The American Chess Congress was a series of chess tournaments held in the United States, a predecessor to the current U.S. Chess Championship. It had nine editions, the first played in October 1857 and the last in August 1923.
Shown on the right is lithograph of the First American Chess Congress 1857. All members of the Congress are shown, including those who did not play in the main tournament. Top row: Colonel Charles Mead (chairman), George Hammond, Frederic Perrin, Daniel Willard Fiske, Hiram Kennicott, and Hardman Philips Montgomery. Left column: Hubert Knott, Louis Paulsen, and William Allison. Bottom row: Theodore Lichtenhein, James Thompson, Charles Henry Stanley, Alexander Beaufort Meek, Samuel Robert Calthrop, and Napoleon Marache. Right column: William James Fuller, Paul Morphy, and Benjamin Raphael.
The second American Chess Congress was held in Cleveland on December 4–15, 1871 and won by George Henry Mackenzie. The first prize was $100 (~$1,500 today) and the total prize fund was $290 (~$5,000 today). The entry fee was $10 ($150 today). It was a double round robin tournament with a time limit of 12 moves an hour. Draw games were replayed. There were nine players (George Henry Mackenzie, Henry Hosmer, Frederick Elder, Max Judd, Preston Ware, Harsen Darwin Smith, Henry Harding, A. Johnston, and William Houghton). With the retirement of Morphy, this tournament was generally intended to recognize the best player in the United States.
The third American Chess Congress was held in Chicago on July 7–16, 1874 and won by Mackenzie. There were eight players (Mackenzie, Hosmer, Judd, Bock, Elder, Perrin, Congdon, and Kennicott) and they had to pay a $20 entry fee. first place prize was $225. The tournament was again round robin, but for the first time draws were not replayed. The time control was 15 moves per hour. Elder and Kennicott withdraw before completing half their games, but their scores still counted.
The fourth American Chess Congress (called the American Centennial Championship) was held in Philadelphia on August 17–31, 1876 and won by James Mason. There were nine players (Mason, Judd, Davidson, Henry Bird, Elson, Roberts, Ware, Barbour, and Martinez). The entry fee was $20. First place was $300. Never intended to recognize the best player in America, this tournament was geared towards attracting foreign masters, and to awarding the Governor Garland Silver Cup, as well as celebrating the American Centennial.
The fifth American Chess Congress was held in New York on January 6–26, 1880 and won by Mackenzie (he beat James Grundy on tiebreak, 2–0). There were 10 players: Cohnfeld, Congdon, Eugene Delmar, Grundy, Judd, Mackenzie, Mohle, Ryan, Sellman, and Ware.
The sixth American Chess Congress was held in New York in 1889 (a 20-man double round-robin tournament; one of the longest tournaments in history). The event was won by Mikhail Chigorin and Max Weiss. Both finished with a score of 29 but Chigorin defeated Weiss in their individual game. The top American finisher was S. Lipschütz, who took sixth place (his supporters in the Eastern US tried to push his claim to being US Champion as a result of this tournament; however, Lipschütz's claim was not accepted by all). Under rules that reigning World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz helped to develop, the winner was to be regarded as World Champion for the time being, but must be prepared to face a challenge from the second- or third-placed competitor within a month.[4] Mikhail Chigorin and Max Weiss tied for first, and remained tied after drawing all four games of a playoff. Weiss was not interested in playing a championship match, but Isidor Gunsberg, the third-place finisher, exercised his right and challenged Chigorin to a World Championship match. In 1890, he drew a first-to-10-wins match against Chigorin (9-9 with five draws). These were the same terms (9-9 draw clause) as the first World Championship match between Steinitz and Zukertort in 1886. They were also the same match terms that Bobby Fischer would insist on for his title defense in 1975.
The seventh American Chess Congress was held in St. Louis in 1904. With US Champion Harry Nelson Pillsbury ill and dying, Max Judd tried to arrange the seventh ACC, with the stipulation that the US title be awarded to the winner. Judd disputed Pillsbury's ownership of the title by challenging the legitimacy of the whole succession since the time of Mackenzie, disputing Lipschutz's claim to have acquired the title at New York 1889, and everything that had happened since then. Pillsbury, from bed objected to Judd's plans, and prevailed on his friend, the lawyer Walter Penn Shipley, to intercede. Judd's tournament was held anyway, and said to be for "The United States Tourney Championship", a title explicitly said to have no relation to the United States Championship title held by Pillsbury. The tournament was won by Frank James Marshall, ahead of Judd. There were 10 players: Louis Eisenberg, Charles Jaffe, Judd, Kemeny, Marshall, Stasch Mlotkowski, Edward F. Schrader, Eugene Wesley Schrader, Schwietzer, and Louis Uedemann. The winner was actually named U.S. Champion at the conclusion of this tournament.
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Ding Liren, who defeated his opponent Ian Nepomniachtchi in the 2023 World Chess Championship. Magnus Carlsen, the previous world champion, declined to defend his title.
William Steinitz was a Bohemian-Austrian and, later, American chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first World Chess Champion. He was also a highly influential writer and chess theoretician.
The US Chess Championship is an invitational tournament organized by the United States Chess Federation to determine the country's chess champion. It is the oldest national chess tournament. The event originated as a challenge match in 1845, but the champion has been decided by tournament play under the auspices of the USCF since 1936. Originally, the tournament was a round-robin, before adopting its present Swiss system in 1999. From 1999 to 2006, the championship was sponsored and organized by the Seattle Chess Foundation and featured a larger body of competitors, made possible by the change in format. After the Foundation withdrew its sponsorship, the 2007 and 2008 events were held in Stillwater, Oklahoma, still as a Swiss system, under tournament director Frank K. Berry. Rex Sinquefield's Saint Louis Chess Club has hosted the championship since 2009.
Jackson Whipps Showalter was a five-time U.S. Chess Champion: 1890, 1892, 1892–1894, 1895–96 and 1906–1909.
Harry Nelson Pillsbury was a leading American chess player. At the age of 22, he won the Hastings 1895 chess tournament, one of the strongest tournaments of the time, but his illness and early death prevented him from challenging for the World Chess Championship.
Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin was a Russian chess player. He played two World Championship matches against Wilhelm Steinitz, losing both times. The last great player of the Romantic chess style, he also served as a major source of inspiration for the "Soviet chess school", which dominated the chess world in the middle and latter parts of the 20th century.
Dawid Markelowicz Janowski was a French chess player. Several openings variations are named after Janowski.
Joseph Henry Blackburne was a British chess player. Nicknamed "The Black Death", he dominated the British scene during the latter part of the 19th century. Blackburne learned the game at the relatively late age of 17 or 18, but he quickly became a strong player and went on to develop a professional chess career that spanned over 50 years. At one point he was one of the world's leading players, with a string of tournament victories behind him, and popularised chess by giving simultaneous and blindfold displays around the country. Blackburne also published a collection of his own games.
Szymon Abramowicz Winawer was a Polish chess player who won the German Chess Championship in 1883.
Samuel or Salomon Lipschütz was a chess player and author. He was chess champion of the United States from 1892 to 1894.
George Henry Mackenzie was a Scottish-born American chess master.
Max Judd was an American chess player.
William Ewart Napier was an American chess master of English birth.
The World Chess Championship 1896–1897 was a match for the World Chess Championship, contested between Emanuel Lasker and Wilhelm Steinitz. It was played in Moscow between November 6, 1896, and January 14, 1897. Lasker won by a score of 10 wins to 2, thus retaining his title.
The tournament at Nürnberg 1896 should have become 10. Deutschen Schachbund Kongreß, but the local chess club took over the organisation and included no minor groups. Finally, the 10th DSB Congress was held in Eisenach in 1896.
George Hatfeild Dingley Gossip was a minor American-English chess master and writer. He competed in chess tournaments between 1870 and 1895, playing against most of the world's leading players, but with only modest success. The writer G. H. Diggle calls him "the King of Wooden Spoonists" because he usually finished last in strong tournaments.
Events in chess in 1900:
The 1904 Cambridge Springs International Chess Congress was the first major international chess tournament in America in the twentieth century. It featured the participation of World Champion Emanuel Lasker, who had not played a tournament since 1900 and would not play again until 1909. After the tournament Lasker moved to America and started publishing Lasker's Chess Magazine, which ran from 1904 to 1907. However, that was not the only chess magazine spawned by the tournament. The Daily Bulletins produced by Hermann Helms proved so popular that Helms started the American Chess Bulletin as a direct consequence of the tournament. Volume 1, Issue 1 of the magazine was devoted to Cambridge Springs. Helms was somewhat more successful than Lasker as a publisher and American Chess Bulletin would be edited and published by Helms from 1904 until his death in 1963. The surprising upset victory of Frank Marshall marked his rise to prominence in American chess and he would eventually reign as champion of the United States for twenty-six years.
The Saint Petersburg 1895–96 chess tournament was one of the strongest chess tournaments of the 19th century.
Office of the American Chess Journal (1876) The Third American Chess Congress Held at Chicago, Ill., 1874, Hannibal, Missouri.
Sayen, Henry W. (1876), The Grand International Centennial Chess Congress, held in Philadelphia in August, 1876, Philadelphia
These three books were reprinted in one volume as The second, third and fourth American Chess Congress, Cleveland 1871, Chicago 1874, Philadelphia 1876., Edition Olms, 1985, ISBN3-283-00089-1
This book was reprinted as: Wilhelm Steinitz; with a foreword by Christiaan M. Bijl. (1982), The book of the Sixth American Chess Congress, Edition Olms, ISBN3-283-00152-9{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
It was recently reprinted as: Wilhelm Steinitz; Introduction by Sam Sloan (1982), Sixth American Chess Congress, New York 1889, Ishi Press, ISBN978-4-87187-847-0{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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Paul Morphy (United States)
George Henry Mackenzie (United States)
James Mason (Ireland)
George Henry Mackenzie (United States)
Mikhail Chigorin (Russia)
Max Weiss (Austria)
Frank James Marshall (United States)
Dawid Janowski (France)
Frank James Marshall (United States)
