In a 1914 chess tournament in St. Petersburg, what did Tsar Nicholas II call the five finalists Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Siegbert Tarrasch, and Frank Marshall?
"conferred the title of ""Grandmaster of Chess"" upon each of the five finalists at St Petersburg 1914 (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall), but chess historian Edward Winter has questioned this, stating that the earliest known sources supporting this story were published in 1940 and 1942. Lasker's match record was as impressive between his 1896–97 re-match with Steinitz and 1914: he won all but one of his normal matches, and three of those were convincing defenses of his title. He first faced Marshall in the World Chess Championship 1907, when despite his aggressive style, Marshall could not win a single"
"St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament The St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament celebrated the tenth anniversary of the St. Petersburg Chess Society. The president of the organizing committee was Peter Petrovich Saburov. Members of the committee were: Boris Maliutin, Peter Alexandrovich Saburov, and O. Sossnitzky. They intended to invite the present top twenty chess players, with world champion Emanuel Lasker, challenger José Raúl Capablanca, and the two winners of the All-Russian Masters' Tournament 1913/14 (Alexander Alekhine and Aron Nimzowitsch). Unfortunately, Amos Burn, Richard Teichmann, and Szymon Winawer declined for reasons, such as old age. From the other side, Oldřich Duras, Géza"
"for ultimate victory. However, in their second game of the final, Lasker reduced Capablanca to a helpless position and Capablanca was so shaken by this that he blundered away his next game to Siegbert Tarrasch. Lasker then won his final game, against Marshall, thus finishing half a point ahead of Capablanca and 3½ ahead of Alekhine. Alekhine commented: His real, incomparable gifts first began to make themselves known at the time of St. Petersburg, 1914, when I too came to know him personally. Neither before nor afterwards have I seen – and I cannot imagine as well – such a"
"Lasker finally agreed to a title match in 1908, he beat Tarrasch convincingly +8−3=5. Tarrasch continued to be one of the leading players in the world for a while. He finished fourth in the very strong St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament, behind only World Champion Lasker and future World Champions José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, and ahead of Marshall, Ossip Bernstein, Rubinstein, Nimzowitsch, Blackburne, Janowski, and Gunsberg. His win against Capablanca in the 19th round, though much less famous than Lasker's win against Capablanca the round before, was essential to enable Lasker to achieve his famous come-from-behind victory over"
"to Znosko-Borovsky and winning the rest. The St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament was the first in which Capablanca confronted Lasker under tournament conditions. This event was arranged in an unusual way: after a preliminary single round-robin tournament involving 11 players, the top five were to play a second stage in double round-robin format, with total scores from the preliminary tournament carried forward to the second contest. Capablanca placed first in the preliminary tournament, 1½ points ahead of Lasker, who was out of practice and had made a shaky start. Despite a determined effort by Lasker, Capablanca still seemed on course"
"""setbacks"" were third place at Hastings 1895 (where he may have been suffering from the after-effects of typhoid fever), a tie for second at Cambridge Springs 1904, and a tie for first at the Chigorin Memorial in St Petersburg 1909. He won first prizes at very strong tournaments in St Petersburg (1895–96, ""Quadrangular""), Nuremberg (1896), London (1899), Paris (1900) and St Petersburg (1914), where he overcame a 1½-point deficit to finish ahead of the rising stars, Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, who later became the next two World Champions. For decades chess writers have reported that Tsar Nicholas II of Russia"
"enjoyed the need to adapt to varying styles and to the shifting fortunes of tournaments. Although very strong in matches, he was even stronger in tournaments. For over 20 years, he always finished ahead of the younger Capablanca: at St. Petersburg 1914, New York 1924, Moscow 1925, and Moscow 1935. Only in 1936 (15 years after their match), when Lasker was 67, did Capablanca finish ahead of him. In 1964, ""Chessworld"" magazine published an article in which future World Champion Bobby Fischer listed the ten greatest players in history. Fischer did not include Lasker in the list, deriding him as"
"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 final results and standings: St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament The St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament celebrated the tenth anniversary of the St. Petersburg Chess Society. The president of the organizing committee was Peter Petrovich Saburov. Members of the committee were: Boris Maliutin, Peter Alexandrovich Saburov, and O. Sossnitzky. They intended to invite the present top twenty chess players, with world champion Emanuel Lasker, challenger José Raúl"
"in which Lasker was participating. In fact the two would not face each other in a tournament until the St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament, eighteen years after their last meeting at Nuremberg. While most of the players were seasoned international veterans, four of the competitors, Barry, Fox, Hodges and Lawrence, participated in an international tournament for the first time at Cambridge Springs. The players could be roughly divided into two groups, eight Europeans and eight Americans. The Europeans: The Americans: The Europeans and Marshall would all arrive in America on a single steamship, the S.S. Pretoria. The tournament started on"
"to a much younger German mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of all World Champions. It took a prodigy from Cuba, José Raúl Capablanca (World champion 1921–27), who loved simple positions and endgames, to end the German-speaking dominance in chess; he was undefeated in tournament play for eight years until 1924. His successor was Russian-French Alexander Alekhine, a strong attacking player, who died as the World champion in 1946, having briefly lost the title to Dutch player Max Euwe in 1935, regaining it two years later. Between the world wars, chess was revolutionized"
"Moscow 1925 chess tournament This international super-tournament, organised by Nikolai Krylenko, was held in Moscow, the Soviet Union, from 10 November to 8 December 1925. It was the world's first state-sponsored chess tournament. There were eleven foreign stars and ten Soviet masters. World champion José Raúl Capablanca and his predecessor Emanuel Lasker both participated. A race between them, as in the New York 1924 chess tournament, was expected before the tournament, but Efim Bogoljubow won a sensational victory. Lasker finished 1½ points behind Bogoljubow and just ahead of Capablanca. The event aroused great interest among the Soviet citizens. Hundreds of"
"Maróczy, Carl Schlechter, Rudolf Spielmann, Savielly Tartakower, Milan Vidmar and Max Weiss could not accept 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 the unofficial Chessmetrics ratings, the tournament was (as of March 2005) the 13th-strongest tournament in history (in terms of the top players participating), and the 5th-strongest ever held up until that time. The players were well compensated for their expenses. Lasker got an additional 4500 Rubles for playing in his first tournament in five years."
"universally recognized world champion, died in 1900 after having been largely retired from chess for several years, Russian master Mikhail Chigorin was nearing the end of his life, while American master Frank Marshall lived on the other side of the Atlantic far from the center of chess activity in Europe. Another promising American master, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, had died in 1906 at just 33. In the pre-FIDE era, the reigning world champion handpicked his challenger, and Emanuel Lasker demanded a high sum of money that Rubinstein could not produce. In the St. Petersburg tournament in 1909, he had tied with"
"their games in the final three rounds. Botvinnik had scored only 50% in his final nine games. Emanuel Lasker (Germany) and José Raúl Capablanca (Cuba) were former world champions. At age 66, Lasker was undefeated, beating Capablanca in their individual game and finishing third, a half point ahead of Capablanca in fourth place. Rudolph Spielmann (Austria), finished fifth. Moscow 1935 chess tournament Moscow 1935 was the second international chess tournament held in Moscow, taking place from 15 February to 15 March 1935. Salo Flohr and future world champion Mikhail Botvinnik tied for first, followed by former world champions Emanuel Lasker"
"players, Joseph Henry Blackburne and Jacques Mieses often played it, and greatly developed its theory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was an occasional choice in this era for top players including Siegbert Tarrasch, Rudolph Spielmann, and Savielly Tartakower. Alexander Alekhine used it to draw against World Champion Emanuel Lasker at St. Petersburg 1914, and future World Champion José Raúl Capablanca won twice with it at New York 1915. A regular user from the 1950s onwards was Yugoslav IM Nikola Karaklajic, but a lengthy period of non-support by top players ended by the 1960s, when former world"
"New York 1924 chess tournament, behind ex-champion Emanuel Lasker and world champion José Raúl Capablanca (but ahead of Frank Marshall, Richard Réti, Géza Maróczy, Efim Bogoljubov, Savielly Tartakower, Frederick Yates, Edward Lasker, and Dawid Janowski). Technically, Alekhine's play was mostly better than his competitors'—even Capablanca's—but he lacked confidence when playing his major rivals. Alekhine's main goal throughout this period was to arrange a match with Capablanca. He thought the greatest obstacle was not Capablanca's play, but the requirement under the 1922 ""London rules"" (at Capablanca's insistence) that the challenger raise a purse of US $10,000 (equivalent to about $391,000 in"
"New York 1924 chess tournament New York 1924 was an elite chess tournament held in the Alamac Hotel in New York City from March 6 to April 18, 1924. It was organized by the Manhattan Chess Club. The competitors included world champion José Raúl Capablanca and his predecessor Emanuel Lasker. Nine other top players from Europe and America were also invited. Emanuel Lasker met Alexander Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubow, Géza Maróczy, Richard Réti, Savielly Tartakower and Frederick Yates in Hamburg. They steamed with the ""SS Cleveland"" on February 28, 1924, and joined Capablanca, Frank Marshall, Dawid Janowski and Edward Lasker in"
"Assembly. Shortly afterwards, Nikolai Krylenko, a devoted chess player and leading member of the Soviet legal system who later organized Joseph Stalin's show trials, began building a huge nationwide chess organization, and the Assembly was replaced by a club in the city's Palace of Labor. To test the strength of Soviet chess masters, Krylenko organized the Moscow 1925 chess tournament. On a rest day during the event, world champion José Raúl Capablanca gave a simultaneous exhibition in Leningrad. Botvinnik was selected as one of his opponents, and won their game. In 1926, he reached the final stage of the Leningrad"
"Capablanca met the requirements of the ""London Rules"". Negotiations dragged on for several years, often breaking down when agreement seemed in sight. Alekhine easily won two title matches against Efim Bogoljubov in 1929 and 1934. In 1935, Alekhine was unexpectedly defeated by the Dutch Max Euwe, an amateur player who worked as a mathematics teacher. Alekhine convincingly won a rematch in 1937. World War II temporarily prevented any further world title matches, and Alekhine remained world champion until his death in 1946. Attempts to form an international chess federation were made at the time of the 1914 St. Petersburg, 1914"
"history to include five past, present, or future world champions (Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe and Botvinnik). A number of other prominent players, such as Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky and Salo Flohr, were in the tournament. According to the unofficial Chessmetrics ratings, the tournament was (as of March 2005) one of only five tournaments in history that had the top eight players in the world playing, and was (in terms of the leading players playing) the third strongest in history. All of the top twelve players on Chessmetrics' August 1936 rating list competed in the tournament except for numbers"
"that younger masters could compete for it (""Dr Lasker and the Championship"" in ""American Chess Bulletin"", September–October 1920). Capablanca won their 1921 match easily. After the breakdown of his first attempt to negotiate a title match against Lasker (1911), Capablanca drafted rules for the conduct of future challenges, which were agreed by the other top players at the 1914 Saint Petersburg tournament, including Lasker, and approved at the Mannheim Congress later that year. The main points were: the champion must be prepared to defend his title once a year; the match should be won by whichever player first won six"
"high-level chess. By the opening years of the 20th century, chess masters outside of Europe began to appear (previously, Paul Morphy had been the only notable non-European player). These included the Americans Harry Nelson Pillsbury and Frank Marshall, and later the Cuban Jose Raul Capablanca. Emanuel Lasker held onto the world championship a record 27 years, although he did not play chess for long periods of time owing to his career as a mathematics professor. The hypermodern school was founded by Aron Nimzowitsch, Richard Réti, Savielly Tartakower, Gyula Breyer, and Ernst Grünfeld in the 1920s . The hypermodernists rejected the"
"of Saint Petersburg was present on a grand banquet at the end of the preliminaries. Sergei Prokofiev gave a piano recital. The results and standings: The final tournament was a double-round tournament among the five players. Since the results of the preliminaries carried over into the finals, 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"
"was in his early 50s when he lost the world championship to Capablanca, and he retired from serious match play afterwards; his only other match was a short exhibition against Frank James Marshall in 1940, which Lasker lost. After winning the Moravská Ostrava 1923 chess tournament (without a single loss), the New York 1924 chess tournament (1½ points ahead of Capablanca) and finishing second at Moscow in 1925 (1½ points behind Efim Bogoljubow, ½ point ahead of Capablanca), he effectively retired from serious chess. During the Moscow 1925 chess tournament, Emanuel Lasker received a telegram informing him that the drama"
"Francisco for the June 1888 ""International Chess Magazine"". Many leading players have given exhibitions or played at the Institute including Harry Pillsbury, Géza Maróczy, Frank Marshall (1913 and 1915), Borislav Kostić (1915), Samuel Reshevsky (1921 and 1956), Arthur Dake (1937 among many others), Georges Koltanowski (1939), Svetozar Gligorić, and Tony Miles. The Institute has also been visited by many world champions, including Emanuel Lasker (1902 and 1926), José Capablanca (1916), Alexander Alekhine (1924 and 1929), Max Euwe (1947 or 1949?), Bobby Fischer (1964), Vasily Smyslov (1976), Tigran Petrosian (1978), Anatoly Karpov (1999), and Boris Spassky (1980 and 2006). The Chess"
"flabbergasting quickness of chess comprehension as that possessed by the Capablanca of that epoch. Enough to say that he gave ""all"" the St. Petersburg masters the odds of 5–1 in quick games – and won! With all this he was always good-humoured, the darling of the ladies, and enjoyed wonderful good health – really a dazzling appearance. That he came second to Lasker must be entirely ascribed to his youthful levity – he was already playing as well as Lasker. After the breakdown of his attempt to negotiate a title match in 1911, Capablanca drafted rules for the conduct of"
"argued that d4 was the only rational way to open a game, while the Sicilian and French Defense were the only rational responses to 1. e4. Players such as Frank Marshall and Jose Raul Capablanca (who took the world championship from Lasker in 1921), formerly known as tactical players and users of e4 openings, began switching their repertoires to queen side pawn openings and a more positional style of play in the 1920s. In 1927, Alexander Alekhine challenged Capablanca for the world championship. The match, lasting 34 games, was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina and achieved infamy for its overuse"
"future challenges, which were agreed by the other top players at the 1914 Saint Petersburg tournament, including Lasker, and approved at the Mannheim Congress later that year. The main points were: the champion must be prepared to defend his title once a year; the match should be won by the first player to win six or eight games, whichever the champion preferred; and the stake should be at least £1,000 (worth about £26,000 or $44,000 in 2013 terms). World War I began in midsummer 1914, bringing international chess to a virtual halt for more than four years. Capablanca won tournaments"
"set for the match, Rubinstein should become world champion (""American Chess Bulletin"", October 1913). When he resumed negotiations with José Raúl Capablanca after World War I, Lasker insisted on a similar clause that if Lasker should resign the title after a date had been set for the match, Capablanca should become world champion. On 27 June 1920 Lasker abdicated in favor of Capablanca because of public criticisms of the terms for the match, naming José Raúl Capablanca as his successor (""American Chess Bulletin"", July–August 1920). Some commentators questioned Lasker's right to name his successor (""British Chess Magazine"", August 1920; ""Rochester"
"matches. This club was named in honor of Benjamin Franklin, a Philadelphia chess enthusiast and one of the most prominent Americans of the 18th century. During Whitaker's early chess years, the Franklin club featured the strong veteran Master Walter Penn Shipley, a lawyer by profession and an experienced chess organizer and promoter. Whitaker in his teens won high-quality games in simultaneous exhibitions against World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker and future world champion Jose Raul Capablanca. Lasker was in Philadelphia to play part of his World Chess Championship 1907 match against Frank Marshall; Lasker won that match. While not of competitive"
"Alexander Alekhine Alexander Alekhine (, ""Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Alekhin""; ; March 24, 1946) was a Russian and French chess player and the fourth World Chess Champion. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest chess players of all time. By the age of 22, Alekhine was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played. In 1921, Alekhine left Soviet Russia and emigrated to France, which he represented after 1925. In 1927, he became the fourth World Chess Champion by defeating José Raúl Capablanca. In the"
"such outstanding players as the second World Champion Emanuel Lasker (+2−2=1), Akiba Rubinstein (+1−1=7), Aron Nimzowitsch (+1−2=4), Mikhail Chigorin (+2−1=0) and Salo Flohr (+0−0=3). However, he had a poor record against third World Champion José Raúl Capablanca (+0−3=1); and against the fourth World Champion Alexander Alekhine (+1−8=5). Ossip Bernstein Ossip Samoilovich Bernstein (20 September 1882 – 30 November 1962) was a Russian-French chess grandmaster and a financial lawyer. Born in Zhytomyr, Russian Empire to a family of Jewish heritage, Ossip Bernstein grew up in prerevolutionary Russia. He earned a doctorate in law at Heidelberg University in 1906, and became a"
"as Capablanca; Alekhine; and Tarrasch, and explains them in an instructive manner. An algebraic notation version was published by Batsford in 1998, with minor alterations to the original text. Chernev died in San Francisco in 1981. He was survived by his wife Selma Kulik, and their son Melvin Chernev. Irving Chernev Irving Chernev (January 29, 1900 – September 29, 1981) was a chess player and prolific Russian-American chess author. He was born in Pryluky in the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine) and emigrated to the United States in 1920. Chernev was a national master strength player, and was obsessed with"