Karpova: Peter Petrovich Saburov published an interesting open letter on the All-Russian Main tournament - http://www.edochess.ca/tournaments/... - to commence on October 1911.They wanted the strongest Russian players to participate, except for winners of International and/or All-Russian Main tournaments.
Von Freymann of St. Petersburg also registered for that tournament giving the following reasons:
1) He had only participated in one International tournament - St Petersburg (1909) - and didn't reach the first third of the standings (the <Meisterdrittel>, the master third).
2) At the International mixed tournament in Cologne (1911) - http://www.edochess.ca/tournaments/... - he didn't win 1st prize.
He added that he was willing to participate even without competing for the money prizes, as he merely wanted to prove his Master class to be admitted to International Master tournaments in the future.
The reply by the St. Petersburg Chess Club board was:
1. His repeated successes
a) He was the best among the non-masters at the 5th All-Russian tournament in Lodz (1907) -http://www.edochess.ca/tournaments/... (better than Master Duz-Chotimirsky)
b) Shared 2nd-3rd place at Vilnius (1909) - http://www.edochess.ca/tournaments/... (ahead of Masters Duz-Chotimirsky and Salwe)
c) He beat Master Znosko-Borovsky in a match in 1911
d) At Cologne (1911, see above) he shared place with Master Rotlewi, remaining just 1/2 behind winner Lowcki - he was even regarded as the "moral victor", forfeiting a game as he came too late. So he doesn't need to prove anymore that he is a Master.
2. The Lodz (1907), Vilnius (1909), several local competitions around St. Petersburg and the Cologne (1911) tournament demonstrated that von Freymann is quite as strong as the Masters Rotlewi, Salwe, Duz-Chotimirsky, Znosko-Borovsky, Levenfish and Rabinovich.
3. His Mastership is also being recognised abroad, as a) the Cologne committee was first not sure whether to admit him or not and later decided to admit him and other foreign Masters. b) The Carlsbad committee didn't have anything against his participation - only the great number of registrations and the fact that he wanted to play in Cologne (the Carlsbad committee didn't want that) led to him not being admitted. c) Von Freymann is part of the list of participants of the planned New York Master tournament.
So the board decided
1. to not admit von Freymann as a Master to the Main tournament.
2. to publish their decision to enable von Freymann to participate in International Master tournaments as we wish that also.
St. Petersburg, September 19 / October 2, 1911.
Source: Pages 319-320 of the September-October 1911 'Wiener Schachzeitung'
Kibitzing
