Incomplete record. This archive holds 224 games of this event; the others are missing, and the number played is not established.
Twenty masters gathered in the Cercle Privé of the Monte Carlo casino for the second of Monaco's winter congresses, with Emanuel Lasker absent, Siegbert Tarrasch back from a self-imposed retirement, and every drawn game replayed. Géza Maróczy won on 14¾ points, a quarter of a point ahead of Harry Nelson Pillsbury, the narrowest margin the tournament's unusual scoring allowed.
A tournament built around the replay
Monte Carlo's rules made a draw an unfinished thing. A won game scored 1 point; a drawn game had to be replayed with the colours reversed, each player banking ¼ point for the first game. If the replay was also drawn, the pair of games ended ½–½; if it was decisive, the winner finished with ¾ and the loser with ¼. Nor could a draw simply be agreed: no result could be settled before move 30 without the consent of the director of play, Arnous de Rivière. Teichmann and Mason asked to shake hands on move 24 and were sent back to the board; the draw was allowed at move 35.
The Cercle des Étrangers put up 14,000 francs, supplemented by gifts from the tournament's patrons, and the prizes ran 5,000, 3,000, 1,500, 1,000, 750 and 500 francs, with a further 3,200 francs shared among the non-prizewinners at roughly 35 francs a point. Play ran in two sittings a day, from nine to one and from three to seven, at thirty moves in the first two hours and fifteen an hour thereafter. Twenty-two names were drawn into the Berger pairing tables on the Sunday; by Monday morning Blackburne and Taubenhaus had withdrawn, leaving twenty players and a schedule of 21 rounds in which two men sat out each day.
The playing hall was a first-floor room of the casino with the gardens on one side and the sea toward Cap Martin on the other — and a roulette wheel standing in the corner, in use every night from nine until two.
Maróczy by a quarter-point
Maróczy beat Pillsbury in the opening round, to general surprise, and Tarrasch — playing his first international event since Vienna 1898 — lost his first three decisive games, to Chigorin, Marshall and Janowski. Frank Marshall was the sensation of the first week, defeating Tarrasch, Chigorin and Schlechter in turn.
But Pillsbury recovered, and after seventeen rounds he led on 12 points, with Maróczy on 11½ and Janowski on 11. Over the last four rounds Pillsbury managed only 2½ points while Maróczy took 3½ and Janowski 3, and the Hungarian passed him at the finish. Janowski was third on 14, Richard Teichmann fourth on 13¼.
The replay rule made Maróczy work for it: he played 24 games in all. Against Janowski, Mason, Chigorin and Tarrasch he drew both the first game and the replay every time — eight games for two points. Against Mieses he drew and then won the return with Black for ¾. Against the other fourteen players he made twelve wins and two losses at the first attempt, losing only to Gunsberg and Schlechter.
“I can't leave the tournament before beating Mr. Janowski.”
“The players paid their own accommodation costs and so, toward the end of the tournament, a number of players who were out of the running for prizes, agreed to share the point so that they could leave Monte Carlo early.”
Mason, Marco, and the games that got away
James Mason was in poor health and left before the tournament ended, indifferent to the forfeits that cost him. He would not go, however, without one more game against Dawid Janowski, who had never forgiven Mason for beating him regularly and who agreed at once to play out of turn. Mason won it, and the game took the first brilliancy prize.
The tournament also produced what Tim Krabbé called the most famous premature resignation in chess: Georg Marco gave up against Ignatz von Popiel in a position where 36...Bg1 would have won. And the tail of the table had its moment too — Louis Eisenberg, who finished eighteenth of twenty, beat Pillsbury.
Near the end, with the event stretching past five weeks under the weight of replays and byes, several players out of the prizes simply agreed to split points without sitting down, so that they could go home. Georg Marco published the first 140 games in the Wiener Schachzeitung between 1902 and 1908, but the remainder of his scores were never found after his death in 1923; many of the last games were recovered from newspapers of the day for the tournament book. This archive holds 224 games — the counting games together with their replays — covering 186 of the 190 pairings. Four pairings survive only as a result in the table, and the standings shown here are the historical final totals.
Final standings
| # | Player | Score | Record | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maroczy, Geza | 14¾/19 | games | |
| 2 | Pillsbury, Harry Nelson | 14½/19 | games | |
| 3 | Janowski, Dawid Markelowicz | 14/19 | games | |
| 4 | Teichmann, Richard | 13¼/19 | games | |
| =5 | Schlechter, Carl | 12/19 | games | |
| =5 | Tarrasch, Siegbert | 12/19 | games | |
| =5 | Wolf, Heinrich | 12/19 | games | |
| 8 | Chigorin, Mikhail Ivanovich | 11½/19 | games | |
| 9 | Marshall, Frank James | 11/19 | games | |
| 10 | Gunsberg, Isidor | 10¾/19 | games | |
| 11 | Napier, William Ewart | 9½/19 | games | |
| 12 | Mieses, Jacques | 9¼/19 | games | |
| 13 | Mason, James | 9/19 | games | |
| 14 | Albin, Adolf | 8½/19 | games | |
| 15 | Marco, Georg | 7¾/19 | games | |
| 16 | Von Popiel, Ignatz | 7¼/19 | games | |
| 17 | Von Scheve, Theodor | 5/19 | games | |
| 18 | Eisenberg, Louis R | 4½/19 | games | |
| 19 | Reggio, Arturo | 2½/19 | games | |
| 20 | Mortimer, James | 1/19 | games |
Cross Table
| Rank | Player | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maroczy, Geza | 1 | ½ | 1 | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 2 | Pillsbury, Harry Nelson | 0 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| 3 | Janowski, Dawid Markelowicz | ½ | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 4 | Teichmann, Richard | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 5 | Schlechter, Carl | 1 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 6 | Tarrasch, Siegbert | ½ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 7 | Wolf, Heinrich | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | · | 1 | 1 | |
| 8 | Chigorin, Mikhail Ivanovich | ½ | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 9 | Marshall, Frank James | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 10 | Gunsberg, Isidor | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 11 | Napier, William Ewart | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | · | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 12 | Mieses, Jacques | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| 13 | Mason, James | ½ | 0 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 0 | · | 1 | 1 | |
| 14 | Albin, Adolf | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 15 | Marco, Georg | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | · | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 16 | Von Popiel, Ignatz | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 17 | Von Scheve, Theodor | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | · | ½ | 1 | |
| 18 | Eisenberg, Louis R | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | · | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | · | 0 | 0 | 0 | · | 1 | 0 | |
| 19 | Reggio, Arturo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 1 | |
| 20 | Mortimer, James | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Each cell shows the row player's recorded results against the column player. ● = same player. · = game played but lost (not preserved in our source).