London 1883 + The RHP Black Museum
By 04 Jul 11 on
12126 views | 6 edits | Last edit on 20 Jul 11
Joseph Henry Blackburne (1841-1924)
Was a great player whose games are…..
(that is Tarrasch……Russ)
Blackburne played in the same era as Tarrasch (pictured above).
Blackburne was a great player whose games are bristling
with tactics and smart moves.
His book of collected games is super for diving into at random.
Very rarely does a game disappoint.
And such a game popped up when I was looking at the some games
about 20 years ago.
Englisch v Blackburne. London 1883.
Then I scribbled some notes in pencil on the page and only recently
discovered them. .
Blackburne (Black) has just played 13…Ng4
He explains that the Knight cannot be taken because…
“If 14.fxg4 then 14...Qh5 15.g3 Bxg3 and mate follows.”
Is this correct?
I was not looking to bust the note just find the instructive win
on other defensive tries. I have written down "No win on h3."
But before we see the game it is time for…
Instructive Background No.17
London 1883 was the first tournament to use the chess clocks we use today.
The type that when you stop your clock it automatically starts your opponent’s clock.
And even back then they were looking for a solution to the Grandmaster short draw.
Go scanning around the various chess forums on the net and you will see numerous
spanner-heads coming up with all kinds solutions for this problem.
The Victorian solution was simple. It was to be a Double Round Robin.
(everyone played each other twice)
If the game was drawn then you played again. If that game is drawn then you
played again, if that game was drawn then the result, what ever it was, stood.
The number of moves did not matter.
This was the final position after Chigorin - Mason and 120 moves.
A draw. Well done lads. Now play again. They did and Chigorin won.
So a Double Round Robin with 14 players means you play 26 games.
Under the London 1883 rules this could vary.
Zukertort the winner played 32 games, Blackburne finished 3rd after playing
39 games and Englisch ended up playing 42 games! Him and Mackenzie
had to play each other six times. All games were drawn.
There should have been a total of 182 games (14 x 26 /2) instead there were 240
and that includes the fact that Arthur Skipworth skipped off after playing 17
of his allocated 26 games. I’m glad I never had to do the Tournament Book.
Before heading for the hills Skipworth walked into a neat trap set by Chigorin.
Noa - Mason produced a bad blunder.
End of Informative bit now at last we get to see the game that was:
Englisch v Blackburne. London 1883
(well one of them, in this Double Round Robin they ending up
playing each other four times.)
The notes that end with JHB are Blackburne’s.
Games from the Red Hot Pawn Black Museum.
I’m thinking of making this a regular feature as giggling at other players
mishaps seems something we are all fond of.
There is technical term for people who laugh at other peoples misfortune.
‘Chess Players’ is apt.
Just remember not to laugh too loud. I am watching. 😉
On the Chess Forum one lad was asking for checkmates by accident.
Believe me, when you play through as many RHP games as I have
you soon start to think every good move, including checkmate is an accident.
Here are a couple of examples of one side answering a check
with a checkmate.
ibh86 - jimmyenglish RHP 2009
biloba - johnyg RHP 2008
Finally SLICKRICK1 -romang RHP 2008
Where we see a White King getting mated on c7 in 11 moves.
