Siegbert Tarrasch

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Siegbert Tarrasch (March 5, 1862 – February 17, 1934) was one of the strongest chess players of the late 19th century and early 20th century. Tarrasch was Jewish, and a patriotic German who lost a son in World War 1, but lived to suffer under the early stages of Nazism.

Chess Career

Tarrasch was a medical doctor by profession who also may have been the best player in the world in during the early 1890s. He scored heavily against the aging Steinitz in tournaments, (+3-0=1), but refused an opportunity to challenge for the world title because of the demands of his medical practice. Soon afterwards, Tarrasch drew a hard-fought match against his challenger Mikhail Chigorin in 1893 (+9-9=4). Tarrasch also won four major tournaments in succession: Breslau 1889, Manchester 1890, Dresden 1892 and Leipzig 1894.

However, after Emmanuel Lasker became world chess champion in 1894, Tarrasch could not match him. When Lasker finally agreed to a title match in 1908, he beat Tarrasch convincingly +8-3=5.[1] However, Tarrasch was still very powerful during Lasker's reign, demolishing Frank Marshall in a match in 1905 (+8-1=8), and becoming one of the five original grandmasters by becoming one of the five finalists at the very strong Saint Petersburg tournament of 1914.

This was probably his swan song, because his chess career was not very successful after this, although he still played some highly regarded games.

Chess teachings

Tarrasch was a well-known chess writer, and was called Praeceptor Germaniae meaning "Teacher of Germany". He wrote several books, including Die moderne Schachpartie and Three hundred chess games. But until recently, his books had not been translated into English although his ideas became famous.

He took Wilhelm Steinitz's ideas (control of the center, bishop pair, space advantage) to a higher level of refinement. He emphasized piece mobility much more than Steinitz did, and disliked cramped positions, saying that they "had the germ of defeat".

Tarrasch stated what is known as the Tarrasch rule that rooks should be placed behind passed pawns — either yours or your opponent's.

Clash with Hypermodern School

He was a great target of the hypermodern school, led by Richard Réti, Aron Nimzowitsch and Savielly Tartakower, who considered his ideas dogmatic. However, many modern masters regard Tarrasch's actual play as not so dogmatic. For example, Tarrasch annotated his victory on the Black side of the Advance French against Paulsen (Nuremberg 1888),[2] and after 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 c5 4 c3 Nc6 5 Nf3 Qb6 6 Bd3, Tarrasch gives his next move 6 ... cxd4 an exclamation mark, and points out that 6 ... Bd7 allows 7 dxc5 with a good game. However, most accounts credit Nimzovitch with such anti-dogmatic hypermodern inventiveness when he played this against Salwe almost a quarter of a century later (Karlsbad 1911).[3]

Contribution to opening theory

A number of chess openings are named after Tarrasch, with the most notable being:

• The Tarrasch Defense, Tarrasch's favorite line against the Queen's Gambit.
• The Tarrasch Variation of the French Defense (3.Nd2), which Tarrasch considered refuted by 3...c5.

Famous Tarrasch Combinations

Tarrasch v Allies, Naples 1914

Black seems to be holding here (at least against immediate catastrophe), because the black queen guards against Qb7+ (followed by Kxa5 Ra1#), while the black rook on c8 defends against Rxc5#. Tarrasch played the ingenious interference move 31.Bc7! (known as a Plachutta interference because the pieces both move orthogonally). This blocks off both defences, and whatever piece captures becomes overloaded. That is, if 31...Rxc7, the rook is overloaded, having to look after both the key squares, since the Q is blocked from b7. So White would play 32.Qb7+ Rxb7, deflecting the rook from defence of c5, allowing 33.Rxc5#. But if Black plays instead 31...Qxc7, the Q blocks off the R's defence of c5 and becomes overloaded: 32.Rxc5+ Qxc5 deflects the queen from defence of b7, allowing 33.Qb7+ Kxa5 34.Ra1#. Black actually resigned after this move.

Tarrasch v Walbrodt, Hastings 1895

Tarrasch did not play most of this game[4] very well, and his opponent had the better of it for a long time. But the game is redeemed by the following startling combination:

34.Rxd4 seems obvious, because 34...cxd4 allows 35.Bxd4 winning the Q. But Black has a seemingly strong counterattack which had to be foreseen ... 34...Nxg3 35.Nxg3 Rxg3+ 36.hxg3 Rxg3+ 37.Kf1! Rxd3 and now the startling 38.Rg4!! with devastating threats of 39. Rf8+ mating and Bxe5 not to mention cxd3 to follow. Black resigned.

External links

• Ballo, Harald (1996). Siegbert Tarrasch Part 1. Chesscafe.com.
• Ballo, Harald (1996). Siegbert Tarrasch Part 2. Chesscafe.com.