Customer Reviews

Hastings 1895: The Centennial Edition

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Hastings 1895 is one of the most famous chess tournaments. Harry Pillsbury, a virtual unknown when the tournament began, beat out new world champion Emanuel Lasker and perennial contender Mikhail Tchigorin in a very close contest. Wilhelm Steinitz, Siegbert Tarrasch and most of the other leading players in the world also participated.

The book is an unabridged reprint of the original tournament book, with algebraic notation substitued for the original descriptive. The games are annotated by the players themselves, and the annotations thus provide a window into the styles, opening preferences, and theories of the leading players of the day. The annotations vary in quality (Tarrasch, as you might expect, is terrific; Pillsbury rather slipshod) but they certainly add to the period charm of the book. A description of the exciting course of the tournament itself is provided by a Mr. Cheshire. The book is full of revelations: those who, like myself, thought Lasker's strength lay in the ending will be surprised to see him mow down opponent after opponent in 30 moves or less. Tchigorin provides both modern and ancient touches with his King's Indian Reversed and Evans Gambits. And Pillsbury's relentless attacks are as fresh now as they were 100 years ago. Highly recommended

Hastings 1895 is a rightly celebrated chess tournament as it brought together the strongest players of that time, and many for the first time. This was Lasker's first chess outing since controversially beating World Champion Steinitz in 1894. Although the tournament established Lasker as a very strong player, it was won in fantastic style by the unknown American player Harry Nelson Pillsbury. This modern version of the book combines algebraic notation and incorporates the annotations within each game (eg after the move in question). This is a distinct advantage over the older practice of listing all the annotations at the end of each game, which made books like London 1883 and New York 1924 (and the previous editions of Hastings 1895) very annoying to play through. The games are annotated by the various players with similarly varying degrees of quality. Steinitz's and Tarrasch's comments set an excellent standard in this regard. On the whole the games demonstrated very keen fighting qualities, and represent a good illustration of the transition to the modern game. Steinitz deservedly won the brilliancy prize for the stunning rook sacrifices in his game with von Bardeleben. There are a host of other truly wonderful games (eg Pillsbury's endgame combination versus Gunsberg to win the tournament). The book is well presented with good binding and legibility. It is highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of the game and its great players.

Instead of running off to get collections by Shirov or Nunn, the vast majority of club/ICC type players would be far better served by this book. In addition to being beautifully produced, the games and annotations are wonderfully instructive. This book is full of Giouco Pianos and Ruy Lopezes, the open games in all their glory. This is the type of stuff we should be studying, instead of trying to learn secondary openings like the Pirc, the King's Indian, and even the Sicilian. Great, great book.

This book starts with an introduction by a Mr. Cheshire, who discusses each of the participants, by listing their accomplishments. Having a "tour guide" such as Mr. Cheshire is a most unusual and most effective method of bringing the tournament to life for the reader. The best aspect of the book, in my opinion.

Then each game is annotated, by a participant in the tournament. The comments vary greatly in quality. Some of them are excellent and detailed; others seem like they were composed in about 10 minutes. None of the annotations are overly detailed to the point of having the readers' eyes glaze over, as is often the case with more modern books.

This is an excellent instructional book for novice players, as grandmaster opening theory in 1895 corresponds to the level of most of today's novice-average players. Plenty of open games (1.e4 e5) are included in this book.

This book is written in algebraic notation, which makes it accessible to all chess players. A must-buy for history buffs.