul, launched a postwar Soviet supremacy that virtually excluded
outsiders from a shot at the title.

9. BLED 1961. Mikhail Tal's runner-up was America's Bobby Fischer, 18,
who scored 3.5 out of 4 against a Soviet juggernaut. This was the first
crack in the wall that led to Fischer's ascent to the crown in 1972.

10. SAN ANTONIO 1972. Sponsored by Church Fried Chicken, a fast food
chain, it was the American debut of Anatoly Karpov who became world
champion by default in 1975 to launch the post-Fischer era.

A strange omission from the book is AVRO 1938, arguably the greatest
tournament in chess history.

                           (A revised past column)
