The London 1883 chess tournament was a strong

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

tournament among most of the leading players of the day. It was won convincingly by

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 Ches ...

(22 points out of 26) 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 che ...

(with 19 points). Remarkably, Zukertort was already assured of victory with three rounds to go, having scored an astonishing 22/23. He then lost his last three games against relatively weak players, probably due to exhaustion. The tournament established Zukertort as rivalling Steinitz to claim to be the best player in the world, and led to the

World Chess Championship 1886 The World Chess Championship 1886 was the first official World Chess Championship match contested by Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort. The match took place in the United States, the first five games being played in New York City, the next ...

match between the two (the first official

World Chess Championship The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013. The first event recognized as a world championship was the World Chess ...

match). The event was a double

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero ...

. Marmaduke Wyvill contributed to organizing the tournament. The tournament was also notable for the first use of the double-sided

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 ...

, invented and manufactured by Thomas Bright Wilson of Manchester Chess Club. A common story relates to an incident that occurred at the tournament banquet, when the St. George Chess Club President proposed a toast to the best chess player in the world and both Steinitz and Zukertort stood up at the same time to thank him. Research by Edward Winter suggests that this story has been embellished. A game between Mason and Winawer was played, adjourned and resumed, but upon resumption the black knight on e7 was mistakenly placed on d7. Neither player noticed at the time and Winawer played the illegal, but powerful, Nc5! setting up a Ne4+ and eventually winning the match, with the mistake not being spotted until after the game concluded. It was not until days later that the mistake was noticed. The tournament book was dedicated to Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, for his patronage of the tournament.

Crosstable

The results and standings: C.E. Ranken (editor)
''The International Tournament of 1883''
''

Chess Player's Chronicle The ''Chess Player's Chronicle'', founded by Howard Staunton and extant in 1841–56 and 1859–62, was the world's first successful English-language magazine devoted exclusively to chess. Various unrelated but identically or similarly named publi ...

'', 27 June 1883, p. 26 In this tournament a game ending in a draw was replayed at least twice. The third game after two draws would count, whatever the result. In the table, "+" indicates win by default, "-" indicates loss by default or unplayed game, "d" inicates a drawn game that was replayed and not counted towards the final score. Skipworth withdrew from the tournament two games after the half way point; the remainder of his games were scored as losses. The final game between Rosenthal and Blackburne was not replayed as by that point it was clear that it would have had no impact on the final result of the tournament.

References

External links

1883 London Tournament
Mark Weeks' Chess Pages {{Chess, state=collapsed Chess competitions Chess in London 1883 in chess 1883 in London 1883 in English sport April 1883 sports events May 1883 sports events June 1883 sports events