Chess History and Reminiscences | Page 5

in 1876, and Tchigorin of St. Petersburg, a
splendid player came to the front in 1881. Equal to him in force,

perhaps, if not in style, and yet more remarkable in their records of
success are the present champions Dr. Tarrasch of Nuremberg and E.
Lasker of Berlin. The Havanna people, who, for five or six years past
have spent more money on great personal chess encounters than all the
rest of the world combined, have put forth Walbrodt of Leipzig. In the
above mentioned four players, chess interest for a time will mostly
centre, with Steinitz, yet unvanquished, and, as many consider, able to
beat them all, the future must be of unique interest, and the year 1893
may decide which of five favourite foreign players will be entitled to
rank as the world's champion of chess, so far as can be decided by
matches played on existing conditions.
Chess with clocks and the tedious slow time limit of fifteen moves an
hour (say a working day for a single game) must not be confounded
with genuine, useful and enjoyable chess without distracting time
encumbrances as formerly played. Played at the pace and on the
conditions which the exigencies of daily, yea hourly, life and labour
admit of experience shews that there are yet English exponents that can
render a good account of any of the foreign players.
First class chess enthusiasm and support for the past year has been
limited to Newcastle-on-Tyne and Belfast. The unbounded and
impartial liberality of these very important cities has met with
gratifying reward in the increased appreciation of their efforts and the
enhanced number of club members and interest in the general circle.
These highly successful meetings, however, have caused no impetus in
metropolitan management, and has seemed to divert the attention of
chess editors and the responsible powers entirely from the fact that the
London 1892 First Class International Chess Tournament promised has
been altogether neglected, if not forgotten. We are thus in grave default
with the German and Dutch Chess Associations, who have so faithfully
and punctually fulfilled every engagement.
The forthcoming monster chess competition at Birmingham, from
which first class players are excluded can scarcely be deemed a fitting
substitute for our owing International engagement with any true lover
of chess and its friendly reciprocity, and least of all in the eyes of our

foreign chess brethren and entertainers.
NOTE. This monster Chess Contest between the North and the South
of England, represented by 106 competitors on each side, which
terminated in a victory for the South by 53 1/2 to 52 1/2, took place at
Birmingham on Saturday, the 28th January last, and has occasioned
considerable interest among the votaries of the game and reports
pronounce it a great success.
As affording indications of general chess progress, since the game
became a recognized item of public recreationary intelligence, and the
time of the pioneer International Chess Tournament of all nations,
London 1851, the event may be deemed of some import and
significance, as evidence of the vastly increased popularity of the game,
but the play seems not to have been productive of many very high
specimens of the art of chess, and has not been conspicuous for
enterprise or originality, and if these exhibitions are to take the place of
the kind of International Tournaments hitherto held, much
improvement must be manifested, before they can be deemed worthy
substitutes, even from a national point of view only.
Books on the openings in chess have continued fairly popular, but it is
singular how very little novelty or originality has been imparted into
them. Since Staunton and Wormald's works, and the German
hand-books, the Modern Chess Instructor of Mr. Steinitz, 1889, was
looked forward to with the greatest interest, and the second of the
several volumes of which it was to consist, promised for September,
1890, is still awaited with anxious expectation. In regard to the practice
of the game, the lack of national chess spirit, or organization, and the
extraordinary denominating influence of the foreign element, is the
remarkable and conspicuous characteristic, and the modest seat
assigned to British Masters in the Retrospects of 1889 and 1890
(Times), will it is feared have to be placed yet further back.

The Chess Openings: Considered Critically And Practically By H. E.
BIRD.

"This is the work of one of the most distinguished of English players.
Since the death of Mr. Staunton nobody can more fairly claim to
represent the national school of players than Mr. H. E. BIRD, who took
part in the first International Tournament of 1851, and also played at
Vienna in 1873, at Philadelphia, and recently at Paris. Perhaps his most
brilliant performances have been in single matches, in two of which he
made an equal score with Falkbeer, while,