Vienna 1898

Twenty of the world's leading masters gathered in Vienna for the Kaiser-Jubiläums-Turnier, staged to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph I's accession. After two full cycles of a marathon double round-robin, Siegbert Tarrasch and Harry Nelson Pillsbury stood dead level on 27½ points apiece — so the first prize was settled not in the tournament proper but in a four-game play-off, which Tarrasch won 2½–1½.

◇An emperor's jubilee

The tournament was mounted to celebrate the golden jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph I — fifty years on the throne of Austria-Hungary. It was organised and financed by the great Viennese patron Baron Albert Freiherr von Rothschild, who received the players at his palace on 31 May 1898; play then began the next day in the clubhouse of the Vienna Chess Club at Schottengasse 7, under tournament director Hugo Fahndrich. The time limit was thirty moves in two hours, and fifteen moves an hour thereafter.

Twenty masters contested a double round-robin from 1 June to 25 July. The field was a who's-who of the era — the ageing former World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz, Pillsbury, Tarrasch, Chigorin, Janowski, Schlechter, Blackburne, Burn, Maróczy, Marco and Showalter among them — though the reigning champion Emanuel Lasker and Rudolf Charousek were absent. Adolf Schwarz withdrew after eight games and his results were set aside; the remaining nineteen each fought out a full thirty-six-game programme.

◇Level after two cycles

Across the two cycles Tarrasch and Pillsbury pulled clear of a strong field and finished exactly together on 27½. David Janowski took clear third with 25½, and Steinitz — in what proved one of his last great tournaments — was fourth on 23½, ahead of the young Carl Schlechter, the tournament's youngest player, on 21½. Chigorin and Burn shared sixth on 20.

In their two individual encounters in the main event Tarrasch and Pillsbury had split the points, each winning with the white pieces, so nothing separated them at the top. Under the tournament's rules the tie for first could not stand, and the two were sent back to the board to decide the Kaiser's prize between them.

◇The play-off

The playoff ran from July 27 to 30. All four games survive: Tarrasch won two, one was drawn and Pillsbury won one, for a 2½–1½ win for Tarrasch. It capped a dominant stretch for the Nuremberg doctor, then at the height of his powers as chess's leading teacher and theorist.

For his victory Tarrasch took the first prize of 6,000 Kronen; Pillsbury received 4,400 Kronen for second. The whole event was recorded in the handsome contemporary tournament book Internationales Kaiser-Jubiläums-Schachturnier Wien 1898, edited by Hugo Fahndrich and the master Georg Marco, who himself finished in the middle of the table.