Transcribed Philip Sergeant's 1919 Charousek collection into 3 studies, looking for feedback/Critic

I spent two months converting Charousek’s games from Sergeant’s 1919 collection into modern notation. The original is in descriptive notation, which gets painful when you just want to play through a game.

Part 1 (Budapest 1896 & early gambits):

I checked everything with Stockfish 17 + own understanding and analysis. But with that being said I do want to improve this and make it better. Is there anything missing or something that I must improve on upon the project?

Many thanks!

The Charousek-Lasker game misses ...Ne7 instead of ...Nd7?

@Bishop1964 said ^
His book is copyright protected until 2076.

Aliens will have difficulty reading his book.

Thanks @Bishop1964 for the comment, fair to check. Sergeant died in 1952, so the book is public domain in life +70 countries (since 2022), and a 1919 publication is public domain in the US anyway.

On Zurich 1953, that’s Bronstein’s book, not Botvinnik’s. His text is protected until 2076, but the moves themselves are facts, so you can annotate those games yourself. I’m not a lawyer though, so check your local rules.

Took me two months to make this project. I had a lot of fun of it but it was tedious!

There is no copyright on chess moves, only on chess comments.

@tpr Hello! The book prints 10...Nd7 (Kt-Q2), and its own diagram after Black’s 10th shows the knight on d7. Which move did you mean? If it’s 10...Ne7, the engine does rate it slightly higher, but White is better in both lines.

10...Nd7? is the losing mistake, 10...Ne7 holds.

@tpr thanks for raising this, it’s a good catch. You’re right that 10...Ne7 is the stronger move. I ran it through the engine and it comes out at roughly +0.7 for White, against roughly +1.0 after 10...Nd7. For context, the study follows the 1919 book by P. W. Sergeant, who notes that Lasker’s 10...Nd7 “turns out ill”, while adding that it still seems the best move. So the comment in the chapter is Sergeant’s view, not mine, and he did not consider ...Ne7. I’d add one caveat: White is clearly better after 10...Nd7, but it isn’t a lost game, and 10...Ne7 doesn’t fully equalise either. I’d be glad to add your suggestion as a variation so readers can compare the two moves. Thanks again for taking the time to look closely. :)

For everyone who didn't know him either: Philip Walsingham Sergeant. A remarkable person.