The story goes that the German Grandmaster <Jacques Mieses> was giving a simultaneous exhibition in England at the turn of the century. One of his opponents had a lone king left on the board against Mieses' King, Queen, Rook and Bishop plus two pawns. The Englishman knew that the word 'Patt' meant Stalemate in German. When Mieses arrived at the board, his opponent politely informed <Patt, Sir>. As this was far from the case, Mieses replied, "<Patzer> yourself. It's mate next move."

< To be capable of conducting an endgame to the distant goal with clarity, firmness, and complete familiarity with all its tricks and traps is the sign of the first-class Master. >

As tribute, I cite the end of a text about some Mieses recollections written by Heinrich Fraenkel, and extracted from Terence Tiller's book "Chess Treasury of the air".

<… There's just room for a short game, but I am not going to cite any of the innumerable brilliancy-prize games; they can be found in a good many anthologies. The last prize, incidentally, he got at the 1945 Hastings Memorial Tournament, fifty years after the famous first Hastings Tournament where also Mieses was among the competitors. When he got his last brilliancy award at the turn of 1945-1946 (M Christoffel vs Mieses, 1945) he was getting on for eighty-one, and at just about the same period he played the game I am going to show. It was played at St. Bride's in one of the ordinary London League matches for which Mieses turned out from time to time; and courteous as ever he insisted on leaving the top board to the club champion. He played second board, and luckily - there must have been more absentees than usual – I got as high up as third board, thereby sitting next to my old friend and enjoying his game rather more than my own pedestrian effort. I'll never forget the old boy's poker face when he tricked his opponent into that neat little trap. But let's see. Mieses is Black.

<1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Bb5 5.e3 d6 6.Nge2 Bg4 7.Qb3 Rb8! (a very shrewd move, for it was here that Mieses worked out the pretty mate he was to administer eight moves later) 8.Nd5 Bc5 9.Nxf6+ Qxf6!! (I watched the man on the other side, no mean player he! But it was quite evident that he thought the old man had made a bloomer pardonable for one his age; anyway he grabbed that knight with alacrity, whereas Mieses seemed quite unruffled by the loss of his two rooks); 10.Bxc6+?? bxc6 11.Qxb8+ Kd7 12.Qxh8 Qf3!! (Mieses made this move without a second's hesitation, and now while excited players from both sides began to crowd round the board, the man on the other side began to see what he had let himself in for. He had quite a think, but the next moves were forced anyway); 13.Kd1 Qxe2+ 14.Kc2 Qxc4+ 15.Kb1 Qd3#>. Not so bad for an octogenarian!>

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This game appeared in ASZ, December 13, 1896, page 1391. This game is from Vienna 1896. No other Schlechter games are known from this event.

Schlechter – Mieses, J.
King’s Gambit Declined
November 1896

<Users of the FatBase 2000 CD will be awe-struck by some of the defeats sustained by Jacques Mieses during his long career. At the age of minus three he lost a game to Adolf Anderssen (in Breslau, 1862) and did no better against him in 1867, by which time he had matured into a two-year-old. Nor did the passing of time improve Mieses’ fortunes. In 1958 he lost a game to Mikhail Tal in the Soviet Union, and in 1964 Forgács beat him in Ostend. At the age of 128 Mieses was defeated by Carl Schlechter in the Prague, 1993 tournament. That was certainly an opportunity for him to recall a remark he had made 90 years previously: ‘It is bad enough to get run over, but to get run over by a corpse is horrible.’>

Link: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...