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TOURNAMENT STANDINGS
Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96 Tournament

Max Weiss15.5/22(+12 -3 =7)[games]
Carl Schlechter15.5/22(+10 -1 =11)[games]
Berthold Englisch15/22(+12 -4 =6)[games]
Georg Marco14/22(+11 -5 =6)[games]
Jacques Schwarz13/22(+11 -7 =4)[games]
Alexander Halprin11.5/22(+7 -6 =9)[games]
Max Judd11/22(+10 -10 =2)[games]
Adolf Zinkl9.5/22(+7 -10 =5)[games]
Adolf Albin9/22(+6 -10 =6)[games]
Leopold Horwitz7.5/22(+5 -12 =5)[games]
Albert Mandelbaum7.5/22(+5 -12 =5)[games]
Franz Fenzl3/22(+1 -17 =4)[games]
*

Chessgames.com Chess Event Description
Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96

Vienna, Austria (15 December 1895-30 April 1896)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Score Place/Prizes ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— 1 Weiss •• 1½ ½½ 10 ½1 ½1 11 01 ½1 ½1 11 01 15½ 1st* 200ƒ 2 Schlechter 0½ •• ½1 ½1 ½1 ½½ 11 ½½ 11 1½ ½1 1½ 15½ 2nd 125ƒ 3 Englisch ½½ ½0 •• 10 11 1½ 11 01 1½ 11 10 1½ 15 3rd 100ƒ 4 Marco 01 ½0 01 •• ½½ 1½ 11 11 ½0 11 ½0 11 14 4th 75ƒ 5 Schwarz ½0 ½0 00 ½½ •• 10 10 11 11 10 11 11 13 5th 50ƒ 6 Halprin ½0 ½½ 0½ 0½ 01 •• ½½ 0½ 01 11 1½ 11 11½ 7 Judd 00 00 00 00 01 ½½ •• 10 11 11 11 11 11 8 Zinkl 10 ½½ 10 00 00 1½ 01 •• ½0 ½0 01 11 9½ 9 Albin ½0 00 0½ ½1 00 10 00 ½1 •• 1½ 01 1½ 9 10 Horwitz ½0 0½ 00 00 01 00 00 ½1 0½ •• ½1 11 7½ 11 Mandelbaum 00 ½0 01 ½1 00 0½ 00 10 10 ½0 •• 1½ 7½ 12 Fenzl 10 0½ 0½ 00 00 00 00 00 0½ 00 0½ •• 3 ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— * Weiss received the higher prize because he had more wins than Schlechter.


Notes
Each player was also awarded 10ƒ (florin) for each win.

Link to tournament book here:
https://cdm16014.contentdm.oclc.org...

Missing Games
Ordered by Round, Board and Pairing:
1.2 Fenzl-Mandelbaum
1.5 Schwarz-Schlechter
2.1 Horwitz-Halprin
2.6 Mandelbaum-Marco
3.6 Marco-Judd
6.4 Schlechter-Mandelbaum
6.5 Judd-Halprin
8.3 Fenzl-Judd
8.6 Horwitz-Marco
12.6 Marco-Fenzl
18.6 Halprin-Marco

Sources
(1) Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 3 May 1896, page 440
(2) The Chess Monthly, 1895-96, page 293.

 page 1 of 5; games 1-25 of 121  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves YearEvent/LocaleOpening
1. Albin vs L Horwitz  1-0541895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96D00 Queen's Pawn Game
2. A Zinkl vs Halprin  1-0471895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C49 Four Knights
3. M Weiss vs M Judd 1-0511895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense
4. Englisch vs G Marco  1-0461895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C77 Ruy Lopez
5. A Zinkl vs M Weiss 1-0231895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C42 Petrov Defense
6. Englisch vs M Judd 1-0391895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C23 Bishop's Opening
7. Albin vs Schlechter  0-1731895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C53 Giuoco Piano
8. F Fenzl vs J Schwarz  0-1421895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96B01 Scandinavian
9. Englisch vs A Zinkl 0-1521895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C01 French, Exchange
10. Halprin vs Schlechter  ½-½361895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96D05 Queen's Pawn Game
11. A Mandelbaum vs J Schwarz  0-1461895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96D02 Queen's Pawn Game
12. L Horwitz vs M Weiss  ½-½541895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C77 Ruy Lopez
13. Albin vs F Fenzl  1-0291895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C77 Ruy Lopez
14. F Fenzl vs Englisch  0-1691895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C51 Evans Gambit
15. A Zinkl vs L Horwitz  ½-½531895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C42 Petrov Defense
16. M Weiss vs A Mandelbaum 1-0621895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C42 Petrov Defense
17. J Schwarz vs Halprin  1-0301895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense
18. Schlechter vs M Judd  1-0601895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C11 French
19. Albin vs G Marco  ½-½451895Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C53 Giuoco Piano
20. J Schwarz vs Albin  1-0551896Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C80 Ruy Lopez, Open
21. Schlechter vs Englisch  ½-½301896Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C77 Ruy Lopez
22. M Judd vs L Horwitz  1-0551896Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C66 Ruy Lopez
23. Halprin vs A Mandelbaum  1-0851896Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96D02 Queen's Pawn Game
24. A Zinkl vs G Marco  0-1401896Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C49 Four Knights
25. A Zinkl vs Albin ½-½641896Vienna Chess Society Winter 1895/96C77 Ruy Lopez
 page 1 of 5; games 1-25 of 121  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2)  

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 2 OF 2 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Apr-03-20  chesshistoryinterest: <Tabanus>

Re discussion on the Biographer Bistro:

I have added the crosstable here.

I went through all 121 games you had to check the results and the order within the pairs of results. Gaige/Di Felice had Englisch-Zinkl as win, then loss, but the games you have say that Englisch lost in Round 3 and won in Round 20. So I changed the Gaige/Di Felice order to loss, then win. Also, the correct order of Horwitz-Mandelbaum is draw (Round 11), then win to Horwitz (Round 17). All the rest looks correct.

Don't know if it matters or not, but I noticed a few of the 121 games were out of order. In case it's worth ordering them, the ones I found out of order were:

Game 1 (Judd-Mandelbaum - Round 18)

Game 21 (Weiss-Schlechter - Round 15)

Game 31 (Weiss-Fenzl - Round 5)

Game 58 (Marco-Schwarz - Round 10)

Game 59 (Weiss-Schwarz - Round 8)

Game 115 (Judd-Marco - Round 20)

Game 121 (Halprin-Horwitz - Round 21)

Gaige/Di Felice give the dates of the tournament as 15 December 1895 - 30 April 1896. Your Round 1 date agrees with their starting date. Your last round (round 22) date is 26 April 1896. Possibly adjournments/postponements extended the tournament to 30 April 1896. I do not have the material to check whether this is correct or not.

Apr-03-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: <chi> The xtab looks great. And the points sum up right.

Please just correct the dates + rd. numbers. Perhaps with approval first from the one who dug out the games! I suppose you can use the Winter-Turnier book, at https://cdm16014.contentdm.oclc.org...

Apr-03-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  jnpope: In regard to the event ending date... the game date field only accepts one date so 4/26 is the start date of the games in the last round. I have not researched any postponement and adjournment days so the event may have run until 4/30 (or that was a best guess for an end date by crosstable researchers).
Apr-03-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  Telemus: <jnpope> I oppened the game which is currently the last one: Halprin vs Leopold Horwitz, 1896. Is [Date "1896.12.19"] correct?

I also spotted two PGN inaccuracies: [EventDate "1895.12.15"] appears at the fourth tag pair. That's not allowed. The PGN standard from which I quoted already today in the bistro has:

"For export format, the STR tag pairs appear before any other tag pairs."

The STR is the Seven Tag Rooster, i.e. Event, Site, Date, Round, White, Black, and Result tag pairs. Their order is fixed, too, and in this game the Result tag pair appears before the White and Black tag pairs.

Apr-03-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  jnpope: The date should be 4/19 to Halprin-Horwitz (looks like I messed that up when I first entered the game as it is wrong in my original ChessBase file also).

As for the PGN tags... well, I just added the EventDate and Source tag locations based upon examples I saw in the CG data. ChessBase 6 doesn't create/support those tags when it generates PGN data so I've been adding the new tag data in manually. I'll try to make sure I add them below the sacred 7 to comply with the PGN spec.

Apr-03-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  jnpope: <Don't know if it matters or not, but I noticed a few of the 121 games were out of order. In case it's worth ordering them, the ones I found out of order were:
Game 1 (Judd-Mandelbaum - Round 18)
Game 21 (Weiss-Schlechter - Round 15)
Game 31 (Weiss-Fenzl - Round 5)
Game 58 (Marco-Schwarz - Round 10)
Game 59 (Weiss-Schwarz - Round 8)
Game 115 (Judd-Marco - Round 20)
Game 121 (Halprin-Horwitz - Round 21) >

The order of the games on CG appears to be a database retrieval artifact (I have no idea how they order games in their select statement). The games are in round.board order in my PGN file...

Apr-03-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: Games are sorted by date in CG. Games with same date will order randomly, or in different order each time one refreshes the page. However, if one makes a game collection, the games in it can have the order that one gives them.
Apr-03-20  chesshistoryinterest: Hmm, just noticed this, too. The games above are out of order by round. Looking through, I've found either a problem with the date of the game, or else the game must have been postponed and played on another day.

Game 1: Date clearly wrong. Given as 29 March 1895. Should be 29 March 1896 (the date of Round 18).

Game 21: Month of date not given. Should be March. (Date of Round 15 was 15 March 1896).

Game 31: Date of game given as 10 January 1896. But Round 5 was on 5 January 1896. Error or postponement?

Game 58: Date of game given as 14 February 1896. But Round 10 was on 2 February 1896. Error or postponement?

Game 59: Date of game given as 20 February 1896. But Round 8 was on 19 January 1896. Error or postponement?

Game 115: Date of game given as 24 April 1896. But Round 20 was on 12 April 1896. Error or postponement?

Game 121: Date of game given as 19 December 1896. Should be 19 April 1896 (the date of Round 21). As determined above in response to <Telemus> query.

I found one or two other problems with the PGN's too. For example, one or two don't give the 'EventDate', whereas most do give this (15 December 1895). Probably every PGN needs to be checked to make sure it's ok.

<Tabanus> Thanks for link to book. Unfortunately every page opens very slowly, so will take me hours to go through it unless I can speed it up. Also in German which I can't read. So will make it difficult for me to deceipher things like postponements or end date of tournament.

Apr-03-20  chesshistoryinterest: I'm presuming the eleven missing games here are missing from the tournament book?
Apr-03-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: I don't know. I found the 11 game results by calculation only.

Yes lots of work to go though that book. Which is why I'll return to my 21st century events for now :)

Apr-03-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  Telemus: Max Weiss vs Schlechter, 1896 : In the PGN there should be a space character between the last move and the result.
Apr-03-20  chesshistoryinterest: <jnpope> <In regard to the event ending date... the game date field only accepts one date so 4/26 is the start date of the games in the last round. I have not researched any postponement and adjournment days so the event may have run until 4/30 (or that was a best guess for an end date by crosstable researchers).>

Yes, 26 April 1896 is the correct date to enter in the PGN for the last round games. I asked the question, so as to make it possible to give the dates for the tournament in the introduction. Possibly the tournament book would say?

Regarding the crosstable researchers, I regard Gaige as very reliable and Di Felice not so. (In the instance here, Di Felice would almost certainly have just copied Gaige's material). In 'Chess Tournament Crosstables 1851-1900', Gaige did not give day/month dates. But later, in 'Chess Tournaments - A Checklist 1849-1950', he did. But as this latter book was only a summary, his source for these dates is not given. I'm pretty sure that Gaige was not into "best guessing". If he didn't definitely know the date, he would leave it blank or give it a question mark to say he wasn't sure. So his end date of 30 April 1896 is probably reliable and can probably be accepted here if other information on it cannot be found.

(I remember you some months ago querying Di Felice's 'Chess Results 1747-1900' and wondering whether to bin it. This was the first and, I think, the worst of his volumes and it badly needs revision. Parts of the reviews on it at the time (eg Taylor Kingston) were scathing. But not totally. Apparently he did find a little bit of good new material. So the general verdict was, despite the flaws, encouragement to him to keep going. He did, and I'm glad he did. The subsequent volumes were better, though still with significant problems. It was disturbing that sometimes he would seemingly just invent things. Eg, he called the great Moscow 1936 tournament "Leningrad-Moscow 1936". Incredible. And despite much, and sustained, criticism on the issue right from his first volume, he wouldn't include sources until the 1941-1946 volume. Hard to understand. So pretty much an indispensable finding aid, but to be used with caution (my opinion anyway).)

Apr-03-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  jnpope: Ok, I did some verification checks on the issues pointed out:

Game 1 (Judd-Mandelbaum - R18) fixed in file to 1896.03.29

Game 21 (Weiss-Schlechter - R15) fixed in file to 1896.03.15

Game 31 (Weiss-Fenzl - R5) checked TB, it is actually 1896.01.16 (Donnerstag=Thursday)!

Game 58 (Marco-Schwarz - R10) confirmed as 1896.02.14 (Freitag=Friday)

Game 59 (Weiss-Schwarz - R8) confirmed as 1896.02.20 (Donnerstag=Thursday)

Game 115 (Judd-Marco - R20) confirmed as 1896.02.24 (Freitag=Friday)

Game 121 (Halprin-Horwitz - R21) fixed in file to 1896.04.19

What little coverage given in the book is in Fraktur so I haven't been able to determine why certain games were played later than other games from the same round, but being this was a club event with rounds being played weekly instead of daily there was probably a lot of wiggle room between players on when they would actually meet.

This should now be a "compliant with the PGN standards" file: http://www.chessarch.com/archive/ti...
Apr-03-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  jnpope: Something is still wrong as those Fridays cannot be 10 days apart... I'll check over those two again tomorrow morning.
Apr-04-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  jnpope: Game 115 (Judd-Marco - R20) confirmed as 1896.04.24 (Freitag=Friday)

I really need to stop typing after 10pm...

Apr-04-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  offramp: It must have been a relief every day for these benighted chess players to leave their frozen hovels and spend a day in a plush chess club talking to old friends.

Staring out of the window at the snow falling on the plebs in the streets; laughing as they think of their wives and kids still shivering and starving in their Charlie Bucket-like house.

Apr-05-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  mifralu: Weiss won on tiebreak of < more wins > ahead of Schlechter.

should be

Weiss received the higher price because he had
< fewer draws. (Weiss =7, Schlechter =11) >

http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/a...

Corrections:

Max Weiss vs Schlechter, 1896 32. ...Kg7 ½-½

Date missing --> 1896.03.15
[Event "Vienna Chess Society Winter Tournament"] --> 1895/96

Albin vs Leopold Horwitz, 1895

[Event "Vienna Chess Society Winter Tournament"] --> 1895/96 [EventDate "?"] --> "1895.12.15"
[Black "L Horwitz"] --> Leopold

_______________________________________

[Event "Vienna Chess Society Winter Tournament"] --> 1895/96 not in these games:
A Zinkl vs Halprin, 1895 A Zinkl vs Max Weiss, 1895 Englisch vs A Zinkl, 1895

Apr-05-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: I edited the dates. While waiting for jnpope to become editor..

Note that "Game 1" etc. no longer apply, since the games are now sorted according to the new dates.

Apr-08-20  chesshistoryinterest: <mifralu> Thanks for correction re tiebreak (and the link). I have corrected the note under the crosstable.

I also checked the crosstable against the one in the link you gave. All results match, including the order of the Englisch-Zinkl games:)

Apr-08-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  Telemus: <chesshistoryinterest, mifralu: tie break>

If think it is obvious that the tiebreaks "fewer draws" and "more wins" are mathematically equivalent, and thus it is only a matter of formulation. The official rule was as follows:

"12. Die gewonnene Parte wird als ganzer [sic] die remis [sic] als halber Zähler gerechnet und danach die Reihenfolge der Preisträger bestimmt. Wenn am Schlusse des Turniers 2 oder mehrere Spieler den gleichen Turnierstand aufweisen, so hat derjenige den Vorrang, <der die meisten ganzen Zähler erreicht hat>. Sollten ihre Leistungen auch in dieser Beziehung gleich sein, so werden die betreffenden Preise geteilt."

So, "more wins" is the better formulation.

This can be found here: https://cdm16014.contentdm.oclc.org... (see page 10 of the numbering of the Cleveland Public Library).

Maybe it is a good idea to include the link into the tournament introduction.

Apr-10-20  chesshistoryinterest: <Telemus> Thanks - I agree with you; and personally, this is my preferred way of saying it. <Tabanus> has already made this adjustment in the introduction.

Following your suggestion, I have added the link into the tournament introduction.

Mar-03-24  stone free or die: While researching Zinkl's tournaments I came across a contemporaneous recap of the tournament ending in <Neues Wiener Tagblatt - 1896-05-03 p51>.

It was a bit tedious to translate, largely due to the poor OCR at anno (which is a wonderful site, but they got their site up running before most everyone else - with the drawback that the OCR wasn't as good as today's - and they haven't updated it).

It's long but I'll include it in full, it even ties into the most draws / fewest win digression:

<

The chess tournament in the Vienna Chess Society.

This intellectual competition is now over. First prize went to Max Weiß with 15½ points, second prize went to C. Schlechter (15½), third prize went to B. Englisch (15), fourth prize went to Georg Mareo (14) and fifth prize went to Jacques Schwarz (18). The standings of the remaining participants are: Halprin (11½), Judd (11), Zintl (9½), Albin (9), Horwitz and Mandelbaum (ie 7½), Fenzl 3 points. —- The prizes offered were: 200 fl., 125, 100, 75 and 50 fl. In addition, everyone received 10 fl. for each game won.

— Although Schlechter had reached the same level with White, he was awarded first prize after Weiss had fewer drawn games or worse, which according to the statutes was decisive in such a case. White, the winner of this tournament, the prizewinner of the great New York tournament, a well-known figure in the chess world, has achieved a fine, if difficult, success, despite being harassed in the hardest way by Schlechter and English. Max Weiss's game is very safe and correct, so he rarely allows himself to be tempted into combinations, just as a master who plays correctly and confidently avoids these combinations in most cases. What is astonishing is Weiss's tenacity, to which he owes a large part of his success. He rarely lost a game that was favorable to him, but often, through his persistence, he decided games that were unfavorable to him in his favor.

— The second prize winner Carl Schlechter, who came to the fore through his successes in the Hastings tournament in 1895, also gave evidence of his high talent in this tournament and gave rise to the highest hopes. His playing is characterized by great accuracy and considerable ability to combine. He knows how to interpret a weakness in the opponent's position until he is completely destroyed! Those who see Schlechter as a draw player will find further proof of their view in this tournament by the large number of draw games he achieved. However, I don't tend to agree with this view and see him as more of an attacking player who still needs development.

— The third prize winner, Berthold Englisch, the winner in so many tournaments, has recently given evidence of his extraordinary playing ability. He probably played the most brilliantly in this tournament and held the lead for the longest time, so it seemed like he would win first prize. His game is characterized by extraordinary sharpness, his combinations and enormous resistance to sliding in unfavorable positions.

— Georg Marco, also a fighter from Hastings, the winner of the chess society's last tournament, was only able to finish fourth this time due to a mishap. Until the penultimate round he was ahead of everyone and had every chance of winning first or second prize. In the penultimate round he lost a fairly even game against Mandelbaum and his fate was sealed. His game is characterized by great correctness, precise knowledge of theory and a rare fine treatment of the end game. He is completely equal to the winners.

— The fifth prize winner Jacques Schwarz, also a winner in several tournaments, is one of the most lively attacking players among the Viennese masters and, thanks to his rich combination skills, he has highlighted many a beautiful game in particular: Halprin, Judd, Albin and Zinkl. Halprin had an excellent result and excited everyone by playing just as brilliantly as Albin and Albin played with great success; Albin, who only gave samples of his playing at Hastings, did not achieve greater success. Zinkl seems to have played below his playing standard in this tournament. It is regrettable that Dr. Meitner had to withdraw from the tournament due to health concerns.

>

https://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/...

Mar-03-24  stone free or die: One item from the article not mentioned in the tournament description above is the participation of Dr. Meitner - likely forgotten because he dropped out.

Still, it should be mentioned.

Mar-03-24  BarakSaltz: In 1896, Vienna hosted a quadrangular/Viererkampf tournament featuring Englisch, Marco, Schlechter, and Weiss.

In Dutch, quadrangular/Viererkampf is vierkamp. In 1970, Leiden hosted a quadrangular/vierkamp featuring Botvinnik, Donner, Larsen, and Spassky.

Here is a Dutch-language video on the event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39y...

Mar-03-24  stone free or die: The Viennese Quad can be found over on <EDOchess>

http://www.edochess.ca/tournaments/...

* * * * *

A deft turn of the phrase makes the 1970 tournament connection - I suppose. Let me check if <CG> has a tournament page for it, hold on...

Yes, here it is...

Oegstgeest (1970)

Follow ups over there.

search thread:   
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