| Bad Pistyan (1922) |
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One of the pioneers of the hypermodern school of chess, Gyula Breyer, died of heart failure, aged just 28, in early November 1921. Not long before his death, he had written to his friend Dr. Zoltan Vecsey, then Secretary of the Kosice Chess Club, suggesting that a strong international tournament should be arranged in the Spa town of Pistyan, thus carrying on the tradition started in 1912 when the town had hosted a strong international tournament (Bad Pistyan (1912)). The idea was received enthusiastically in many quarters, including the management of the Spa. It was also strongly supported by some highly placed members of the Government of the newly created Czechoslovakia. The Kosice Chess Club decided to proceed with the idea and at the same time to honour Breyer's memory by designating the event as the Gyula Breyer Memorial Tournament. Invitations were sent out to most of the prominent chess masters. Oldrich Duras, Emanuel Lasker, Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard Teichmann did not reply. Akiba Rubinstein accepted, but had to withdraw before the tournament began because of illness. In spite of these absences the event had a very good entry of 19 strong competitors; these included Alexander Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubov, Max Euwe, Ernst Grünfeld, Richard Réti, Friedrich Sämisch, Rudolf Spielmann, Siegbert Tarrasch and Savielly Tartakower. The rest of the field was made up of strong masters from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary and Poland. The organisers agreed to designate seven prizes for the "A" tournament and many more special prizes were donated by prominent persons in Czechoslovakia. Alekhine, Vecsey, Ladislav Prokes and Tarrasch were appointed as the Tournament Directors. Coincidentally with the main event, a "B" tournament with twelve entrants was also arranged. On the evening of the 6th of April, the tournament was formally opened with the drawing of the pairing numbers. This was followed by a banquet and speeches from a number of officials from the Spa management and by a Minister of the Czechoslovakian Government. Play in both tournaments began at 9 a.m. on the following day and continued until the event officially ended on the 29th of April. The tournament was closely contested and the final result was still in doubt until the last round. At the end of the penultimate round Alekhine and Bogoljubov were equal on 14 points. In the final Alekhine could only manage to draw with Reti, whereas Bogoljubow won his game against Euwe and hence the tournament. The final places of the prize winners were: Bogoljubov first on 15 points, Alekhine and Spielmann in joint second and third place with 14½ points, Grunfeld fourth on 11 points, Reti fifth on 10½, with Samisch and Wolf in joint sixth and seventh place on 9½. Alekhine went through the tournament with only one loss (against Tartakower) and five draws. He drew his games with both Bogoljubov and Spielmann. Three special brilliancy prizes were given by the President of Czechoslovakia, Tomas Masaryk. One of these was won by Alekhine for his game against Wolf. He also won a special prize contributed by the Prague City Councillor, Dr Dusek, an old and well known chess master, for his game against Tarrasch. Although Alekhine did not succeed in achieving the first prize, he had, according to most standards, enhanced his reputation as one of the strongest players of the day. Special thanks go to Paul Morten for his research and to Skinner and Verhoeven for the text used in this collection. Piestany (Pistyan), Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), 7-28 April 1922 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Pts
1 Bogoljubov * ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 1 1 15
=2 Spielmann ½ * ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 1 1 14½
=2 Alekhine ½ ½ * 1 ½ 1 1 0 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 14½
4 Grünfeld 0 0 0 * 0 ½ 1 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 11
5 Réti ½ ½ ½ 1 * ½ 0 ½ 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 10½
=6 Sämisch 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ * ½ ½ ½ 1 0 1 ½ ½ 1 1 1 0 ½ 9½
=6 Wolf 0 0 0 0 1 ½ * 0 ½ ½ ½ 1 1 ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 1 9½
8 Tartakower 1 0 1 0 ½ ½ 1 * 0 ½ 0 0 ½ 1 ½ 1 1 0 ½ 9
=9 Tarrasch 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 * 0 1 1 ½ 1 0 0 ½ ½ 1 8½
=9 Euwe 0 0 ½ 0 1 0 ½ ½ 1 * ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 8½
=9 Johner 0 0 0 ½ 0 1 ½ 1 0 ½ * 1 1 ½ 0 1 0 ½ 1 8½
=12 von Balla 0 0 ½ 0 1 0 0 1 0 ½ 0 * ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 1 8
=12 Treybal 0 0 0 0 1 ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 0 ½ * ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 8
=14 Selezniev ½ ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ 0 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ * ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 7
=14 Hromadka 0 0 0 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ * 0 ½ 1 0 7
=16 Prokes 0 ½ 0 0 ½ 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 ½ ½ 1 * ½ 1 ½ 6
=16 Przepiorka 0 0 0 ½ 0 0 0 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ * ½ ½ 6
18 Marco 0 0 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 0 ½ 0 0 0 0 0 ½ * ½ 5½
19 Opocensky 0 0 0 0 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 0 0 ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ * 4½
Original collection: Game Collection: Bad Pistyan 1922, by User: suenteus po 147.
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| page 1 of 7; games 1-25 of 171 |
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| page 1 of 7; games 1-25 of 171 |
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| Jun-29-13 | | whiteshark: There's a nice illustrated German cb report on this tournament: http://www.chessbase.de/Home/TabId/... |
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| Jun-29-13 | | Feldgrau: Sounds painful. |
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| Jun-29-13 | | whiteshark: Yes, for sure! |
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Feb-08-14
 | | perfidious: Bogoljubov has taken plenty of heat for his perceived failure as a player in these pages, having twice lost title matches to Alekhine, but he had some fine tournament results against the strongest players of the 1920s. As was the case with Bent Larsen, the over-optimism which proved his undoing at the very highest level served, at the same time, as the impetus for numerous achievements. |
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| Apr-03-14 | | ughaibu: Spielmann was the only unbeaten player. That's interesting. I'm even tempted to say it surprises me. |
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| Jul-23-20 | | JimNorCal: Spielmann came in second in the 1912 tournament at this place, as well. |
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Oct-09-20
 | | GrahamClayton: Symmetrical performance by Tartakower - 6 wins, 6 draws and 6 losses. |
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Apr-19-22
 | | FSR: <perfidious> A number of players' reputations have been diminished by a match (or in Bogo's case, matches) they lost to a superior player. E.g. Janowski and Marshall getting crushed by Lasker, Taimanov and Larsen getting blanked by Fisher. In Euwe's case, his reputation was undone by the 1948 match-tournament for the world championship. He was humiliated, and thereafter has generally been remembered, unfairly, as "the guy who became world champion because Alekhine was drunk." I think Larsen is also denigrated because people remember Spassky's glorious annihilation of him in Larsen vs Spassky, 1970. No one remembers that Larsen scored 2.5 out of 3 in his other games in that event, including 1.5 out of 2 in his other games against Spassky! USSR vs. Rest of the World (1970)/Bent Larsen. All of those players were world class at their peaks. According to Chessmetrics, Euwe was No. 1 in the world for almost all of 1936 and 1937, http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/... ; Janowski was No. 1 for five months in 1904, http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/... ; Marshall was momentarily No. 2 in 1913, http://chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/Play... ; Larsen was No. 3 for eight months in 1970 and 1971, http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/... ; and Taimanov was No. 5 in January 1957, http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/.... |
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Apr-19-22
| | perfidious: <FSR>, the quote--I do not recall where or whom--which has always destroyed me in re USSR vs World ran: <Larsen, smouldering, beat Stein> which was, of course, the round in which the Soviets sat Spassky. |
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Apr-22-22
| | FSR: <perfidious> I remember that one too. Probably in the book on the USSR v. Rest of the World match? |
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Jun-07-22
 | | keypusher: < perfidious: <FSR>, the quote--I do not recall where or whom--which has always destroyed me in re USSR vs World ran:
<Larsen, smouldering, beat Stein>> It's in <Profile of a Prodigy>. But maybe Brady stole it! |
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Jun-08-22
| | FSR: Thanks, <keypusher>. I should have mentioned that chessmetrics has Bogo at No. 1 in January and February 1927. http://chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/Play... |
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Jun-08-22
 | | Chessical: From the report (in German) on the Chessbase website: https://de.chessbase.com/post/breye... <As the tournament book records, the tournament "according to Breyer's plan" was to be a "true peace tournament in which many champions could take part and therefore be able to measure their strength more easily than in the short tournaments of recent years, such as: Gothenburg, Berlin, Budapest and The Hague" [Bernhard Kagan, [editor], II. International Julius Breyer Memorial Chess Tournament Bad Piestany 1922, Zurich: Edition Olms, 1987, p.6.]With the exception of world champion Capablanca, almost all the top players of the time were invited. Geza Maroczy, Milan Vidmar and Jacques Mieses declined, however, due to lack of time, whilst Aaron Nimzowitsch, Emanuel Lasker, Richard Teichmann and Oldrich Duras failed to respond to the invitation. Akiba Rubinstein who had wanted to participate was foiled at the last minute due to a stomach illness.> |
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Jun-08-22
| | keypusher: <FSR: Thanks, <keypusher>. I should have mentioned that chessmetrics has Bogo at No. 1 in January and February 1927. http://chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/Play... Yeah, but they shouldn't. Jeff Sonas has Bogo having good results at three (!) tournaments in January 1927, which is what pushes him to the top. Bogo didn't play three international tournaments in a month, needless to say. Sonas put tournaments in January if he didn't know when in the year they occurred. Of course Bogo was an outstanding player, though never quite at the Lasker-Capa-Alekhine level. Not that I wouldn't mind being within a thousand miles of that level myself. |
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