Cambridge Springs 1904

The first great international tournament played in America in the twentieth century drew the World Champion, Emanuel Lasker, out of a four-year absence, and it was won not by him but by a 26-year-old New Yorker. Frank Marshall went through all fifteen rounds unbeaten, finished two points clear of Lasker and Janowski, and was suddenly recognized as a world-class master.

◇The first great American tournament of the century

Cambridge Springs was an unlikely host: a small resort town in north-western Pennsylvania, prized for its mineral springs and for sitting on the Erie Railroad line halfway between New York and Chicago. Hotel proprietor William D. Rider Jr. staged the congress as a showcase for his enormous new hotel, with backing from the Erie Railroad and chess patrons including Isaac Leopold Rice; President Theodore Roosevelt even offered a trophy to the winner. It was the first major international chess tournament held in America in the twentieth century, and the strongest yet seen on the continent.

Sixteen masters — eight Americans and eight Europeans — played a single round-robin of fifteen games each, on a $3,100 prize fund with $1,000 to the winner. The time control was 30 moves in two hours, then 15 moves an hour, and a rule barred agreed draws under 30 moves. The greatest draw of all was Emanuel Lasker, who had not played a tournament since 1900 and would not play another until 1909.

◇Marshall runs the table

Janowski, Marshall and Teichmann all started fast; after six rounds Janowski led on 5½. Teichmann then fell ill and faded, while Marshall and Janowski pressed on, both reaching eight points after nine rounds. Janowski faltered in the tenth round with two straight losses, and Marshall, never beaten, moved into a lead he would not give back.

Going into the final round Marshall was a point ahead of Janowski, who was in turn a point ahead of Lasker. Marshall, a pawn down against Albert Fox, was handed the game when Fox blundered a rook. In the decisive pairing behind him, Janowski needed only a draw with White against Lasker to secure clear second, but pressed too hard; Lasker turned back the attack and won, tying Janowski for second place. Marshall finished first and undefeated on 13/15, two full points clear, with Lasker and Janowski sharing second on 11.

◇A turning point for American chess

The victory transformed Marshall's standing: it launched him toward a long reign as U.S. champion and to his 1907 world-championship challenge against Lasker. The daily bulletins that Hermann Helms produced for the event proved so popular that he founded the American Chess Bulletin, which he edited until his death in 1963. The tournament also lent its name to the Cambridge Springs Defence, a sharp line of the Queen's Gambit Declined featured there.

It was a place of endings, too. Cambridge Springs was the last tournament of Harry Nelson Pillsbury, who scored a celebrated win over Lasker but was already unwell; he never played another event and died in 1906, aged 33.