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Aron
Nimzowitsch and
Savielly Tartkower shared
first prize at the prestigious British Empire Club
Tournament in 1927. The event took place in
London, England from October 10th to October 24th, with
the opening banquet dinner taking place on Sunday,
October 9th at the British Empire Club. Time
controls were announced as 30 moves in the first two
hours and 15 moves an hour thereafter.
The tournament boasted one of the strongest fields of
its time. The only noticeable absences being Jose
Raul Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, who were engaged
in a struggle for the world chess championship in
Argentina. Aside from Nimzowitsch and Tartakower,
some more notable participants in the field of twelve
were Frank Marshall, Richard Reti,
Milan Vidmar, Efim Bogoljubow, and Edgar
Colle.
This
was also an era in which "hypermodernism" had been made
prevalent by players such as Nimzowitsch, Tartkower, and
Reti in particular. This was clearly evident in
the tournament as "Indian" defenses were played in 28 of the
66 games and a variety of other hypermodern defenses
(Catalan Opening, Reti Opening, Grunfeld Defense,
English Opening) were deployed in another 8 games.
At the
halfway point of the event (through Round 6), the
tournament was very much undecided. Tartakower
(4½) was in first place by himself, followed by a
log jam of players (Nimzowitsch, Marshall, Vidmar, Reti,
Bogoljubow) just a half point behind. Most of
these participants would gradually fall off the pace, but Nimzowitsch managed to win three of his next four games
to put him into a tie with Tartakower going into the
final round.
In the
final round, Tartakower quickly assured himself of at
least a tie for first place with an impressive 31-move
victory over Reti with the White pieces.
Nimzowitsch, also playing with the White pieces, would
not have such an easy time with his opponent, Colle.
Their game would go into the late evening hours and
transform into a complicated Rook and Pawn endgame.
Nimzowitsch would eventually gain a pawn advantage and
go on to win the marathon game in 78 moves.
The win
resulted in a shared first place award with Tartakower.
Marshall would finish in third place by himself, just a
half point behind the leaders. Noteworthy is the
fact that all six final round games were outright
victories, with the victors playing the White pieces in
every game. |
