This is the master tournament played in Aachen at the 7th Congress of the Chess Association of West-Germany (Westdeutscher Schachbund) from August 2 to August 6, 1868. The congress has been organized by the Aachener Schachverein 1856, the local chess club.The participants were Professor Adolf Anderssen (Breslau), Dr. Max Lange (Leipzig), Wilfried Paulsen (Nassengrund/Blomberg), Emil Schallopp (Anklam) and Johannes Zukertort (Berlin). Every player should meet every opponent for one decisive game, i.e., draws did not count and were replayed, but this happened only once. At the beginning the games were played consecutively, but later some games were played in parallel, but there were no rounds in the usual sense. The time limit was 20 moves within 2 hours, but in the absence of clocks it was illusory.
Schallopp departed after losing two games. The reason is unclear. Some say he withdrew because of the bad results, others say he had to leave. The latter is not unlikely, because according to the original schedule the award ceremony should take place already in the evening of August 4, the day he played his 2nd game. It has been decided that his games did not count.
The results of the decided games:
table[
----------
Anderssen x 1 0 1 2
Lange 0 x 1 1 2
W.Paulsen 1 0 x 0 1
Zukertort 0 0 1 x 1
----------
]table
The necessary play-off was won by Lange.
All games of the tournament are preserved, but two game scores are incomplete (Zukertort vs Anderssen, 1868 and Anderssen vs Zukertort, 1868).
The colours of the players were determined for every game by lot, and Anderssen had the luck of playing White in all games except the first one with Zukertort.
Louis Paulsen was also present, but as usual on these congresses he avoided to play against his brother, and gave only a blindfold simultaneous exhibition on 5 boards (+2, =2, -1). Zukertort performed another blindfold simultaneous exhibition on 5 boards (+2, -3).
Single and group pictures of the six masters have been made, but they are probably lost.
[Sources: a) Schachzeitung 1868, vol. 23, pp. 249-253 and 266-270. b) Neue Berliner Schachzeitung 1868, vol. 5, pp. 257-263. c) Aachener Zeitung, several reports from August 4 to August 9, 1868. d) Echo der Gegenwart, several reports from August 3 to August 8, 1868.]
Kibitzing
