Brooklyn, NY, United States (14 May-20 June 1894)
C 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Wins
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Hodges 6 1 1 0 1 1 ½ 0 0 1 11
Showalter 7 0 0 1 0 0 ½ 1 1 0 10
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Format: First to eleven wins*, draws not counting, is victor.
Time Control: 15 moves per hour.
Prizes: $100 stakes per side.
* Includes the results from the prior leg carried over to this match, column C.
Introduction
After 16 games of the Showalter - Hodges US Championship (1894) match, the players were tied at six wins each. They decided before Game 17 to play additional games until one player reached 11 wins. The initial agreement was first player to reach seven wins, and so the $100 prize offered by the Manhattan club went to Showalter when he won Game 17. That, having fulfilled the initial match conditions, ended the sponsorship of the Manhattan club, so the additional games were moved to Brooklyn under the sponsorship of the Brooklyn Chess Club. A number of sources call the additional games a 'rematch' and contemporary newspapers sometimes called it the 'supplementary match'. I have chosen to use the match and rematch classification to be consistent with modern sources such as Soltis and McCormick, but calling it a single or even an 'extended' match is certainly justifiable.
Hodges won the 'rematch' by five wins to three, and brought the total of the 'match' and 'rematch' together to 11 wins to 10. He achieved his goal of becoming US champion, and did not defend his title. By the fall of the following year, Showalter played another championship match against Samuel Lipschutz (see Game Collection: Showalter - Lipschutz 1895 match). Hodges would continue to play in tournaments and was the only player to participate in all of the US-Great Britain cable matches, remaining undefeated in the series (Game Collection: Anglo-American Cable Matches, 1896-1911).
In Game 1, 29. Bb4? allowed Hodges to win a pawn and the exchange. Showalter attempted to complicate the game, but Hodges returned the exchange and simplified into a won ending. In Game 2, Showalter tried to hold on to the d6 pawn with 30...Qb4? and played ...h5 too late, giving Hodges a second, and somewhat easy win. Showalter bounced back in Game 3 when Hodges played 29...Be4? allowing Showalter to sacrifice the exchange for a nice attack along the a8-h1 diagonal. Hodges was soon back in form, winning Game 4 and increasing his lead to 3 wins to 1. Showalter's indifferent play in Game 5 lost him the exchange and later the ending. Game 6 was the only draw of the match. Hodges sacrificed a piece, then Showalter was too slow in capturing an advanced pawn and the long, hard-fought game resolved itself into a drawn rook ending. In Game 7, Hodges miscalculated with 29...Rxe4? and his position quickly collapsed. In Game 8, Hodges blundered with 41. Rg1? in a fairly even position. Showalter was now within a game of Hodges and quite possibly thought he might win the match with one of his strong finishes. In Game 9, Hodges gave up a piece for three pawns and Showalter could not hold them back in the ending. This brought Hodges up to 11 total wins, and thus made him the winner and US champion.
Notes
For links to other US championship matches, see Game Collection: US Championship matches (meta).
Credit
Original collection: Game Collection: Showalter - Hodges 1894 rematch by User: crawfb5.
Kibitzing
