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Karlsbad (1911) The second (1) international chess master tournament (Karlsbad (1907) preceded it and Karlsbad (1923) was the third in this series) held in the health resort of Karlsbad (located in present day Czech Republic) was conducted from August 20 to September 24, 1911. The opening ceremony was held in the Kurhaus. Twenty-six chess masters were invited to participate in the enormous round robin tournament. Among the players were established masters such as Akiba Rubinstein, Carl Schlechter, and Frank James Marshall, as well as younger stars such as Alexander Alekhine, Aron Nimzowitsch, and George Rotlewi. As the tournament went on and the grueling schedule of games took its toll on the players, the expected names emerged as leaders with one noticeable addition: Richard Teichmann! From Teichmann's return to international play in 1902 (after having lost the use of his right eye to an infection) to 1910 he had drawn many games due to poor health, which earned him so many fifth place prizes that he was known as "Richard the Fifth." In 1911, however, Teichmann received a small inheritance from his mother that provided him more leisure time to focus during ongoing tournaments without having to work at the same time. This tournament proved to be Teichmann's greatest international achievement. He earned clear first over the massive field, including victories against shared seconds Rubinstein and Schlechter and fourth place Rotlewi. The final standings and crosstable: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Pts 1 Teichmann * 1 1 1 ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 0 1 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 0 ½ ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 18 =2 Rubinstein 0 * ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 1 0 ½ 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 1 1 1 17 =2 Schlechter 0 ½ * 0 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 0 1 ½ 1 1 1 1 1 0 ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 17 4 Rotlewi 0 ½ 1 * 1 1 0 0 1 ½ 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 16 =5 Marshall ½ 1 ½ 0 * ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 1 0 1 ½ 1 0 1 1 1 15½ =5 Nimzowitsch 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ * ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ 1 1 1 ½ ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 1 1 15½ 7 Vidmar ½ ½ ½ 1 1 ½ * 0 ½ 1 0 1 ½ 0 1 ½ 1 0 0 ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 1 1 15 =8 Leonhardt ½ 0 0 1 ½ 1 1 * ½ 0 1 ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 1 ½ 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 13½ =8 Tartakower 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ 1 ½ ½ * 1 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 13½ =8 Duras 1 0 1 ½ 0 1 0 1 0 * 0 0 ½ 1 0 0 ½ 1 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 13½ =8 Alekhine 0 0 0 1 ½ ½ 1 0 1 1 * 0 0 1 ½ 1 0 ½ 0 0 1 1 1 1 ½ 1 13½ 12 Spielmann 0 1 ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 1 * 0 1 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 0 0 1 0 13 13 Perlis ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 * ½ 1 ½ 1 1 0 1 ½ 0 0 0 0 1 12 =14 Cohn ½ 0 0 1 ½ 0 1 1 ½ 0 0 0 ½ * ½ ½ 1 0 1 1 0 0 ½ 1 1 0 11½ =14 Levenfish ½ 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 ½ 1 ½ 0 0 ½ * 1 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 1 1 0 1 0 11½ =14 Süchting 0 ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 1 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 * 1 1 0 ½ 0 1 ½ 1 1 1 11½ =17 Burn 1 0 0 1 ½ ½ 0 0 1 ½ 1 ½ 0 0 0 0 * 0 ½ 1 ½ 1 1 1 0 0 11 =17 Salwe ½ 0 1 0 0 0 1 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ 0 1 ½ 0 1 * 1 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ 11 =19 Johner ½ 0 ½ 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 ½ 1 ½ 0 * ½ 1 0 1 1 0 0 10½ =19 Rabinovich ½ ½ 0 0 0 0 ½ 1 0 ½ 1 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ * ½ 1 ½ 0 1 1 10½ =19 Kostic 0 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 0 1 ½ ½ 0 ½ * ½ 1 1 0 1 10½ 22 Dus Chotimirsky 0 ½ 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 ½ * 1 0 0 1 10 =23 Alapin ½ 0 ½ 1 1 0 0 0 0 ½ 0 1 1 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 0 * ½ ½ 0 8½ =23 Chajes 0 0 0 0 0 0 ½ 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 ½ 0 1 0 1 ½ * 0 1 8½ =23 Fahrni 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 ½ ½ 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 ½ 1 * 0 8½ =23 Jaffe 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 ½ 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 * 8½ (1) Wikipedia article: Carlsbad 1911 chess tournament. Original collection:Game Collection: Karlsbad 1911, by User: suenteus po 147.  page 1 of 13; games 1-25 of 325  Game   Result Moves Year Event/Locale Opening 1. Alekhine vs Vidmar 1-0 38 1911 Karlsbad C49 Four Knights 2. O Chajes vs Schlechter   0-1 62 1911 Karlsbad D15 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav 3. Duras vs P S Leonhardt 1-0 70 1911 Karlsbad C77 Ruy Lopez 4. F Duz-Khotimirsky vs Tartakower 1-0 46 1911 Karlsbad D08 Queen's Gambit Declined, Albin Counter Gambit 5. H Fahrni vs Nimzowitsch 0-1 43 1911 Karlsbad B13 Caro-Kann, Exchange 6. C Jaffe vs H Suechting 0-1 48 1911 Karlsbad D02 Queen's Pawn Game 7. P Johner vs Teichmann   ½-½ 48 1911 Karlsbad D32 Queen's Gambit Declined, Tarrasch 8. Kostic vs Marshall   ½-½ 31 1911 Karlsbad D34 Queen's Gambit Declined, Tarrasch 9. Levenfish vs Salwe   ½-½ 52 1911 Karlsbad C84 Ruy Lopez, Closed 10. J Perlis vs Burn 1-0 35 1911 Karlsbad C25 Vienna 11. A Rabinovich vs E Cohn 0-1 50 1911 Karlsbad C36 King's Gambit Accepted, Abbazia Defense 12. Rotlewi vs Rubinstein ½-½ 43 1911 Karlsbad D33 Queen's Gambit Declined, Tarrasch 13. Spielmann vs Alapin 0-1 53 1911 Karlsbad C14 French, Classical 14. Alapin vs Levenfish 0-1 52 1911 Karlsbad D32 Queen's Gambit Declined, Tarrasch 15. Burn vs F Duz-Khotimirsky   1-0 43 1911 Karlsbad C63 Ruy Lopez, Schliemann Defense 16. E Cohn vs Rotlewi 1-0 53 1911 Karlsbad C84 Ruy Lopez, Closed 17. P Johner vs Spielmann 0-1 28 1911 Karlsbad A84 Dutch 18. Marshall vs Alekhine ½-½ 45 1911 Karlsbad A40 Queen's Pawn Game 19. Nimzowitsch vs A Rabinovich 1-0 46 1911 Karlsbad C46 Three Knights 20. Rubinstein vs Duras 1-0 52 1911 Karlsbad A22 English 21. Salwe vs C Jaffe   ½-½ 47 1911 Karlsbad D04 Queen's Pawn Game 22. Schlechter vs J Perlis 1-0 45 1911 Karlsbad D11 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav 23. H Suechting vs O Chajes 1-0 41 1911 Karlsbad B73 Sicilian, Dragon, Classical 24. Tartakower vs Kostic 1-0 63 1911 Karlsbad A03 Bird's Opening 25. Teichmann vs P S Leonhardt ½-½ 64 1911 Karlsbad C84 Ruy Lopez, Closed  page 1 of 13; games 1-25 of 325    REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2)   < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 4 OF 4 ·  Later Kibitzing> Jul-21-17    Howard: Who was Edo? If you mean Elo, his rating system wasn't exactly around back then. Or are you referring to Chessmetrics? Jul-21-17    perfidious: There is a site called edochess.com, or some such; another on the lines of Sonas' Chessmetrics. Sep-20-20    keypusher: <offramp: I WOULD ALSO like to ask some of the stronger players here a question.> <Without false modesty, and having looked through Hugo Süchting's games from this tournament, how do you think you would have done?> Seriously. I reckon that <FSR, <Perfidious> and a few others, would have easily achieved the halfway mark. Would anyone like to give an estimation of his or her own score as compared to Süchting's?> This is a very good question. It would be a lot of work to answer, but I’d love to hear what <perfidious> or <FSR> or others had to say. Sep-20-20    perfidious: Me? I would have finished minus in this event, unless having the tournament of my life. Sep-21-20    FSR: My self-assessment would be similar to that of <perfidious>. If I did not finish outright last, I would count it a success. Most likely I would finish outright last - I hope by not too large a margin. It is easy to criticize others' play, but everyone in this tournament was a strong player, stronger than I am. Sep-21-20    FSR: Alekhine finished +2. Spielmann finished +1. To state the obvious, these are extremely strong players, among the top players in the world. http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/... I am flattered that <offramp> thinks I would have done so well as they did. But I greatly doubt it. Sep-21-20    perfidious: Maybe I would have had more draws than Jaffe racked up at Karlsbad. (laughs) Sep-21-20    offramp: >FSR: Alekhine finished +2....> Alekhine was only 18/19. The other players are definitely famous, but you have to look at their actual games, not their reputations. Sep-21-20    FSR: <offramp> By Chessmetrics' reckoning (see link I previously gave), he was already No. 17 in the world. I realize that didn't mean as much as it does today, but I'm not nearly conceited enough to think I play better today than Alekhine did then. Sep-22-20    keypusher: <FSR: <offramp> By Chessmetrics' reckoning (see link I previously gave), he was already No. 17 in the world. I realize that didn't mean as much as it does today, but I'm not nearly conceited enough to think I play better today than Alekhine did then.> What I'd be curious to see you or <Perfidious> do -- and it would be an immense amount of work, so I'd probably say hell no if I were you -- is go through Suechting's games, all of them, and try to figure out how you stack up against him. Because he finished at -2, and Nunn at least seems to think he was probably not as good as you or Alan. Sep-22-20    perfidious: <keypusher....Because (Suechting) finished at -2, and Nunn at least seems to think he was probably not as good as you or Alan.> While I have great respect for Nunn's abilities on the 64 squares and with pen in hand, I believe he is well off the mark on this: I cannot, as stated above, imagine making a plus score against this lineup unless playing at a consistently higher level than I ever did--and my very best TPRs were in the 2500-2550 USCF range, in weekend events. These attributions of 2100 or thereabouts for Suechting's strength seem unnaturally low. Sep-23-20    FSR: <keypusher> Spending a bunch of time to try to figure out how my play stacks up against that of someone I've barely heard of from over a century ago doesn't strike me as a very productive undertaking. Sep-23-20    perfidious: Neither have I any desire to compare myself to another in such a way in what is surely an irresoluble argument; that is a cottage industry here at more rarefied levels, as is currently happening in the latest revitalisation of the <Efim Geller is one of the greatest players to never win the title> ruckus. Sep-23-20    FSR: There are tens of thousands of current players who play chess better than I. As I've indicated, I greatly doubt that we could establish that my play is as good or better than that of Süchting. But even if we could, that wouldn't show that he was a fish. It would only prove that he didn't have access to ChessBase, Stockfish, Informants and such - which we already know. Sep-23-20    keypusher: <FSR> It's definitely an unreasonable request. <As I've indicated, I greatly doubt that we could establish that my play is as good or better than that of Süchting. But even if we could, that wouldn't show that he was a fish. It would only prove that he didn't have access to ChessBase, Stockfish, Informants and such - which we already know.> It's also an unfair comparison, as you point out. All "contests" between current and former players that don't seek to somehow equalize conditions are unfair. But I nevertheless find them interesting, not least because you're comparing two known quantities, as opposed to "equalized" comparisons, where we try to figure out how good Paul Morphy, say, would be with engines and databases, which is a hopeless task. Sep-23-20    Sally Simpson: *** Hi FSR, Sorry interrupt. I used that game you played where you just moved one pawn then play the rest of your game with Knights. (you should submit it) Although it broke a golden rule that I never use blitz games, this one fitted perfectly into what I do. https://www.redhotpawn.com/chess-bl... Thank You. *** Sep-24-20    nizmo11: Regarding comments on Suechting's level of play. I got an idea to run a "blunder check" on the games of the tournament for collecting stats about the number of big mistakes made. But now I see this has already been done: Richard Forster writes in his Burn biography (p. 801): "[...] with the help of a computer all the games [of Karlsbad 1911] have been closely checked for errors by John Nunn in an attempt to make a fair comparison of past versus present masters." The reference given is: John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book, (London 1999), pp 66-86, 175-84. I, think the comment on Suechting comes from this book, but does it have any general statistics about the number of mistakes made? Sep-24-20    FSR: Glad you liked it, <Sally Simpson>. At your request, I have submitted it. I'll be surprised if they publish it. It's only a blitz game, and obviously White's play was execrable. Sep-24-20    Sally Simpson: *** Hi FSR, Of course they will publish it. It's not only a blitz game, it is THE BLITZ GAME! They have kept for posterity this 11 move blitz masterpiece Carlsen vs Caruana, 2014 so they are honour bound to publish your 11 mover. *** Sep-26-20    nizmo11: I did blunder checking on Karlsbad games for some players using Stockfish and <python-chess> chess library together <chess-artist> both downloaded from Github. (the latter with slight modification of output for gathering stats. Here "blunder" is defined as a move whose evaluation is 3.0 units lower than evaluation of the engine's top move. Errors in positions where evaluation drops but position still remains won were not counted. Also after checking the game, some moves flagged as blunders in complex positions were ignored. (The move was perhaps in-accurate, but did not really look like a blunder ) Evaluation time was short 2 seconds/move but this should be enough to discover clear errors. Running the check on couple of players . I got the following results below. based on these results, the main observatios are : Suechting's error rate (made/or received) was not exceptional, but there were a striking number of errors in Rotlewi's games. Results:, for each player it was counted: - the numbers of games where the player made at least one "blunder" during the game -the same count for his opponent, -the number of games were there were errors by either side Teichmann 3 5 18 Rubinstein 8 9 14 Schlechter 4 6 17 G. Rotlewi 9 11 8 --- Erich Cohn 4 7 14 H Suechting 8 7 14 Amos Burn 5 5 17 Mar-03-21    keypusher: <nizmo11: I did blunder checking on Karlsbad games for some players using Stockfish and <python-chess> chess library together <chess-artist> both downloaded from Github. (the latter with slight modification of output for gathering stats.> Thanks! The natural next step, if you don't mind me suggesting it, would be to carry out the same exercise for the 1993 tournament Nunn looked at. Or a more recent OTB classical tournament -- Tata, maybe. Mar-03-21    Z truth 000000010: <<nimzo> Evaluation time was short 2 seconds/move but this should be enough to discover clear errors.> Was it? I.e. did you go back and check each position flagged as a blunder? Mar-18-23    kingscrusher: Nimzovich in "My system" has 5 game examples from this tournament - maybe this is one of the more important instructive tournaments of the time. Sep-25-23    rmdalodado: Three games included in the book Great Brilliancy Prize Games of the Chess Masters (Reinfeld, 1995) were from this tournament (Duras-Cohn, Spielmann-Rubinstein and Teichmann-Schlechter). All games are won by White. Sep-26-23    rmdalodado: P.S. Correction from my previous post as upon proceeding with the review of Reinfeld's 1995 book on brilliancy prizes cited above, there is still one more game in this tournament which shared first prize with the three mentioned list, that between Tartakower-Burn. It is Black however who won this game. Jump to page #    (enter # from 1 to 4) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 4 OF 4 ·  Later Kibitzing> NOTE: Create an account today to post replies and access other powerful features which are available only to registered users. Becoming a member is free, anonymous, and takes less than 1 minute! If you already have a username, then simply login login under your username now to join the discussion. Please observe our posting guidelines: No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language. No spamming, advertising, duplicate, or gibberish posts. No vitriolic or systematic personal attacks against other members. Nothing in violation of United States law. No cyberstalking or malicious posting of negative or private information (doxing/doxxing) of members. No trolling. The use of "sock puppet" accounts to circumvent disciplinary action taken by moderators, create a false impression of consensus or support, or stage conversations, is prohibited. 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