Talk:Hastings 1895 chess tournament

Link

The link associated with William Pollock leads to William Pegues Pollock. This is entirely incorrect. The person who played in Hastings 1895 was Dr. William Henry Krause Pollock. He came in 19 out of 22 with a score of 8.0, along the way beating both Tarrasch and Steinitz, respectively the fourth and fifth place wiinners.

Fixed Peter Ballard 12:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Tone of introduction

The introduction needs to be made neutral. Starting with an opinion that Hastings 1895 was the greatest tournament ever, aside from being a patently false statement, is not a neutral way to start off an article. I'll try to work on it. Buki ben Yogli (talk) 01:40, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Looking through the history, the extravagant intro was written in the early days of Wikipedia, and no one has gone back to tone it down. By all means fix it. Peter Ballard (talk) 01:46, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Flags

Quale, you mentioned some of the other flags besides that of Steinitz were wrong on the page. Which ones? Also, are flags supposed to represent the nationality of the player (in which case, Steinitz is obviously Austrian), or the country they were "representing" at the time? ChessPlayerLev (talk) 05:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

The Hastings Chess Tournament, p. 348:

"Steinitz, Wilhem, fifty-nine at the time of the Tournament, was born on May 17, 1836, at Prague, Bohemia.

Educated in Vienna, he soon made a chess name for himself, and was sent to the London Tournament in 1862 as the representative of Austria. At that time he adopted this country, but deserted us in 1883, becoming an American citizen."

If Steinitz was an American citizen in 1895 then why was he "obviously Austrian"? You can compare the cross table on p. 343 to what we have in this article. Albin, for example. is listed as American. The mini-bio on p. 350 says he was born in Bucharest but "now represents New York". It also says that he was age 47 at the time of the tournament, and that "The goddess of chess did not make his acquaintance till he was a well-grown man". Quale (talk) 06:16, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Also see our article William H.K. Pollock which says that Pollock represented Canada at Hastings. This agrees with the tournament book. Quale (talk) 06:21, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Good information. That being said, you left my main question unanswered; what is the purpose of the flag on the crosstable? Is it the nationality of the player, their current citizenship, what? On a different note, what pages would you recommend me to read of that book in terms of interesting, unusual information? It's quite long! ChessPlayerLev (talk) 06:24, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I just downloaded the PDF from Google books. I find it easier to read as a PDF than directly on Google books, but of course the PDF is just scanned images so there's no text search. You can search using Google books to find the page numbers and then go back to the PDF if that's convenient. I'm not very familiar with the tournament book, but most of it is just games scores and commentary. The annotations aren't anywhere near the level you'd expect today, of course, and I'm sure you could do better yourself even without the aid of a computer. (After 117 years I guess that shouldn't be surprising.) The beginning gives a little background and some details of the regulations which might be of modest interest. Pages 13 through 341 are just games scores and commentary. Little of this is likely to be of interest unless you want to look at a particular game. Pages 342 through 362 are interesting, and include the prizes awarded, the cross table, and the mini-bios. The rest doesn't seem very important, although the table of openings employed on page 366 is interesting. It might be good to get that information in more articles in Category:chess competitions as it's a simple way of showing what was in fashion at that time. The index on pages 369–370 doesn't have much in it, but it does index by opening if you wanted to look at the games that way. It's probably easier to use a database for that kind of search.

As far as nationality vs current citizenship, as far as I know sportsmen are always identified by the country they are representing. We actually had a long discussion about this some time ago, now archived at Listing Native Countries in tournaments. (OK, long, but not as long as the marathon current discussions of chess theoreticians or chessmetrics.) For most modern tournaments it's usually pretty easy to determine which country to use for a player, as it should be the same as their FIDE federation. In some cases this can be a little tricky as with Roman Dzindzichashvili at Lone Pine International 1980, but we should usually be able to figure these out. For older tournaments it can be much harder. It's ideal, I think, when we can find a cross table or other documentation with the information we need. An example is the cross table in the Hastings 1895 tournament book, although it associates Lasker with England. Krakatoa gave examples from other tournament books, such as confirmation that Lasker was Soviet at Nottingham 1936. Quale (talk) 04:33, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I looked a bit at the games and analysis, and Nunn wasn't kidding when he said they favored "flowery description and prose" over concrete analysis back then. It's pretty funny how dreadful it is by modern standards! I looked over the bios, and while some of the physical descriptions are amusing, I don't believe it's something usable by the encyclopedia. I also noticed quite an incredible error when it mentions Lasker "often winning, as in his match games, in the opening, to which he gives a great amount of attention." Lasker was an absolutely awful opening player and it was by far his biggest weakness, as every reputable author points out. Oftentimes, he would be LOSING straight out of the opening, and only draw or win by outplaying his opponents in the middlegame and/or endgame. Out of all the world champions and even elite players, Lasker probably had the worst opening play, even relative to his time period.

As for the flags, were these players "representing" any country to begin with? This was not the Olympics or even a Chess Olympiad; it was an individual tournament. Honestly, I was confused by the inclusion of the flags to begin with, and would have no problems getting rid of them entirely. (Although they do look pretty!) Anyways, thanks for all the information, Quale. ChessPlayerLev (talk) 05:22, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

That's probably a correct characterization of Lasker, although to be fair, the tournament book was written in 1896. At the time of the tournament Lasker was only 26 and had been world champion for only one year. Relative to the standard of opening play of the time it would have been difficult to make an accurate assessment. I would say that the more modern, "scientific" approach to the opening didn't really start until Alekhine, close to a generation after this tournament. Even Capablanca was well known for his rather casual approach to the opening.

I don't think national representation is all that hard, either conceptually or concretely. Just look at the tournament books for any early tournament and you will typically see the players' countries listed. It's certainly in the cross table for the tournament book for this contest. In this case I think it's easy to simply follow very closely what our sources say, and that's what Wikipedia articles should do anyway. Obviously the authors of the tournament books thought that information was either useful or interesting or both, and we should follow their practice. Cross tables for modern tournaments routinely include the players' countries as well. Quale (talk) 05:21, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

While you're correct that opening preparation wasn't really pioneered until Alekhine, and that Capablanca was also deficient in that regard, Lasker was a weak opening player even by the standards of the 1890s and early 1900s. One of the reasons Pillsbury would do so well against Lasker was that he constantly got crushing positions against the champion from the opening. One example would of course be his famous win at Cambridge-Springs, but this victory in the Petroff is also striking. Lasker's patented defense against the French was also 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bd3?!, which was a liability even back then. In fact, I can't recall a single game (out of hundreds that I have seen) where Lasker won "straight from the opening". Calling him strong in the opening is ludicrously stupid, either now or in 1896. My point is that (unfortunately) the tournament book is pretty awful when it comes to any chess-related statements. I also question some of their non-chess statements; I have usually heard that Lasker suffered from pneumonia before the tournament, not typhoid fever. Also, I think that is the explanation for them claiming the champion was "frail", since I have never heard this description of Lasker anywhere else. ChessPlayerLev (talk) 08:59, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Hmm...I can't really agree with Lasker's flag being changed to "England". He was living in Germany at the time, was never a British citizen, and this seems like an error/unsubstantiated inclusion by the tournament book. And on that note, is there any evidence that Pollock had anything to do with Canada, beyond the tournament book? ChessPlayerLev (talk) 03:37, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I can try to look into it in more detail later, I'm not sure where Lasker lived in 1895. He was in Berlin, but came to England in 1891 for some tournaments and matches with English players. He started his first chess magazine and it was published in London into 1893. Then Lasker went to the US and played there for two years, including winning the WC. Eventually he returned to Germany to get his doctorate, but I'm not sure he lived there in 1895. The tournament book, to which Lasker contributed, says England and if he objected he might have had it corrected. The tournament book on Pollock: "Crossing the herring pond five years ago, on the occasion of the American Congress, he settled in Canada, and became the chief representative of that country". Quale (talk) 07:16, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

After investigating this question in more detail, no one really considered Lasker British or representing England in any way, shape, or form at the time. Certainly not the English fans (who rooted for the American, Pillsbury, after their best British hope, Blackburne, was obviously not going to win the tournament). I don't even think he was living in England at the time, and he certainly didn't have citizenship. The tournament book stating that Lasker "represented" England is either a misprint or else a fanciful, biased error designed to show off British chess as being stronger than it really was at the time. (There are several similar highly biased statements I found in the book, financed by wealthy British chess patrons) Unless there is a shred of evidence anywhere else that Lasker was a citizen of Britain or ever "represented" it at another tournament, I think it should go back to the standard German empire flag. Even in his mini-bio, the tournament book makes no definitive claims except that Lasker apparently liked visiting England. Thanks for noting that about Pollock; it didn't mention him ever living in Canada in his biography. ChessPlayerLev (talk) 09:09, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Clearly it isn't true that "no one" considered Lasker as representing England at the time; the official tournament book is evidence to the contrary. I find it unexpected and surprising, but Wikipedia articles aren't really shaped by changing sourced claims to what I believe is correct just because I don't agree with the reference. You need another equally good or better source that says Germany for Lasker at Hastings 1895. There may be something available. Quale (talk) 01:28, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

If a single source makes a bizarre claim that completely contradicts everything else written about the tournament, and is completely contrary to general sense and logic, we don't just blindly stick it in the article. For example, think about if we did this for GA McDonnell's claims (stemming from personal animosity towards Steinitz) that Blackburne was "world champion" in 1881, Mackenzie was world champion in 1887, and Gunsberg in 1889. (Incidentally, all of them were his personal friends) An extraordinary claim needs something a bit better than a mistake-laden, heavily biased English tournament book presenting a flag. Again, we don't even know if this was a typo or not. Lasker was German, never had citizenship in England, and even his mini-bio in the tournament book merely states that he liked visiting England, nothing more. As for "contrary" references, there are about a dozen of them. Everything from biographies of Lasker to various mentions of the Hastings tournament on Winters' site all refer to Lasker as German and not someone the English fans rooted for. In fact, he was even living in Germany at the time of Hastings. (I have provided a link to that effect in the article) ChessPlayerLev (talk) 07:35, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Adolf ALBIN - country

Adolf ALBIN representing USA? Instruktorek (talk) 10:12, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I have corrected this. MaxBrowne (talk) 13:28, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually see the long discussion immediately preceding this one. The Hastings tournament book has Albin as representing New York, USA, as he was residing there at the time. Quale (talk) 23:56, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I should have mentioned that the tournament book is available on Google books. You can browse it online or download a PDF; the link is in the external links section of the article. The crosstable is on page 343 which says "Albin, A. Country Represented America". The brief bio is on page 359. Quale (talk) 00:04, 2 March 2015 (UTC)