| Budapest (1896) |
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Budapest, Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire (4-28 October 1896)
1 1 1 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 Score Place/Prize
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1 Chigorin • 0 ½ 0 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 1 ½ 1 8½ 1st* 2500K
2 Charousek 1 • 1 ½ 0 ½ 1 ½ 1 1 0 1 1 8½ 2nd 2000K
3 Pillsbury ½ 0 • ½ ½ 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 7½ 3rd 1500K
4 Schlechter 1 ½ ½ • 1 ½ 1 ½ 0 ½ 1 ½ 0 7 4th-5th 800K
5 Janowski 0 1 ½ 0 • 0 1 0 1 1 ½ 1 1 7 4th-5th 800K
6 Walbrodt 0 ½ 0 ½ 1 • 1 0 1 0 ½ 1 1 6½ 6th-7th 300K
7 Winawer ½ 0 0 0 0 0 • 1 1 1 1 1 1 6½ 6th-7th 300K
8 Tarrasch 0 ½ 1 ½ 1 1 0 • ½ 0 0 ½ 1 6 100K†
9 Albin 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 ½ • 0 1 ½ 1 5
10 Maróczy 0 0 0 ½ 0 1 0 1 1 • ½ 0 1 5
11 Marco 0 1 0 0 ½ ½ 0 1 0 ½ • 1 0 4½
12 Noa ½ 0 0 ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ 1 0 • 1 4
13 von Popiel 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 • 2
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* Chigorin beat Charousek in a tie-break match for sole first place.
† Special prize for best score against the prize winners.
1st Place playoff match:
1 2 3 4 Score
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Chigorin 1 1 0 1 3
Charousek 0 0 1 0 1
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Introduction
In October 1896, the Budapest Chess Club, led by the efforts of Geza Maróczy, organized a chess tournament as part of the Budapest Millennial Exhibition, intended to mark the 1000 years since the Magyar conquest of Hungary by the legendary King Árpád in 896.(1) Among the participants were established masters such as Siegbert Tarrasch, Mikhail Chigorin, and David Janowski, as well as young chess stars such as Harry Nelson Pillsbury and Carl Schlechter. Hungary was represented by Rudolf Charousek, Josef Noa, and Géza Maróczy. Maróczy had planned to act solely as tournament director until Semyon Alapin withdrew at the last minute, and Maróczy stepped in as a replacement to preserve the original organization.(2) Since Maróczy was now playing in the event, Arthur Havasi took over the duties of chief arbiter.(3) Maróczy managed to secure a fine venue and excellent funding for the event. Emperor Franz Joseph donated the rent for the venue: the monumental restaurant-hall of the fabulous Pest Vigadó, Budapest's premiere entertainment building, although the Budapest Chess Club had usually met in one of the smaller and more affordable back rooms.(2) The Emperor also donated a 12 kilogram solid silver trophy, a statue of "Winged Victory." Baron Albert von Rothschild provided 1000 Kronen and famed explorer Count Jenő Zichy provided 600 kronen towards the prize fund.(4) The tournament ran from 4 October to 28 October 1896.(5) Picture of the Pest Vigadó: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped... Tarrasch was awarded the special prize for best score against the prize winners.(6) Charousek tied Chigorin for first at the end of the tournament, and at first, Maróczy insisted that there be no playoff - he argued that since Charousek had won his tournament game against Chigorin, the Hungarian master should be given clear first.(7) Chigorin, however, insisted on a playoff mini-match, and Charousek was keen to participate in the showdown. Chigorin, a veteran match player, soundly defeated the young Charousek 3-1 in the playoff. After winning it, Chigorin was given a choice: the silver Winged Victory trophy or 2,500 kronen.(8) He took the money, and the trophy sat at the Budapest Chess Club until the advent of World War I, after which the trophy mysteriously was "lost."(4) Charousek received 2000 kronen for second place.(8) The result made Charousek a national hero in Austria Hungary, and he was invited by the nobility of Budapest and Vienna to lecture and to play simultaneous exhibitions.(9) To this day, Budapest 1896 is the strongest chess tournament ever held in Hungary. Additional Prizes
Tarrasch won 100 kronen and Hoffer's prize of 17 volumes of the Chess Monthly for the best score against the place prize winners.
Sources
(1) Victor Charuchin, Chess Comet Rudolf Charousek 1873-1900 (Schachfirma Fruth 1997), p. 117.
(2) Charuchin, p. 118.
(3) Charuchin, p. 119.
(4) Charuchin, p. 125.
(5) Rod Edwards, EDO chess "Budapest 1896", http://www.edochess.ca/tournaments/....
(6) Prager Tagblatt, 23 October 1896, p. 10.
(7) Charuchin, p. 148.
(8) One Hundred Years Ago Budapest 1896. Sakkelet 10-12, 1996, pp. 372-376. In Charuchin, Appendix D.
(9) Charuchin, p. 153.
Credit
Original Collection: Game Collection: Budapest 1896, by User: suenteus po 147. Special thanks goes to <jessicafischerqueen> for the superb historical details.
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| page 1 of 4; games 1-25 of 82 |
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< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 1 OF 2 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
| Nov-23-12 | | Mrs. Alekhine: This game collections was created by User: suenteus po 147. |
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| Jan-13-14 | | YoungEd: Not too many draws in this tournament! |
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| Jan-13-14 | | waustad: I suspect that this: "and one hour for each 15 minutes after that," should read, "and one hour for each 15 moves after that." In any case this is an interesting tournament with many of the best players of the day. |
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Jan-13-14
 | | tamar: Another great tournament page appears. Almost an embarrassment of riches on chessgames these days. I agree with <Mrs Alekhine> that pioneers in game collection like suenteus po 147 deserve our thanks. |
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| Feb-19-15 | | zanzibar: I think the intro needs a review,
<Semyon Alapin withdrew at the last minute and Maróczy stepped in as replacement to preserve the orginal organization, and new star Rudolf Charousek who had made his international debut the year before at Nuremberg. Maróczy was quick to secure a venue and funding- > First, <CG> uses <Semion> and so the intro should be consistent. Now, with trivialities aside... How can Maróczy step in as a last-minute replacement and then be "quick to secure" venue/funding... certainly the tournament had to be adequately organized before Alapin's withdrawal. Then I have this contemporaneous reporting:
<The first round of the International Chess Masters' tournament was played in this city today. Owing to Alapin's withdrawal from the contest a new ballot for a second) schedule had to be made, which resulted as follows: [...] > October 6, 1896
Los Angeles Herald from Los Angeles, California · Page 3 http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/...
There is no mention of Maroczy stepping in to replace Alapin. Moreover, why would the tournament organizers recruit another player when it would result in an odd number of players? Typically, the idea is to have a RR with even number of players. And if Maroczy were a direct sub then there would be no need to draw a new schedule. So, is there some need for further review?
(I came across this looking for tournaments Alapin dropped out from, there's this one and <Dresden (1892)> that I know of) |
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| Feb-20-15 | | suenteus po 147: <zanzibar: I think the intro needs a review> I'll level with you: they all need review. When I first started putting these tournament collections together, I never actually conceived that they would be the basis for chessgames.com tournament pages, let alone that many people would look at them. I cobbled together as much info as I could from various sources, usually relying on the kindness and generosity of other chessgames.com users to provide history, round details, and links to helpful webpages to get them into some kind of "presentable" format. I use the quotation marks because my standard was very low, and certainly not up to the scrutiny of serious historical acumen. There was a user on the Biographer Bistro during my absence, <thomastonk> was his handle, I think. He posted that any tournament page built from one of my collections sent up a red flag with him, and he was right to say so. I'm a very poor historian. I hardly cite my sources, and I did little to no fact checking with this work. I basically just spent a lot of time submitting games and making collections. I'm actually embarrassed by some of my writing that got preserved and perpetuated here. I'm grateful to everyone who has supported me over the years in the collecting of these tournaments, but the work that you and <jessicafischerqueen> and <Tabanus> and <Phony Benoni> and <crawfb5> and everyone else who contributes regularly to the Biographer Bistro are the real historians and deserve the lion's share of the credit. Please edit, revise, and correct these tournament pages extensively, as much as needed. I promise you that everyone will thank you for it, myself included. |
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Feb-20-15
 | | jessicafischerqueen:
<Peter> I've always thought so, but you are one classy gentleman. It's you and <Benzol> and <Phony Benoni> who put in over 20 million man hours to dig up the information and create the first real tournament record online, anywhere. You are most certainly a "real" historian- a pioneering historian. |
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| Feb-20-15 | | Nosnibor: <suenteus po 147> Thankyou for your magnificient work in compiling this event. With regard to the introduction it should be mentioned that Charousek made his international debut in the same year,Nuremberg 1896 and this event followed on within two months of that. |
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| Feb-20-15 | | suenteus po 147: <Nosnibor> I appreciate your great compliment. I have made the requested change to the write-up. |
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| Feb-20-15 | | zanzibar: <sp147> Funny you should mention <thomastonk>, he also took me to task a couple of time. I miss him and hope he's doing well. I'm fairly new to <CG> (certainly when compared to some of the "lifers"), and so I'm unfamiliar with all of your efforts. But I certainly concur with <jfq>'s sentiments about you, <Benzol>, <phony> and others who pioneered the effort. At the time when I first came on board, you weren't active on <CG> - so <suenteus_po_147> was more of a legend to me, a legend of heroic proportion that only grew as I discovered more and more of your work. You brought order out of chaos.
Having done a few collections myself, I fully realize the tremendous effort involved. It's not easy putting together a substantial collection on <CG>, and it gets even hard if trying to fill out the missing games while keeping it organized. Your prodigious efforts are certainly appreciated by many of us. Of course, like Odysseus, you've returned to Ithaca. And perhaps your welcome was a little lacking - ha! But the work continues...
I'm glad you acknowledge the need for this continued work, and express your appreciation in return. * * * * *
Now, do you have any idea of where the bio info about Maróczy as organizer came from? I'm digging a little bit more into this tournament, and after reading the BCM report still haven't found any leads. |
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| Feb-20-15 | | suenteus po 147: <zanzibar> I'm afraid that whatever the sources were that I consulted for this tournament, I've forgotten them. My laptop was stolen last spring and it was the singular storage space for all my PGNs, bookmarks, and links for all the online research I did for these tournament collections. Perhaps <jess> knows? When I credit someone in the intro, it's because they've usually provided critical print sources to which I do not have access. All I do know is that a detail like Maróczy as organizer was something I read <somewhere> or something that <someone> told me at some point. I wouldn't have included it otherwise. |
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| Feb-20-15 | | zanzibar: <sp> I understand. And sorry about the laptop - they become much more valuable than the mere cost of replacing the equipment. Of course, a hard-disk failure could also amount to the same. I try to use a thumb-drive to back up every month or more (when I'm being responsible). |
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Feb-20-15
| | jessicafischerqueen:
<Z>, <Peter> Good Heavens- I do remember a source for some of the information in this bio- It's <Charushin's> biography of <Charousek>. I have this book "in theory", meaning that I have to find it. I haven't looked at it for almost three years. I have more than a thousand chess history books, and they are generally organized in piles around my bed, in boxes, on the floor, in non-alphabetical order on external hard drives, and in the pockets of old coats. Once I couldn't locate my copy of Cafferty and Taimanov's history of the USSR Championships for several days. And no wonder! I had been using it as a mouse pad.
I will hunt down the Charousek biography, and then I can footnote the parts of the bio that came from this work. |
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Feb-20-15
| | jessicafischerqueen:
Aha- now it's coming back to me. I had been reading the Charousek biography in order to construct this video slide show, "Charousek- the new Morphy": https://www.youtube.com/playlist?li... <Annie K> contributed a great deal of material for this video, and did research on Hungarian chess too. We passed Peter information for the Budapest (1896) intro at the same time I made the video, so Annie might remember or even have some sources for some of the information in the intro. Peter do you remember? You offered Annie and I a "gift games collection" to thank us for helping with the <Budapest> intro. We chose Bucharest (1954), and you indeed created that tournament collection. I also passed you information for that intro from two books I have on Rashid Nezhmetdinov. If I can also locate those two books, then I can footnote and source some of the information in that intro. |
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| Feb-20-15 | | suenteus po 147: <jessicafischerqueen> I won't soon forget putting together Bucharest (1954) for you and <Annie>. It was a big one, but very enjoyable work, especially because you gave me the resources to turn it into an interesting story. I wish all the tournament collections I made turned out as well as that one. |
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| Jul-02-16 | | zanzibar: An important post about the history of this tournament: Tarrasch vs Albin, 1896 (kibitz #4) |
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Feb-08-18
 | | mifralu: <zanzibar>
<<Semyon Alapin withdrew at the last minute....>
and Gyula Makovetz
Source: Neue Hamburger Zeitung / 07 Oct 1896/ Page 6 |
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Aug-31-18
 | | jnpope: Does anyone know the source of the claim that Tarrasch won a brilliancy prize for Popiel-Tarrasch. I have found no evidence of such a prize being offered during the tournament. It doesn't show up in the Deutsche Schachzeitung, British Chess Magazine or any newspaper source I have access to for 1896. Nor could I find it being belatedly awarded in 1897. And it is not mentioned in Maroczy's book of the tournament. Tarrasch did win the special prize offered for having the best score against the prize winners, but that's the only prize I've found him winning from this event. |
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| Aug-31-18 | | zanzibar: <jnpope> this probably isn't too informative - but <suenteus po 147> once told me more of his material can from van Reek, but he doesn't seem to cover this tournament (see Wayback - https://web.archive.org/web/2003080... - sad to see his old website no longer works). I do see <JFQ>'s name mentioned, perhaps she can shed some insight. Here is mention of Tarrasch winning a special prize: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/191... Does anybody have Owen's book?
https://www.amazon.com/Budapest-189... Aside - brief info about the Budapest Millennium: http://kossuthfoundation.org/index.... |
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| Aug-31-18 | | zanzibar: *more of his material* = most of his material. |
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| Aug-31-18 | | zanzibar: <jnpope> RE: Budapest Prizes https://books.google.com/books?id=Z... which mentions, unlike the above intro, the monetary amounts of the tournament prizes. Tarrasch won 200 crowns for his best-score against top-5. |
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Aug-31-18
| | jnpope: <z>, the BCM also says "200", but the DSZ and the tournament book give "100". The Literary Digest probably used the BCM article, which I presume was a typo? https://books.google.com/books?id=k... |
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Aug-31-18
| | jnpope: The 7th place prize is listed as being 200 Kronen and I doubt they would make the value of the Special Prize for best score against the prize winners the same amount as one of the main prizes. |
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| Aug-31-18 | | zanzibar: <jnpope> quite likely, indeed. It seems clear the claim of the von Popiel--Tarrasch brilliancy prize was a mistake. The question is, where did it originate? Aside - how does <CG> determine the ordering for the Tarrasch games? Budapest (1896)/Siegbert Tarrasch It should be done by round, but it isn't. |
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Sep-01-18
 | | Sally Simpson: The von Popiel-Tarrasch game is not in Reinfeld's 'Tarrasch's Best Games.' The confusion may have come from how the result was printed in some quarters. In 'Charousek's Games of Chess' by Sergeant (page 40) It states:
"A special prize was awarded to Tarrasch (6)"
The '(6)' refers to the number of points Tarrasch won. With no other details about what a 'special prize' was, someone has perhaps took this for his round 6 win v von Popiel and it ran on from there. |
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