Paris 1900: The Last World Exposition Tournament

Widely recognized as the first international chess tournament, London 1851 was held during the “Great Exhibition of the Industrial Works of All Nations” – the first of the Expos. As winner of the tournament, Adolf Anderssen would be unofficially regarded as the best player in the world.

It soon became a tradition to hold a major chess tournament together with an Expo: London 1862, Paris 1867, Vienna 1873 and Philadelphia 1876 all held tournaments during their World Fair.

The World Expo in Paris 1878, famously showcasing the completed head of the Statue of Liberty, would also hold a tournament in which Szymon Winawer and Johannes Zukertort shared first place (Zukertort would win 1st prize in a playoff).

This golden age of Expositions and chess tournaments would have its final hurrah in Paris once more, at “l’Exposition Universelle 1900”, a major World Fair celebrating the significant technological achievements of the past century.

By this time, chess already had an official world champion in Emanuel Lasker and the quality of play was much higher than it had been half a century earlier in London. Lasker was joined in Paris by 16 of the world’s best players. The month-long tournament from mid-May to mid-June would have 16 rounds with the additional rule that a rematch would be played in the event of a draw.

In the tournament itself, Lasker was dominant, winning 14 of his 16 rounds. Though known as a positional player Lasker could also attack as seen from his dismantling of eventual 4th place finisher Geza Maroczy in the 5th round:

Lasker would lose just once to the 22 year-old American Frank James Marshall who, with his 3rd place and victories against both 1st placed Lasker and 2nd placed Harry Nelson Pillsbury made his definitive arrival on the world stage.
Marshall’s game against Pillsbury was a great display of calculation: giving up two pieces for rook and pawn he obtained a crushing position against a player who was at the time regarded as the best player in the United States.

Pillsbury was no slouch and was fully deserving of his 2nd place finish behind World Champion Lasker. Against the strong Russian player Chigorin he would score a fine victory, expertly weathering the storm of a kingside attack:

Finally, the tournament would award a brilliancy prize to the German player (with a French name) Jacques Mieses for his inspired play against Dawid Janowski:

To leave his queen en prise for 7 straight moves required tremendous calculation and nerves of steel. Truly the old masters were capable in their pomp!

There you have it: I hope you enjoyed this journey 126 years into the past: the world was a different place but chess was still the same!

Until next time,
Dan