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| Jul-18-08 |
| myschkin: Chess master and addicted gambler. In 1901 he won an international tournament at Monte Carlo and lost all his first place money in the casino the same evening the tournament ended. The casino management had to buy his ticket home. In another event he handed his money to a friend and made him promise not to return it until after the chess tournament. However, the lure of gambling proved too strong and he begged for the return of his money. His friend refused. Janowski was so infuriated that he sued his friend. Janowski had a chess patron, the Dutch painter Leo Nardus who, for many years, supported him in chess. He lost his support when Janowski called Nardus a chess idiot when Nardu suggested an alternate move during an analysis of one of Janowski's games. Janowski was famous for his complaints which served as alibis when he lost. At one tournament every one of his requests was granted and for the first he had nothing to complain about. When he lost the tournament he said, "You have deprived me of any alibi. How did you expect me to play good chess?" Janowski died penniless in a nursing home in Hyeres, France. A subscription was raised to prevent his being buried in a pauper's grave. |
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| Aug-19-08 |
| TheNige: The book that "Resignation Trap" mentioned is called "David Yanovsky" and has 175 games of the Polish-French player. The authors of the book, which was published in 1987, were S. Voronkov and D. Plisetsky. The notation is long algebraic. |
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Sep-03-08
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| GrahamClayton: Janowski was one of only 2 players (Tarrasch was the other) to defeat the first 4 world champions (Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca & Alekhine) |
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| Oct-09-08 |
| Petrosianic: <I find it sad that Janowski could always rely on Mr. Nardus for his operations on and outside the chessboard, whereas the likes of Schlechter and Rubinstein were barely capable of holding their heads above the water level.> Not always. At some point Janowski and Nardus parted ways, after Janowski called him an idiot or something for asking a dumb question about a game. I have no idea when that was, exactly. |
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| Oct-10-08 |
| FHBradley: <Petrosianic:> "Janowski had a chess patron, the Dutch painter Leo Nardus,
who supported him in chess for many years. One day Nardus
suggested an alternate move during a postmortem of one of
Janowski's games. Janowski called Nardus an idiot in front
of a crowd of people. Nardus never gave Janowski any
financial support after that." from http://www.geocities.com/SiliconVal...; I don't know if this source is reliable or not. |
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Oct-23-08
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| keypusher: Classic Janowski: I just got the London 1899 tournament book (the Hardinge Simpole facsimile reprint of the original). The book lists the games submitted for consideration for the brilliancy prizes. Lasker, Blackburne and Bird submitted two each; Showalter submitted one; Pillsbury, Schlechter, Chigorin, etc. didn't submit any. Janowski submitted six! But I have to admit, there are some very attractive games in there. Janowski vs Schlechter, 1899
Janowski vs W Cohn, 1899
Janowski vs Chigorin, 1899
Janowski vs Pillsbury, 1899
W Cohn vs Janowski, 1899
Janowski vs Maroczy, 1899
No doubt to Janowski's disgust, the brilliancy prizes went to Lasker and Blackburne. Steinitz vs Lasker, 1899
Lasker vs Blackburne, 1899
Bird nominated this game for a prize, though there is nothing to commend it that I can see, other than the identity of the loser: Janowski vs Bird, 1899 |
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| Jan-04-09 |
| WhiteRook48: <wolfmaster> can't you just put "Janowski- (other player)" in the main chessgames page? because I think that works. |
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| Jan-21-09 |
| Cactus: Janowski is #1 according to chessmetrics, around 1904. Personally, I don't think that could be true, believing him more of a top-ten range sort of player. |
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| Feb-14-09 |
| WhiteRook48: Maybe Janowski is #5 |
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| Mar-20-09 |
| masterwojtek: He had to be jewish |
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Aug-03-09
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| Chessical: Janowski's patron, the art dealer Leo Nardus, was accused of selling misattributed or even forged works to wealthy Americans. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/... Born Leo Salomon, he had his surname legally changed to Nardus. Perhaps he did this wrap himself in the cachet of famous Dutch artists such as: Salomon <Leonardus> Verveer,(1813-1876), and Johannes Hubertus <Leonardus> de Haas (1832-1908)? Nardus was reputably a technically capable artist, and also a proficient swordsman who was an Olympic fencer for Holland (1912). He painted portraits of several grandmasters, including Emanuel Lasker and Frank Marshall. Some of them are reproduced here: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... |
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| Jan-20-10 |
| visayanbraindoctor: <Everett: <theagenbiteofinwit> What you and Dvoretsky say of Botvinnik may be true, but remember that he is the first GM to use the exchange sac as a weapon in all sorts of situations. Petrosian was the most prolific follower, and brilliant extender, of this idea.> It was Janowski who first did this regularly way back in the 19th century; who first incorporated the positional exchange sac into his arsenal. The Janowski exchange sacs were true long-term sacrifices; wherein he had to properly evaluate the ensuing practical value of his minor piece as compared to the rook of his opponent. See < Karpova's> excellent game collection Game Collection: David Janowsky's exchange sacrifices Janowski was pretty successful with it too, even against World Champions and top players. Janowski exchange sac vs:
Steinitz +1 +0 -0
Steinitz vs Janowski, 1898
Lasker +2 +0 -0
Janowski vs Lasker, 1896
Lasker vs Janowski, 1909
Alekhine +1 +0 -0
Janowski vs Alekhine, 1914
Pillsbury +1 +0 -0
Pillsbury vs Janowski, 1904
Marshall +1 +0 -0
Marshall vs Janowski, 1900
Blanking out Lasker, Alekhine, Steinitz, Pillsbury, and Marshall in games were he did the exchange sac is a totally impressive feat by Janowski! It would mean that he had an accurate sense of the value of a minor piece as compared to a rook; and the courage to actually do the sac. Janowski's only 'failures':
Capablanca +0 +0 -2
Capablanca vs Janowski, 1913
Capablanca vs Janowski, 1916
Yet if one takes a good look at the above two games, Janowski's exchange sac did not really fail. In order to win, Capablanca also did the same thing later on in the game - he 'imitated' Janowski by making his own exchange sac in both games! Thus, it is quite evident that Janowski's sac had adequate compensation; which Capa neutralized by making his own sac. So even these 'failures' are in a sense successes for the positional exchange sac. At any rate, it is not only Botvinnik or Petrosian or Kasparov who knew about the exchange sac. The pre-WW1 and pre-WW2 top masters were quite aware of it. The studious Botvinnik in fact may even have studied all the above games in close detail, especially the games of Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine who were his competitors. Botvinnik was known to thoroughly study all the games of his close competitors. The above games also show just how well developed positional chess was by the turn of the last century. If some of these games were given in the internet as they are, without the names of the masters involved, even kibitzers with a heavy dose of present-day generation narcissism would probably be wowing them out. <What exchange sacs; this type of game brings chess to a higher level!... Oops! So it was more than a hundred years ago. Well these games may not have been that great after all, as we all know these doddering ancients had such amateurish competitors and had no computers to help them out. (",)> |
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Jan-30-10
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| KingG: No doubt I'll be accused of trolling again, but I find it laughable to compare those Janowski exchange sacrifices to those of the later Soviet players. They almost all either forced, obvious, give sufficient material compensation, or are made for an attack. Is anyone seriously going to compare them to the exchange sacrifices of Petrosian for example? I'm not going to even both giving examples, as they are so well known, but there are plenty of games collections out there for those who are interested. If you want a good example of a modern exchange sac during that era, try the famous A Selezniev vs Alekhine, 1921, even though Alekhine immediately went wrong after the sac. I don't know too many other examples though. |
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Jan-30-10
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| ughaibu: The claim that Janowski had a 100% record, against Lasker, with exchange sacrifices, is outrageous: Janowski vs Lasker, 1909 Janowski vs Lasker, 1909 Lasker vs Janowski, 1909 Janowski vs Lasker, 1909 Janowski vs Lasker, 1910 Lasker vs Janowski, 1910 Janowski vs Lasker, 1924 |
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| Jan-30-10 |
| Olavi: ughaibu, in all those games Janowski lost or blundered the exchange. |
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Jan-30-10
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| ughaibu: And in the games given above? |
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Jan-30-10
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| KingG: <And in the games given above?> Lol. |
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Jan-30-10
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| keypusher: <Janowski's exchange sacrifices> I spent quite a bit of time on the 1896 example given against Lasker, as you can see from the game page itself. Obviously the sacrifice is made to break up Black's kingside; it bears no resemblance to Botvinnik's or Petrosian's sacrifices. Also (although the annotators in 1909 loved it) it's unsound. Here's another example; I leave it to those who can determine such things whether Janowski sacrificed the exchange or was forced to give it up. Anyway, he got a lost game, though eventually he managed to draw. Janowski vs Lasker, 1899 |
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Jan-30-10
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| keypusher: Pace the list, here's another exchange sacrifice against Pillsbury where Janowski doesn't win, though he should have. Janowski vs Pillsbury, 1896 |
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Jan-30-10
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| keypusher: <Also (although the annotators in 1909 loved it) it's unsound.> Ugh, I meant the annotators in 1896, of course.
Fans of the ancients looking for antecedents to Botvinnik's and Petrosian's exchange sacrifices need to go back before Janowski -- way back. Saint Amant vs Staunton, 1843 |
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Jan-30-10
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| KingG: <keypusher> Yeah, I was thinking about that game earlier, but I think the similarity with Petrosian's or Botvinnik's is more superficial than real. Usually they sacrificed the exchange to gain control of square, a colour complex, a pawn roller, or some other positional advantage. Staunton's looks more like a sacrifice to open lines towards the opponents's king. Having said that, it is a lot closer to their sacrifices than Janowski's are. |
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Jan-30-10
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| keypusher: <KingG> I suppose you are right. Here is a sort of similar sacrifice from Pillsbury, but using a queen instead of a rook. :-) Janowski vs Pillsbury, 1895
Also, not to pound on the list too much, but here's a Janowski exchange sacrifice in a loss to Pillsbury. Pillsbury vs Janowski, 1899 |
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Jan-30-10
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| keypusher: Last one for now: beautiful exchange sacrifice by Janowski in this one, but Pillsbury doesn't take it. Lots of grand battles between those two. Janowski vs Pillsbury, 1899 |
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| Jun-07-10 |
| Thrajin: Happy would-be birthday, Mr. Janowski. Perhaps I'll bake a cake topped with 142 bishops in your honor. |
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Sep-02-10
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| GrahamClayton: Here is an interesting position from the game Janowski-Lester Keene, Manhattan Chess Club, New York, 1919:
click for larger viewJanowski offered a draw but Keene declined, thinking he had every chance to win. Imagine his consternation when in the diagrammed position Janowski announced mate in 5 moves. Can you find the checkmate? |
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f6 2. c4 d6 3. 
f5.
