The St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament was one of the most famous chess tournaments of the early twentieth century. It included all the leading players of the time, and was won by

World Champion A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

Emanuel Lasker Emanuel Lasker (; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Cham ...

, who came from behind to narrowly defeat future World Champion

José Raúl Capablanca José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (19 November 1888 – 8 March 1942) was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. A chess prodigy, he is widely renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play. Capabl ...

Background

The tournament was held to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the St. Petersburg Chess Society. The president of the organizing committee was

Peter Petrovich Saburov Peter Petrovich Saburov (Sabouroff) (, Saint Petersburg, Russia – 26 March 1932, Geneva, Switzerland) was a Russian diplomat, chess master and organizer, and musical composer. He was a son of Peter Alexandrovich Saburov, a diplomat and chess o ...

. Members of the committee were:

Boris Maliutin Boris Evgenievich Maliutin (Maljutin, Malyutin, Malutin) (1883–1920) was a chess master. Chess career He played many tournaments in Saint Petersburg. He took 4th in 1902, 8th in 1903, 13th, 5th, 2nd and 3rd in 1904, tied for 3-4th, tied for 4- ...

Peter Alexandrovich Saburov Peter Alexandrovich Saburov (22 March O.S./3 April 1835 – 28 March O.S./10 April 1918) was a Russian diplomat, collector of ancient Greek sculpture and antiquities, and an amateur chess player and patron of chess tournaments, as an honorary Pre ...

, and O. Sossnitzky. They intended to invite the present top twenty chess players, with world champion

, challenger

, and the two winners of the All-Russian Masters' Tournament 1913/14 (

Alexander Alekhine Alexander Aleksandrovich Alekhine, ''Aleksándr Aleksándrovich Alékhin''; (March 24, 1946) was a Russian and French chess player and the fourth World Chess Champion, a title he held for two reigns. By the age of 22, Alekhine was already a ...

and

Aron Nimzowitsch Aron Nimzowitsch ( lv, Ārons Nimcovičs, russian: Аро́н Иса́евич Нимцо́вич, ''Aron Isayevich Nimtsovich''; 7 November 1886 – 16 March 1935) was a Latvian-born Danish chess player and writer. In the late 1920s, Nimz ...

Amos Burn Amos Burn (1848–1925) was an English chess player, one of the world's leading players at the end of the 19th century, and a chess writer. Burn was born on New Year's Eve, 1848, in Hull.Richard Forster, ''Amos Burn: A Chess Biography'', McFar ...

Richard Teichmann Richard Teichmann (24 December 1868 – 15 June 1925) was a German chess master. He was known as "Richard the Fifth" because he often finished in fifth place in tournaments. But in Karlsbad 1911, he scored a convincing win, crushing Akiba Rub ...

, and

Szymon Winawer Szymon Abramowicz Winawer (March 6, 1838 – November 29, 1919) was a Polish-Jewish chess player who won the German Chess Championship in 1883. Tournament and match results At the Paris 1867 tournament held at the Café de la Régence, his first ...

declined for reasons, such as old age. From the other side,

Oldřich Duras Oldřich Duras (also Důras; 30 October 1882, Pchery, Bohemia, then Austria-Hungary – 5 January 1957, Prague, then Czechoslovakia) was a leading Czech chess master of the early 20th century. FIDE awarded him the title of International Gran ...

Géza Maróczy Géza Maróczy (; 3 March 1870 – 29 May 1951) was a Hungarian chess player, one of the leading players in the world in his time. He was one of the inaugural recipients of the title International Grandmaster from FIDE in 1950. Early career G� ...

Carl Schlechter Carl Schlechter (2 March 1874 – 27 December 1918) was a leading Austro-Hungarian chess master and theoretician at the turn of the 20th century. He is best known for drawing a World Chess Championship match with Emanuel Lasker. Early life Sch ...

Rudolf Spielmann Rudolf Spielmann (5 May 1883 – 20 August 1942) was a Jewish-Austrian chess player of the romantic school, and chess writer. Career Spielmann was born in 1883, third child of Moritz and Cecilia Spielmann, and had a younger brother Edgar, an ol ...

Savielly Tartakower Savielly Tartakower (also known as ''Xavier'' or ''Ksawery'' ''Tartakower'', less often ''Tartacover'' or ''Tartakover''; 21 February 1887 – 4 February 1956) was a Polish and French chess player. He was awarded the title of International Grandm ...

Milan Vidmar Milan Vidmar (22 June 1885 – 9 October 1962) was a Slovenian electrical engineer, chess player, Chess theory, chess theorist, and writer. He was among the top dozen chess players in the world from 1910 to 1930 and in 1950, was among the inaugu ...

and

Max Weiss Miksa (Max) Weisz (21 July 1857 – 14 March 1927) was an Austrian chess player born in the Kingdom of Hungary. Weiss was born in Sereď. Moving to Vienna, he studied mathematics and physics at the university, and later taught those subjects. We ...

declined due to tensions of Russia with Austria-Hungary in the year 1914. Finally, eleven top players from Germany, France, United Kingdom, United States, Cuba, and Russian Empire were accepted. According to

Chessmetrics Chessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo rating system. Implementation Chessmetrics is a weighted average of past performance. The score considers a player's win percen ...

ratings, the tournament was a class 18 tournament, including six of the then top 10 players in the world (#1 Rubenstein, #2 Capablanca, #3 Marshall, #4 Alekhine, #5 Nimzowitsch, and #6 Tarrasch).Tarrasch, ''St Petersburg 1914: International Chess Tournament'', translated by Dr Robert Maxham, Caissa Editions, Yorklyn, DE, 1993, .

Preliminaries

The preliminaries were held as a single round-robin tournament, with the top five places qualifying for the final. The results and standings: :

Final

The final tournament was a double-round tournament among the five players. The results of the preliminaries carried over into the finals, so Capablanca with a 1½-point lead was a heavy favorite to win the tournament. In the first half of the finals, Lasker narrowly escaped a loss against Capablanca, which would have virtually decided the tournament. Lasker made up half a point of the difference between himself and Capablanca, with the scores standing at Capablanca 11, Lasker 10, Alekhine 8½, Marshall 7, Tarrasch 6½. In the 19th round, Lasker won a now-famous game against Capablanca with the

Exchange Variation In chess, an exchange variation is a type of opening in which there is an early, voluntary exchange of pawns or pieces. Such variations are often quieter than other lines because the early release of tension minimizes the possibility of surprise t ...

of the Ruy Lopez, trading queens on the sixth move (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.d4 exd4 6.Qxd4 Qxd4 7.Nxd4) and then outplaying Capablanca in the

endgame Endgame, Endgames, End Game, End Games, or similar variations may refer to: Film * ''The End of the Game'' (1919 film) * ''The End of the Game'' (1975 film), short documentary U.S. film * ''Endgame'' (1983 film), 1983 Italian post-apocalyptic f ...

.Pachman 1975, pp. 65-67.

Luděk Pachman Luděk Pachman (German: Ludek Pachmann, May 11, 1924 – March 6, 2003) was a Czechoslovak-German chess grandmaster, chess writer, and political activist. In 1972, after being imprisoned and tortured almost to death by the Communist regime in ...

remarks that Lasker's choice of opening was a masterstroke, since Capablanca was intent on simplifying the game to obtain a draw, and the line Lasker chose requires Black to play actively in order to exploit his advantage of the bishop pair and not allow White to exploit his superior

pawn structure In a game of chess, the pawn structure (sometimes known as the pawn skeleton) is the configuration of pawns on the chessboard. Because pawns are the least mobile of the chess pieces, the pawn structure is relatively static and thus plays a large ...

. Capablanca, intent on avoiding complications, played too passively and was routed by Lasker. In the following round, a shaken Capablanca lost as White from a superior position against Tarrasch. This allowed Lasker (who scored a remarkable 7/8) to overtake Capablanca, winning the tournament by a half point. Lasker won 1200 rubles (in addition to his appearance fee of 4500 rubles), Capablanca 800 rubles, Alekhine 500 rubles, Tarrasch 300 rubles, and Marshall 250 rubles. In addition, there was a Brilliancy Prize Fund, of which Capablanca was awarded 125 rubles for his win over Bernstein, Tarrasch was awarded 75 rubles (Second Prize) for his win over Nimzowitsch, and Blackburne won 50 rubles (Special Brilliancy Prize) for his win over Nimzowitsch. The prize fund was more than covered by the record "gate" of 6,000 rubles from the spectators.''The Grand International Masters' Chess Tournament at St. Petersburg 1914'', David McKay, c. 1915, p. 4. Tarrasch wrote a famous book on this tournament in German, which was not translated into English until 1993. The final results and standings: :

Notes

References

{{Reflist Chess competitions Chess in Russia Sports competitions in Saint Petersburg 1914 in chess 1914 in the Russian Empire 1910s in Saint Petersburg April 1914 sports events May 1914 sports events