Budapest tournament, Round 9: Forgacs, with victory over Barasz, now alone in lead

Leo Forgacs defeated Zsigmond Barasz to move to the top of the score table after the ninth round of the Austro-Hungarian Championship tourney in Budapest.  Forgacs, with 6 points, now stands one half-point ahead of his nearest rivals, Rudolf Spielmann and Saviely Tartakower, who drew their ninth round encounter.  Both Forgacs and Tartakower have a free day remaining on the program, and so will play in only three of the final four rounds; Spielmann will play in all four.  In the day's other contests, Miklos Brody checkmated Milan Vidmar, Richard Reti sacrificed his Queen en route to defeating Lajos Asztalos, and Georg Marco topped Zoltan von Balla.  Gyula Breyer had the bye, and Karoly Sterk was likewise free, having originally been paired against the departed Jeno Szekely. 

The tournament has proved most sharply contested, with half the field having held at least a share of the lead at one point or another.  In such circumstances it is perhaps of even more vital importance than usual that tourney organizers make all game scores available to the public, and we take this opportunity to issue once again our oft-repeated plea to that effect.  We have received no games by Forgacs, the man who now leads the Championship, since the second round, nor do we have to hand the score of the Spielmann-Tartakower ninth-round clash, a battle between tournament co-leaders.  Thorough reporting thus becomes impossible, and we feel compelled to apologize to our readers for the incompleteness of our account, even if the cause for dissatisfaction lies wholly outside of our control.

Scores after 9 rounds:  Forgacs* 6, Spielmann, Tartakower* 5 1/2; Breyer, Asztalos*, Marco* 4 1/2; v. Balla* 4; Vidmar**, Brody* 3 1/2; Reti 2 1/2; Barasz, Sterk 1.    *The number of asterisks following a surname indicates the number of rounds each player will sit idle during the remainder of the tourney.  Spielmann, for example, will play in each of the remaining 4 rounds, Forgacs in 3, Vidmar in 2.

The 10th round will be played on 19 June.

We share with our readers the two game scores that did arrive via cable.  Here Brody instantly exploits an oversight by Vidmar to deliver mate on the move:

And here Reti, who has found this tourney rough going, records a fine victory over Asztalos: