C.N. 6563: <Staunton v Stanley match

Rod Edwards (Victoria, BC, Canada) writes:

‘The record of Howard Staunton's matches given on pages 129-130 of your 1981 book World Chess Champions shows the result of his match with Charles Henry Stanley at the odds of pawn and two moves as +2 –3 =1, and the year is given as 1841. The Oxford Companion to Chess (first edition, page 324; second edition, page 389) concurs on the result and the year. Feenstra Kuiper's Hundert Jahre Schachzweikämpfe (page 12), Golombek's Encyclopedia (pages 307 and 456 of the hardback and paperback editions respectively) and Chess Results, 1747-1900 by Di Felice (page 3) all have the same result but give the year as 1839. Fiske's New York, 1857 tournament book (page 406) states that the match was played not long before Stanley's departure for the United States (which he says was in 1842), and that Stanley won "by a large majority".

However, in the 1842 volume of the Chess Player's Chronicle (page 368) Staunton wrote:

"Messrs St--n and S--y have played in all but 12 games, exclusive of drawn ones, at the odds of ‘the pawn and two moves'. Of these 12, Mr S--y won seven, and Mr St--n five."

I wonder where the +2 –3 =1 result comes from originally, and how it can be reconciled with Staunton's claim in the Chess Player's Chronicle.

World Chess Champions indicates (page 130) that in cases where the final scores were not known the match results given "are those of surviving games". Presumably, this does not apply to the Staunton-Stanley match, since I count eight game-scores in volume two of the Chess Player's Chronicle (pages 117-118, 200, 211-212, 213, 226-228, 241-242, 293-294 and 324-325), amounting to +3 –4 =1 for Staunton. I wonder whether all these games were considered part of the formal match.'

The Staunton biography and results tables in World Chess Champions were by R.N. Coles. The only addition that we can offer at present is that an account of Stanley's life on pages 364-367 of the August 1982 BCM (following research by Jeremy Gaige) stated that Staunton was defeated +2 –3 =1 and that the contest took place in December 1841.>