Paris staged its tournament alongside the Exposition Universelle, and Emanuel Lasker, the reigning World Champion, handled the seventeen-player field about as roughly as he had handled London the year before: 14½ out of 16, two full points clear of Harry Nelson Pillsbury. The one man to beat him was a 22-year-old American nobody had heard of, playing his first international tournament — Frank Marshall.
Chess at the Exposition
The tournament was one of a series held at world's fairs, and the last of them — a tradition of expositions and international chess congresses ended in Paris. First prize was 5,000 francs and a Sèvres vase; Pillsbury took 2,500, Marshall and Géza Maróczy 1,750 each, Amos Burn 1,500, and Mikhail Chigorin 1,000, with the top four all receiving vases. Samuel Rosenthal wrote the tournament book.
The organisers used an unusual rule: a drawn game had to be replayed with the colours reversed, and the replay's result stood as the pair's score for the round — a win in the replay counted a full point, two draws counted a half each. That is why the archive here holds 162 games for a sixteen-round schedule. One game was never played at all: Miklós Bródy forfeited his pairing with Burn.
Lasker, and the man who beat him
Lasker won fourteen games, lost one and drew one — his only half point coming from Chigorin, who held him twice over in their pair of games at the end of the tournament. The single defeat came in round six, on 28 May, at the hands of Marshall.
Marshall was 22 and had not been admitted to the main tournament at London 1899. He sailed for Paris believing, as he later put it, that everything depended on how he did there. He beat Lasker, beat Pillsbury in round eleven, produced an eighteen-move miniature against Burn, and finished level with Maróczy on 12 points for a share of third — the result that started his career.
“My entire chess career might depend on the showing I made in this tournament.”
Behind the leaders
Pillsbury was second on 12½. Burn took fifth on 11 and Chigorin sixth on 10½, ahead of Carl Schlechter, Georg Marco and Jacques Mieses, who all finished on 10. Dawid Janowski opened with six straight wins before losing to Pillsbury and to Lasker, and ended level with Jackson Showalter on 9.
Mieses took the brilliancy prize for a Vienna Game against Janowski. At the other end of the table, James Mortimer, Manuel Márquez Sterling and M. Didier were a long way from the leaders — Sterling and Didier scoring a single point apiece across the whole event.
Final standings
| # | Player | Score | Record | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lasker, Emanuel | 14½/16 | games | |
| 2 | Pillsbury, Harry Nelson | 12½/16 | games | |
| =3 | Marshall, Frank James | 12/16 | games | |
| =3 | Maroczy, Geza | 12/16 | games | |
| 5 | Burn, Amos | 11/16 | games | |
| 6 | Chigorin, Mikhail Ivanovich | 10½/16 | games | |
| =7 | Schlechter, Carl | 10/16 | games | |
| =7 | Marco, Georg | 10/16 | games | |
| =7 | Mieses, Jacques | 10/16 | games | |
| =10 | Showalter, Jackson Whipps | 9/16 | games | |
| =10 | Janowski, Dawid Markelowicz | 9/16 | games | |
| 12 | Mason, James | 4½/16 | games | |
| 13 | Brody, Miklos | 4/16 | games | |
| 14 | Rosen, Leon | 3/16 | games | |
| 15 | Mortimer, James | 2/16 | games | |
| =16 | Marquez Sterling, Manuel | 1/16 | games | |
| =16 | Didier, M | 1/16 | games |
Cross Table
| Rank | Player | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lasker, Emanuel | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 2 | Pillsbury, Harry Nelson | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 3 | Marshall, Frank James | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 4 | Maroczy, Geza | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 5 | Burn, Amos | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | · | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 6 | Chigorin, Mikhail Ivanovich | ½ | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 7 | Schlechter, Carl | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 8 | Marco, Georg | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 9 | Mieses, Jacques | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 10 | Showalter, Jackson Whipps | 0 | ½ | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 11 | Janowski, Dawid Markelowicz | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 12 | Mason, James | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 13 | Brody, Miklos | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | · | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 14 | Rosen, Leon | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| 15 | Mortimer, James | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 16 | Marquez Sterling, Manuel | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| 17 | Didier, M | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Each cell shows the row player's recorded results against the column player. ● = same player. · = game played but lost (not preserved in our source).