"C.H.Y.P." intercollegiate tournament: Columbia, Yale tie for first place; Lions top Princeton 3-1; Elis trounce Harvard 3 1/2 - 1/2; Play-off next week

In a stunning turn of events the teams representing Columbia and Yale, occupants of the bottom two places at the start of the day, recorded convincing final-round victories to finish tied for first place in the 22nd annual "C.H.Y.P." intercollegiate chess tournament with 6 1/2 points each. A play-off will be held next week to determine this year's titleholder.

Columbia, who began the day in third place with 3 1/2 points, defeated tourney leader Princeton 3-1, the Lions' top three boards all registering victories.  Yale, in last place with 3 points entering the final day's play, stunned defending Champion Harvard 3 1/2 - 1/2, a result made all the more shocking when one considers that the Elis fell to their Crimson rivals 6-4 in team play less than one month ago, a loss that marked the tenth consecutive setback for the New Haven men against their Cambridge foes. The unexpected defeat at the hands of Yale sent Harvard to a last-place finish for only the second time in the 22-year history of the "C.H.Y.P." tourney, the first coming in 1907.

Yale and Columbia will meet next week in New York to play off the tie. Columbia has won the tournament outright on nine previous occasions, to Yale's one, and so may perhaps be considered the favorite to capture the title once again.

Yesterday's results:

Columbia                     Princeton

Leede 1                        Stockton  0

Ehrlich 1                     Jarman, Jr. 0

Korkus 1                      Carter 0

Bird 0                           Chamberlin 1

Columbia played White on boards 1 and 3.

Yale                               Harvard

Beach  1                       Winkelman  0

Quarles  1                    Currier 0

Job  1                            Beers  0

Lightner 1/2              Washburn 1/2

Final scores: Columbia, Yale 6 1/2; Princeton 6; Harvard 5. Columbia and Yale to play for the title.

We present two games from the day's play. First, Beers of Harvard, who suffered a painful loss in the preceding round, chooses the wrong checking square for his Queen with a perpetual check in hand and once again goes down to defeat.

The only game to reach us from the Columbia-Princeton match is the fourth-board victory by Princeton's Chamberlin over Bird of Columbia. White's pretty 18.e6+ wins a piece, Black's 22...Re8 loses another, but the second player fights on, two pieces to the bad, until the bitter end - in team play such obstinate resistance is not at all uncommon, and hardly to be criticized.

  

Princeton bests Harvard 2 1/2 - 1 1/2 to take lead in "C.H.Y.P." intercollegiate tourney; Columbia beats Yale

Princeton defeated defending Champion Harvard 2 1/2 - 1 1/2 to take the lead after two rounds of the 22nd annual "C.H.Y.P." intercollegiate tournament, held at New York's Murray Hill Hotel. The Tigers saw a likely match defeat turn to unexpected victory when Harvard's third board D.M. Beers committed a terrible oversight, leaving a full Rook en prise while two pawns to the good in a winning endgame vs. E.S. Carter of Princeton.  In the day's other match Columbia recovered some of the ground lost through its opening round defeat against Harvard to top Yale 2 1/2 - 1 1/2.

The final round of the competition will match Princeton vs. Columbia and Harvard vs. Yale, with Princeton seeking only its second-ever victory in this annual tourney, the Tigers having previously captured top honors in 1908.

Results of the second round:

Harvard                         Princeton

Winkelman  1/2           Stockton   1/2

Currier 1                         Jarman, Jr. 0

Beers 0                            Carter 1

Washburn 0                  Chamberlin 1

Princeton played White on boards 1 and 3

Columbia                      Yale

Leede 1/2                      Beach 1/2

Ehrlich 1                        Quarles 0

Korkus 1                         Job 0

Bird 0                              Lightner 1

Columbia played White on boards 1 and 3

Standings after the 2nd round:  Princeton 5; Harvard 4 1/2; Columbia 3 1/2; Yale 3.

We present two games from the day's play.  First, the dramatic loss by Beers of Harvard, who outplayed Princeton's Carter in a Rook and Knight endgame before coming to grief.

Here Ehrlich of Columbia accepts the King's Gambit offered by Quarles of Yale and holds the whip hand throughout before deciding matters in a pawn endgame.

Games from the Trebitsch tournament: Josef Hrdina

In our previous report on the 5th Leopold Trebitsch Memorial tournament at Vienna we presented a loss by fifth-place finisher Josef Hrdina, who battled tourney winner Carl Schlechter blow-for-blow before committing a gross blunder when sorely pressed for time.  We likewise earlier published Hrdina's defeat at the hands of Dr. Tartakower.  Hrdina, a promising young player and already holder of a degree in Engineering, had previously appeared in our pages only once before the recent Trebitsch event, when he fell victim to a miniature by Karel Opocencky a few months ago at the Hauptturnier in Jungbunzlau.  We now redress this rather unequal balance and offer two victories by Hrdina, who at the moment seems to straddle the divide that separates the Master from the highly skilled amateur.  At the Trebitsch tourney, for example, he scored only a single point from eight games vs. Reti, Tartakower, Spielmann, and Schlechter, drawing once each with the two latter-named; against the remainder of the field, however - Albin, Schara, Löwy, Strobl, Kirschen - Hrdina displayed devastating force, winning nine of ten games, his lone defeat being inflicted by the veteran Albin. Whether Hrdina will rise to join the world's elite, only time and practice will reveal. For the present we can take delight in productions such as the following.

Here Hrdina with 14...d5! and 16...Nxh2! inaugurates a most attractive attack; the dance of the Black Knights is particularly striking.  We are indebted for many of the supplemental variations to our sharp-eyed friend Herr Fritz.

Hrdina can be equally proficient in defense, as in our other offering of the day, in which all Albin's vain attempts to attack lead only to his own defeat.

 

Harvard tops Columbia, Princeton defeats Yale as 22nd annual "C.H.Y.P." intercollegiate tournament begins

The 22nd annual "C.H.Y.P." tourney, a Christmastime fixture in the intercollegiate chess world, began on the 22nd inst. at New York's Murray Hill Hotel, with four-man teams from Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton facing each other in round-robin competition. The opening day's play saw defending Champion Harvard defeat Columbia by a margin of 3-1, while Princeton bested Yale, the tally being 2 1/2 - 1 1/2. The Harvard men are thus off to a good start in their quest to retain the title, which will be awarded to the squad scoring the most total points.  Princeton's team seems to have profited from two recent visits by U.S. Champion Frank J. Marshall, to judge by their victory over the Elis.  

The first day's results were as follows:

Harvard                         Columbia

B. Winkelman 0            H.E. Leede 1

F.M. Currier  1              D.E. Ehrlich   0

D.M. Beers  1                 E.F. Korkus   0

W.M. Washburn  1       J.M. Bird   0

Harvard played White on boards 1 and 3

Yale                                Princeton

R. Beach 1                    K.E. Stockton 0

D.A. Quarles 0            G.W. Jarman, Jr. 1

G.C. Job 1/2                E.S. Carter 1/2

T.A. Lightner 0          W.B. Chamberlin 1

Yale played White on boards 1 and 3

Standings after 1 round: Harvard 3; Princeton 2 1/2; Yale 1 1/2; Columbia 1.

We have three games to share from the first round of the competition. Here, in a battle on first board, Leede of Columbia sacrifices a piece on the 20th move, only to regain his investment with two pawns' interest shortly thereafter.

Next, the contest between Columbia's Bird and Harvard's Washburn comes to an abrupt end when the former chooses an unfortunate square for his Rook.

And here Chamberlin of Princeton checkmates Lightner of Yale.

Schlechter wins Trebitsch tourney; Spielmann 2nd, Tartakower 3rd, Reti 4th in close race

Bulletin: Carl Schlechter has captured first prize at the the 5th Leopold Trebitsch Memorial tournament in Vienna.  Schlechter, who previously won the 3rd and 4th editions of this event, compiled an undefeated record of 10 victories and eight draws to claim top honors with 14 points, one half-point ahead of second place finisher Rudolf Spielmann's 13 1/2.  In third place, close on the heels of Spielmann, came Dr. Saviely Tartakower with 13 points, while Richard Reti's 12 points earned him the fourth prize. The remaining scores were as follows: Josef Hrdina 10; Adolf Albin 9 1/2; Anton Schara 6 1/2; Leopold Löwy 5 1/2; Otto Strobl 3 1/2; Martin Kirschen 2 1/2.

We have two games from the tourney to offer our readers today. First, a pretty victory by Spielmann over Kirschen, concluding with a Queen sacrifice.

  

In our other featured game Josef Hrdina exchanges blows with Schlechter in a fierce encounter, only to blunder horribly at his 35th turn in a position where a Queen sacrifice would have brought him an endgame advantage. Of Hrdina we will have more to say in our next entry on the Trebitsch tournament, to appear in a very few days' time.

Capablanca tops Alekhine again, wins match 2-0

José Capablanca defeated Alexander Alekhine from the Black side of a Ruy Lopez to win the second game of their exhibition match at St. Petersburg and decide the contest in his favor by the score of 2-0.  With this latest victory Capablanca raised his combined total in the now-completed St. Petersburg series of short exhibition matches to 5-1, the Cuban hero having previously dispatched Fyodor Dus-Chotimirsky by the same 2-0 score and drawn his match vs. Eugene Znosko-Borovsky 1-1, the two players taking one game each. Znosko-Borovsky thus wins the gold cup offered to the opponent making the best score against Capablanca; the Cuban for his part received an honorarium for each game played, irrespective of the result, plus the winner's purse of 25 rubles for each of his five victories.

The Alekhine-Capablanca contest saw the two young stalwarts contend on equal terms for nearly 30 moves, with neither gaining the upper hand.  Capablanca's 29...Nd3 initiated a skirmish that might have turned to his disadvantage had Alekhine in place of 31.Ra1? selected 31.Bxc4 Rxd1 32.Bxf7+ Kxf7 33.Qxd1, winning a pawn.  As played, Black soon obtained a superior position on the Queen-side, and after 33...Qc2 a winning one, the collapse of Alekhine's game being accelerated by an acute shortage of time. White resigned at the 42nd move after the appearance on the board of a second Black Queen.

Capablanca travels next to Riga, where, in addition to a pair of simultaneous displays, an exhibition game vs. Niemzowitsch has been arranged for sometime next week, an encounter that we expect to present to our readers.

There follows the score of the Alekhine-Capablanca contest.

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We take our leave today by offering to all our readers our warmest wishes for a most Merry Christmas.

Trebitsch tournament, continued: Three games by Schlechter

In our coverage to date of the 5th Trebitsch Memorial tournament we have not yet presented any games by Carl Schlechter, who at last report was leading the tourney with four rounds still to be played.  Today we are pleased to be able to repair that omission by offering three efforts by the celebrated Austrian Master, who, we understand, has so far remained undefeated in the tournament.

Here Schlechter defeats Löwy in a lengthy Ruy Lopez that saw both Kings traverse the board during the middlegame.

Next, a victory over the veteran Adolf Albin, whose rather unusual handling of the Black side of the Ruy Lopez proved unequal to the strong, clear play of Schlechter.

Finally, a hard-fought draw vs. Spielmann, played a few days ago. It seems that Schlechter missed a chance to win with 39.f6+! as opposed to the chosen 39.Kxd5, a variation discovered by the Viennese Master Kaufmann. Readers are invited to refer to the notes included in the game score.

Capablanca defeats Dus-Chotimirsky with masterful attack, wins match 2-0

Cuban chess star José Capablanca recovered from his recent loss at the hands of Eugene Znosko-Borovsky to defeat Fyodor Dus-Chotimirsky in the second game of their exhibition match at St. Petersburg, thereby deciding the contest in his favor by a 2-0 score.  Capablanca, playing White in a Ruy Lopez, unleashed a sudden and unexpected attack with the pawn advance 25.e5!, the first of a series of hammer-blows - 26.e6, 28.Nf5!, 30.Qc6! - whose cumulative effect shattered the Black defenses.  Dus-Chotimirsky soon found himself in a hopeless endgame an exchange to the bad, and despite a prolonged, even spiteful resistance, was at last compelled to resign after the capture of his last piece at the 47th move, by which point Capablanca possessed an extra Queen and Rook. Lovers of fine chess will find much to admire in Capablanca's conduct of the game, and of its decisive attack in particular.  

With this latest victory Capablanca has now won four of the five games he has contested against the Russian Masters ranged against him, with only his return game against Alexander Alekhine remaining to be played. That encounter is slated for the 23rd of December, and when it comes to hand we will share it with our readers forthwith.

  

World Champion on tour: Dr. Lasker successfully concludes series of exhibitions

We present a final report on the tour by Dr. Lasker, the World Champion, who concluded his recent series of exhibitions with a performance in Stuttgart on the 19th inst.  Since his Prague exhibition in early December the Champion has made seven more stops - Königsberg, Berlin, Stettin, Kassel, Pforzheim, Freiburg im Breisgau, and Stuttgart - facing on average 25 opponents at each venue, and compiling the highly creditable score from 176 games of 158 victories and 16 draws, against only 2 defeats. The Doctor, it would seem, remains a most difficult man to beat, even with two dozen accomplished players ranged against him.

We have one game to share with our readers today, played at Stuttgart, the final stop on Dr. Lasker's tour. As so often occurs, it is a loss by the performer that sees the light of day.  Here Herr Eiche, with the White pieces, obtains such a promising position against the Champion's Open Defense to the Ruy Lopez that Dr. Lasker at the 21st move elects to sacrifice a whole Rook in the attempt to wrest the initiative from his opponent and decide the contest with an attack on the light squares, a design that is foiled by White's cool and sensible defense.

  

Znosko-Borovsky defeats Capablanca to draw exhibition match 1-1

Eugene Znosko-Borovsky halted the heretofore relentless victory march of José Capablanca by defeating the Cuban ace in the second and final game of their exhibition match at St. Petersburg to draw the contest with a 1-1 score.  Znosko-Borovsky, with the Black pieces, adopted the French Defense against White's opening move of the King's pawn.  The Russian came under strong attack on the Queen-side as the middlegame began, a circumstance perhaps owing to the numerous earlier displacements of the Black Queen, which made six of Black's first 18 moves and found itself consigned to a rather ineffectual post on the g7-square.  From that point forward, however, Znosko-Borovsky fought back manfully, eventually developing a counter-attack of his own after Capablanca at the 30th move sacrificed the exchange in the hope of deciding the contest with his resultant passed d-pawn.  The outcome seemed uncertain until the Black heavy pieces broke through into White's ranks, with Capablanca resigning after the Russian's 40th move.

The game was in a sense a mirror image of the first encounter between the two Masters approximately one week ago, in which Znosko-Borovsky gained an advantage against his powerful adversary, only to later lose his way and suffer defeat. With his match vs. Znosko-Borovsky now complete, Capablanca has two games remaining in the current series, against Fyodor Dus-Chotimirsky and Alekander Alekhine, each of whom he leads by a 1-0 score.  The Cuban's return game against Dus-Chotimirsky will take place on the 21st inst., while that against Alekhine is scheduled for the 23rd. 

With today's loss Capablanca likewise loses the opportunity of winning the gold cup offered as a special prize had he succeeded in winning all six games in the series.  That prize will now go to the opponent who makes the best score against the Cuban visitor, thereby requiring Dus-Cotimirsky or Alekhine to inflict another defeat on Capablanca in order to match the feat of Znosko-Borovsky and  remain in the running for the award.

We present the Capablanca-Znosko-Borovsky game below.

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More games from the Trebitsch tournament; Schlechter, Spielmann, Tartakower, Reti in close race for top honors.

We are in receipt of two more sprightly games from the 5th Trebitsch Memorial Tournament in Vienna.  In the first, played during the tourney's fourth round on the 24th ult., Dr. Saviely Tartakower as second player in a Dutch Defense develops a powerful attack notwithstanding the early exchange of Queens and defeats Josef Hrdina via a pretty Knight sacrifice. Our other featured contest, a powerful victory by Richard Reti over Rudolf Spielmann from the Black side of a Scotch Game, offers a memorable lesson on the deadly potential of a pin.  Much interesting chess seems to be taking place in Vienna, and we continue our efforts to procure more games from the Trebitsch tourney.

One recent report has given the tournament standings after 14 rounds as follows: Schlechter 10 1/2; Spielmann, Tartakower 10; Reti 9 1/2; Albin 8; Hrdina 6; Löwy 4 1/2; Schara 4; Kirschen 2; Strobl 1 1/2.  We note, however, that on the above list the total of all points scored amounts to 66 rather than the 70 to be expected after 14 complete rounds, a circumstance likely owing to the existence of four outstanding adjourned contests.  At all events, the race to the finish appears dramatic indeed.

We present the two games described above.  First, Tartakower sacrifices his Knight to weave a mating net.

 

Here the normally alert Spielmann errs with 20.a3?, allowing the decisive 20...Rxc2!