The Baden-Baden 1870 chess tournament was one of the strongest chess tournaments ever at the time. The tournament lasted from 18 July until 4 August 1870, in

Baden-Baden Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the Rhine, the border with Fra ...

. It was won by

Adolf Anderssen Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen (July 6, 1818 – March 13, 1879)"Anderssen, Adolf" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 385. was a German chess master. He won the great internat ...

, ahead of

Wilhelm Steinitz William Steinitz (born Wilhelm Steinitz; May 14, 1836 – August 12, 1900) was an Austrian and, later, American chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first official World Chess Champion. He was also a highly influential writer and c ...

. In comparison with earlier major tournaments such as

London 1851 chess tournament London 1851 was the first international chess tournament. The tournament was conceived and organised by English player Howard Staunton, and marked the first time that the best chess players in Europe would meet in a single event. Adolf Anderssen ...

London 1862 chess tournament An international chess tournament was held in London, during the second British world exhibition, in 1862. The prizes were won by Adolf Anderssen (£100), Louis Paulsen (£50), John Owen (£30), George Alcock MacDonnell (£15), Serafino Duboi ...

and

Paris 1867 chess tournament World exhibitions became a new phenomenon in the West in the nineteenth century. Scientific and technical progress were shown. About a dozen World Fairs were organised during the second half of the nineteenth century. Seven times an international i ...

, there were two major innovations:

chess clock A chess clock consists of two adjacent clocks with buttons to stop one clock while starting the other, so that the two clocks never run simultaneously. Chess clocks are used in chess and other two-player games where the players move in turn, and ...

s were used for the first time (20 moves had to be made per hour), and draws counted as half points. The tournament included most of the world's leading players. Strong players who were absent were

Max Lange Max Lange (August 7, 1832, Magdeburg – December 8, 1899, Leipzig) was a German chess player and problem composer. Chess career In 1858–64, Lange was an editor of the ''Deutsche Schachzeitung'' (German Chess Newsletter). He was a founder of ...

Johannes Zukertort Johannes Hermann Zukertort (Polish: ''Jan Hermann Cukiertort''; 7 September 1842 – 20 June 1888) was a Polish chess master. He was one of the leading world players for most of the 1870s and 1880s, but lost to Wilhelm Steinitz in the World Che ...

, Jakoby and Meitner. On 19 July, the day after the tournament began, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, between

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

and

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

. The southern German states, including the Grand Duchy of Baden, took the side of Prussia. The war came within 30 km of Baden-Baden, close enough for the artillery to be heard. Stern, who was a Bavarian reservist, left the tournament after four rounds to fight in the war;Baden-Baden 1870
his games were not counted in the final scores. The results at Baden-Baden 1870 were as follows: : Anderssen won 3000 francs, Steinitz - 600 francs, Neumann and Blackburne - 200 francs (each).

Literature

* Stefan Haas: ''Das Schachturnier Baden-Baden 1870. Der unbekannte Schachmeister Adolf Stern''. Rattmann, Ludwigshafen 2006.

References

{{reflist Chess competitions Chess in Germany 1870 in chess 1870 in Germany Baden-Baden Sport in Baden-Württemberg July 1870 sports events August 1870 sports events