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Savielly Tartakower
Tartakower 
 

Number of games in database: 1,522
Years covered: 1905 to 1955
Overall record: +581 -275 =624 (60.3%)*
   * Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games in the database. 42 exhibition games, blitz/rapid, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

MOST PLAYED OPENINGS
With the White pieces:
 Queen's Pawn Game (84) 
    A46 A45 D02 D01 D00
 Sicilian (65) 
    B20 B30 B40 B21 B89
 French Defense (63) 
    C00 C01 C11 C13 C15
 French (40) 
    C00 C11 C13 C12 C10
 English (39) 
    A15 A18 A13 A16 A10
 Bird's Opening (38) 
    A03 A02
With the Black pieces:
 Sicilian (82) 
    B29 B40 B28 B43 B41
 Queen's Pawn Game (67) 
    A46 D02 A40 A50 D00
 Caro-Kann (58) 
    B15 B13 B10 B12 B18
 Orthodox Defense (57) 
    D63 D55 D57 D58 D50
 Dutch Defense (54) 
    A84 A90 A81 A95 A91
 French Defense (52) 
    C11 C01 C13 C10 C04
Repertoire Explorer

NOTABLE GAMES: [what is this?]
   Maroczy vs Tartakower, 1922 0-1
   Tartakower vs R Domenech, 1934 1-0
   Tartakower vs R Frentz, 1933 1-0
   Tartakower vs Schlechter, 1909 1-0
   M Lowcki vs Tartakower, 1937 0-1
   Tartakower vs Rubinstein, 1925 1-0
   O Bernstein vs Tartakower, 1937 0-1
   Tartakower vs J Mieses, 1925 1-0
   Spielmann vs Tartakower, 1923 0-1
   P Johner vs Tartakower, 1928 0-1

NOTABLE TOURNAMENTS: [what is this?]
   Vienna (1923)
   Nice (1930)
   Hastings 1945/46 (1945)
   Baden-bei-Wien (1914)
   Vienna (1922)
   Barcelona (1929)
   Polish Championship (1937)
   Teplitz-Schonau (1922)
   Southsea (1949)
   Semmering (1926)
   Prague Olympiad (1931)
   Ostend Masters (1907)
   Vienna (1908)
   Karlsbad (1911)
   Karlsbad (1907)

GAME COLLECTIONS: [what is this?]
   0ZeR0's collected games volume 55 by 0ZeR0
   My Best Games of Chess, 1905-1954 by Tartakower by suenteus po 147
   "My Best Games of Chess, 1905-1954" by Littlejohn
   My Best Games of Chess, 1905-1954 by Tartakower by Chessdreamer
   My Best Games of Chess (Tartakower) by Qindarka
   The t_t Players: The 1900s rok by fredthebear
   0ZeR0's collected games volume 54 by 0ZeR0
   sk.sen's favorite games .. by sk.sen
   LJ.Davison's favorite games by LJ.Davison
   Bled 1931 international tournament by cuendillar
   Bled 1931 by JoseTigranTalFischer
   Bled 1931 by Benzol

GAMES ANNOTATED BY TARTAKOWER: [what is this?]
   Alekhine vs Rubinstein, 1912
   Rubinstein vs Spielmann, 1912
   Bogoljubov vs Rubinstein, 1920
   J Mieses vs Rubinstein, 1912
   Rubinstein vs O Bernstein, 1911


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SAVIELLY TARTAKOWER
(born Feb-21-1887, died Feb-05-1956, 68 years old) Russia

[what is this?]

Savielly Grigoriewitsch Tartakower was born in Russia and moved to Vienna at age 17. He became a doctor of law in 1909, but he never became a practicing lawyer(1). During World War I, he served in the Austro-Hungarian army. In 1918, after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I, he became a Polish citizen (although he did not speak Polish) and moved to Paris. He became a French citizen after World War II.

He won Vienna (1923), Hastings (1926/27), London (1927) (shared with Aron Nimzowitsch), Hastings (1927/28), Scarborough (1929) (shared with Harold Saunders), Liege (1930), and Hastings (1945/46). He also won the Polish championship twice (1935 and 1937) and the French championship at age 66, in 1953. In the 1930s Tartakower represented Poland in six chess olympiads, and France in 1950, winning three individual medals (gold in 1931 and bronze in 1933 and 1935), as well as five team medals (gold in 1930, two silver in 1931 and 1939, and two bronze in 1935 and 1937).

Tartakower is regarded as one of the founders of the Hypermodern School of Chess, alongside Richard Reti, Nimzowitsch, and the lesser-known Gyula Breyer. He wrote many books, including The Hypermodern Game of Chess, and Modern Chess Strategy. He has made many impressions on modern opening theory; his name is attached to variations in the Caro-Kann Defense, the French Defense, the Dutch Defense, the Scotch Game, the Sicilian Defense, the Queen's Gambit Declined, and the Torre Attack, and he created the Polish Opening, a.k.a. the Orangutan Opening, 1.b4. He is also one of the 27 original grandmasters that were appointed by FIDE in 1950.

During World War II, he served in the Free French Army under General Charles de Gaulle. His French colleagues found his name too difficult to pronounce, so he changed it to Lieutenant Dr. Georges Cartier.

Tartakower was a prolific writer. In addition to chess books, he also wrote a screenplay and a collection of poems. He worked for more than 30 chess magazines in multiple countries and his newspaper correspondence appeared in 11 languages.(1)

Tartakower is also remembered for his sense of humor and his speaking ability. One of his most famous maxims is "The winner of a game is the one who has made the next to last blunder".

Wikipedia article: Savielly Tartakower

(1) "Café Central and the Life and Times of Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)" by Genna Sosonko. New In Chess 2010, No.6, pp 38-45.

Last updated: 2025-01-01 12:14:58

Try our new games table.

 page 1 of 61; games 1-25 of 1,522  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves YearEvent/LocaleOpening
1. Tartakower vs Vidmar 1-0291905ViennaB32 Sicilian
2. Tartakower vs J Schenkein  1-0281905Barmen Main B, GERC58 Two Knights
3. H Appunn vs Tartakower 0-1311905Barmen Main B, GERB01 Scandinavian
4. P Fiebig vs Tartakower ½-½601905Barmen Main B, GERB27 Sicilian
5. B Gregory vs Tartakower 0-1641905Barmen Main B, GERD45 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
6. D Hoelken vs Tartakower 0-1301905Barmen Main B, GERA80 Dutch
7. B Yankovich vs Tartakower  ½-½491905Barmen Main B, GERA03 Bird's Opening
8. H M Schaefer vs Tartakower 0-1291905Barmen Main B, GERA84 Dutch
9. D M Schapiro vs Tartakower 0-1231905Barmen Main B, GERC63 Ruy Lopez, Schliemann Defense
10. G Schories vs Tartakower 0-1501905Barmen Main B, GERC63 Ruy Lopez, Schliemann Defense
11. G Schories vs Tartakower ½-½531905Barmen Main B, GERB01 Scandinavian
12. Tartakower vs Creyghton  1-0421905Barmen Main B, GERC50 Giuoco Piano
13. Tartakower vs W Haertel 1-0261905Barmen Main B, GERC50 Giuoco Piano
14. Tartakower vs A Keller 1-0261905Barmen Main B, GERB43 Sicilian, Kan, 5.Nc3
15. Tartakower vs J Schenkein 1-0321905Barmen Main B, GERB20 Sicilian
16. Tartakower vs O Schewe 1-0331905Barmen Main B, GERC24 Bishop's Opening
17. Tartakower vs G Schories 0-1301905Barmen Main B, GERD00 Queen's Pawn Game
18. Tartakower vs O Wegemund  1-0491905Barmen Main B, GERB45 Sicilian, Taimanov
19. Tartakower vs G Schories 0-1341905Barmen Main B, GERC24 Bishop's Opening
20. Tartakower vs P Johner 1-0301906DSB-15.Kongress mB01 Scandinavian
21. Tartakower vs P Johner 1-0291906DSB-15.Kongress mC11 French
22. Tartakower vs Z Barasz  ½-½361906DSB-15.Kongress-BD55 Queen's Gambit Declined
23. G Mayer vs Tartakower 0-1261906DSB-15.Kongress-BC25 Vienna
24. J Krejcik vs Tartakower ½-½3319062nd Neumann TrophyC46 Three Knights
25. Tartakower vs Vidmar 1-02319071st Trebitsch Memorial, ViennaC12 French, McCutcheon
 page 1 of 61; games 1-25 of 1,522  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Tartakower wins | Tartakower loses  

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 8 OF 16 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Feb-02-08  Calli: Correct! Was hoping to keep <Resignation Trap> busy and out of trouble :->, but I guess the position is too easy to see. By time and place, I just meant Folkestone 1933. Tartakower defeated Alekhine, Alekhine vs Tartakower, 1933 in the second round but lost in the third against Soultanbéieff and his 25.f3? lost a pawn in the fourth round against Kashdan.
Feb-03-08  nescio: <He invented the Catalan.> <I knew Dr.Tartakower introduced the Catalan> When reading these statements I ask myself what one should call the opening in the follwing well-known games:

Vidmar vs Nimzowitsch, 1927
Ed Lasker vs Capablanca, 1926
Blackburne vs J W Baird, 1894

Pre-Catalan?

Feb-04-08  brankat: <nescio> Apparantly, Dr Tartakower was the "Godfather" of the opening as far as the name is concerned. Also, he may have done some extra work on the system, which obviously had been played before.

Pretty much the same is true with all the other openings. They had all been played in one form (line) or another, before a given opening was finally named after somebody, or something :-)

Feb-04-08  nescio: <brankat> Oh, I agree, not to mention that the name changes sometimes in the course of the years.

If you had written "Dr Tartakower introduced the name of the Catalan" I wouldn't have reacted.

I'm not that much interested in such names, but I'm probably a litle annoyed that so many people mention a name but don't give the moves. In recent weeks I have read much about the so-called anti-Moscow, but I still don't know what are the moves of the Moscow, let alone the anti.

Feb-04-08  brankat: <nescio> Some recent stuff from "Gruenfeld" page :-)

<<Tomlinsky> Re the Bio. "best known as an Openings theoretician having an opening named after him: Neo-Grunfeld Defense (D70)"

The origins of the Neo (Anti) Grunfeld should more accurately be credited to Alekhine I believe. Grunfeld himself is best known for, well, the Grunfeld Defence! (Other spellings may randomly apply) :)

<brankat> If it was E.Grunfeld that came up with the idea of the Neo-Grunfeld, then, I wonder who was the originator of the Grunfeld. Alekhine? :-) >>

Feb-04-08  nescio: <brankat> Haha, indeed, that's what I mean. I think I know the moves of the Grünfeld defence, but the neo-? the anti-?

By the way 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 is a move-order Tartakower has very rarely played with the black pieces, if at all. At least I can't remember one game in which he played it.

Feb-04-08  brankat: <nescio> That's why it is called the Grunfeld, not Tartakower Defence :-)
Feb-27-08  brankat: Happy Birthday Mr.Tartakower.
Feb-27-08  suenteus po 147: Happy birthday, Dr. Tartakower!
May-21-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  ketchuplover: There's a review of a book pertaining to the birthday boy at www.chesscafe.com
May-26-08  brankat: <ketchuplover> Thank You for the link!
Jul-04-08  whiteshark: "The sixth rank is intimidating. A piece placed on it brings fear and panic to the enemy's army."

Savielly Tartakower

Jul-04-08  corsopoet: Skipping politics, if I was going to drink a beer with somebody, and whiskyrebel, michadams and keypusher weren't around, I'd go for the hops with Taratakower. In that great book Wolfmaster mentioned, "500 Master Games of of Chess," for the first game ST and Dumont go back to 1839 to Bledow v. Von Der Lasa. For them to go back that far, you know it is going to be a great game and it is. ST's line about "All the mistakes are out there just waiting to be made" is one of my favorite lines of all time.
Aug-14-08  whiteshark: Quote of the Day

" Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders. "

-- Tartakower

Aug-18-08  whiteshark: Quote of the Day

" There are only two kinds of moves in the opening, moves which are wrong and moves which could be wrong. "

-- Tartakower

Oct-02-08  Karpova: Some excerpts from Hans Kmoch's unpublished manuscript "Grandmasters I have Known" which Burt Hochburg owned:

<He was born in Russia but as an Austrian citizen. Though his parents were Jewish, he was christened at birth, his parents having adopted Christianity some time earlier. Jews in czarist Russia took that protective step to avoid persecution, but it failed to save Tartakower’s parents, who were murdered in a pogrom in Rostov-on-Don in 1911. His brother, who at the time was also studying in Vienna, received the news while playing chess in the Cafe Central. He flew into a rage and announced that he was leaving for Russia that very day to avenge the murders of his parents. His friends held him back only with the greatest difficulty.>

<Shortly after the war started, Tartakower’s brother was killed while serving in the Austrian army on the Russian front. Only one member of the family survived, a sister in Russia. Savielly met her for the last time when she was a spectator at the great Moscow tournament in 1925.>

And regarding Dr. Tartakower and citizenships:

<The treaty of St. Germain brought independence to the nationalities of imperial Austria. The new Austria became very small, and Vienna became a metropolis made up of suburbs. The Wiener Schachklub, whose famous president had died in 1912, moved to cheaper quarters. Its home guard of masters suddenly became a group of foreigners. Tartakower became, of all things, a citizen of the Ukrainian Republic. When that new country lost its independence, his citizenship was transferred, probably as an act of clemency, to Poland. He spoke no Polish, but he knew French, a language highly esteemed but little spoken in Poland, and that made his compatriots put aside their traditional hatred of all things Russian or German and deal with him in those languages.>

<In the early 1920s, around the time that he became a Pole by citizenship, Tartakower became a Frenchman by residence. After a quarrel with his Austrian publisher, a Russian, he angrily blamed Austria for wronging him and moved to Paris, which became his permanent home.>

Source: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch...

Chesscafe Skittles Archive: http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/s... An excellent site with plenty of information on a lot of different chessplayers!

Oct-02-08  suenteus po 147: <Karpova> Thanks for the history and the link. Always love learning more about Dr. Tartakower.
Oct-19-08  Karpova: C.N. 4089 - Poetry

<From Richard Forster (Winterthur, Switzerland) and Tomasz Lissowski (Warsaw):

[...]

Voronkov further showed that, contrary to what most (Western) sources state, the pogrom in which Tartakower’s parents were killed occurred not in 1899 but in 1911 (although the infamous and best-known Jewish pogroms in Rostov took place in 1905). Tartakower refers to this in one of his own poems (our translation):

One More, The Final Dissonance

(on the death of the parents)

A whole century of surrenders, tears, and strains.

And for whom? For children, who live safe

In foreign lands. If you ask them:

“Easy life, eh, old men?”, “Yes” – they answer.

Returning home in the early morning

I took and opened the telegram: “Your parents killed.”

I hurried. I buried. The iron plates

of two bloody graves lie on my heart.>

Regarding his brother Artur: <[...] who was one year his junior and also a law student at Vienna University. He died on 19 November 1914 on the battle-ground near Katowice (in Silesia, then a part of the German Empire and nowadays in Southern Poland).’>

Source: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Nov-02-08  gambitfan: My first contact with chess was a book lent to me by my father : "Le bréviaire des échecs"

Dec-25-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  GrahamClayton: <ketchuplover>There's a review of a book pertaining to the birthday boy at www.chesscafe.com.

Ketchuplover,
Here is the review of "Moral Victories":

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/revie...

I received a copy of the book as a Christmas present from my wife. I look forward to reading it over the next few months.

Jan-29-09  Caissanist: <There are only two kinds of moves in the opening, moves which are wrong and moves which could be wrong.>

I hadn't heard this QOTD before. Funny and true.

Feb-09-09  zdigyigy: <Karpova> Good posts as usual.
Feb-27-09  YoungEd: Hooray! My favorite player is player of the day! I nver get tired of playing over his best games collection.
Feb-27-09  brankat: Born 126 years ago! Feels strange since Mr.Tartakower comes across as one of those people who seem to be forever young.

R.I.P. Savielly.

Feb-27-09  Lt.Surena: A wondefull player. I have his book 'My best games of chess 1905-1954'. It's a great commentary to his chess career.

RIP Xavier,

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