Paris quadrangular tournament: Alekhine and Marshall share 1st place

The quadrangular tournament at Paris's Café Continental has ended in a joint victory by Alexander Alekhine and Frank J. Marshall, each with 2 1/2 points. The two Masters played to a draw in their first-round encounter and then defeated the remaining competitors, André Muffang and B. Hallegua, in the succeeding rounds. Muffang took third place with 1 point by virtue of his opening-round victory over Hallegua, while the latter finished in bottom position, having lost all three of his games.

Marshall and Alekhine will soon leave Paris for Mannheim, where the biennial Congress of the German Schachbund is scheduled to begin on the 20th of July. There they will face such formidable foes as Dr. Tarrasch, Janowski, Duras, Spielmann, Tartakower, Vidmar, and Reti, among others. Hallegua, too, will make the journey to Mannheim, as we understand that he intends to participate in the principal Hauptturnier there, a formidable contest in itself.

We have one game from the Paris tournament to share with our readers today, the third-round victory by Alekhine over Muffang. This and yesterday's Alekhine-Hallegua encounter are the only two games from the tourney to have come to hand, and we regret in particular our inability to present any games by Marshall, the co-winner. News from Mannheim should be easier to come by, as we have made arrangements with a reliable source to receive the game scores from that event on a regular basis.

Herewith the Muffang-Alekhine contest. White chooses the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez, with the game proceeding relatively quietly for the first dozen moves.  With 13.g4, 14.Kh1 and 16.Rg1 Muffang seems to prepare a general King-side advance, but thereafter the French youngster takes no further steps in that direction, and the Black Knight takes up residence on the f4-square left weakened by White's earlier pawn thrust. At the 23rd move Alekhine forgoes the win of the exchange, preferring instead to increase the prospects of his dark-squared Bishop and to leave the opposing forces confined to the first two ranks. A Queen-side advance by Black then shatters White's position on that wing and yields the second player an extra, passed a-pawn, whose advance wins a piece. A game not without interest, even if a rather one-sided affair.