A fellow chessgamesian and I have worked in collusion to try to bring some of Prince Dadian's history to light. Having working with <WilhelmThe2nd> on this for about a year now, I believe anyone interested in Dadian will find something of interest at:

http://batgirl.atspace.com/Andrei_D...

be my guest.

<Sneaky>

Just so you know, I can't tell you the pedigree of the photograph.

<EmperorAtahualpa>

This game is of particular interest since Schiffers and Dadian had an argument about move 9 - Dadian insisted on a very dubious piece sacrifice - and Schiffers left rather than to play such a move. Dadian won the game.

I won't post the link to the page detailing that game, but to the main page instead since the story of Dadian should be followed in context.

One will find there several published bios of Dadain (including one by Karpov from the Russian Encyclopedia of Chess, one from the Chess Monthy 1892 and one from the British Chess Magazine 1897), 3 games annotated by Chigorin, some detailed information on Mingrelia and the House of Dadiani, Pictures of Dadian, as well as pictures and details about people involved with Dadian: Chigorin, Panov, Schiffers, Hoffer, Kemény, de Rivière and Duz-Khotimirsky, and, of course more specific information about the tournament at Monte Carlo in 1903 where Chigorin and Dadian had it out.

<Wilhelmthe2nd> did excellent research: http://sbchess.sinfree.net/dadiani....

What a surprisingly odd, though useful, bit of trivia!

Thanks!

It's a common belief that Prince Dadian's games were either contrived or faked. I used to subscribe to that belief, which has never been conclusively demonstrated, but I'm becoming less and less convinced the more I learn.

Recently <Wilhelmthe2nd> sent me the contents of the 1903 "Literary Digest" article in which Napier annotated the consultation game - Dadian-Schiffers vs. Lebedev-Yurevich and an accompaning article by Isodor Gunsberg from the London "Daily News". (http://sbchess.sinfree.net/Dadian-S...)

As mentioned below, this game, which was given from Schiffer's 1903 Niva chess column, contained the mind-blowing move 9.Nc3?! (http://sbchess.sinfree.net/Dadian-S...) after which Schiffers, who disagreed with the piece sacrifice, left the board.

Gunsberg wrote:

"Nc3 ... in this particular position the move is somewhat staggering and difficult to deal with by an analyst, we will content ourselves by describing it as an intense effort of Oriental imaginativeness, which may pass without further sacrilegious, cold reasoning comment. It seems, however, that Schiffers is not imbued with the same reverential feeling toward imaginativeness as we are, for he would not give his consent to this move, and actually left the board, only resuming play a few moves later on when he discovered that there is more in such moves than actually meets the eye for the moment."

This doesn't sound like the play of a man who contrived his games.

Dadian, however, was probably rightfully criticized for sending in for publication his wins while conveniently forgetting to send in his losses.