Paris 1821




Results
 
Crosstable scores
Name   Edo    Dev.   Score  /  Games    Class 
Deschapelles, Alexandre    2617 (94) 23.5 / 48 
de la Bourdonnais, Louis    2538 (92) 37.5 / 53 
Cochrane, John    2367 (93) 11 / 43 
 
  Odds for class difference of 1: pawn and two moves
 

Event table notes

Event data
Name: 'Pools'
Place: Paris
Start date: Apr. 1821
End date: Apr. 1821
 
Notes:
Only partial results available. This was a 'tournament' in the sense that it consisted of rounds, called 'pools' involving all 3 players. Hooper and Whyld give the score for de Labourdonnais over Deschapelles as 6-1 on p.47, but on pp.88 and 243, they give 7-0; Metzner and Sarah both give 7-0; Utterberg gives 6-1. Metzner says Deschapelles beat Cochrane by an unknown score; Hooper & Whyld, Utterberg, Spinrad and Sarah all give 6-1 for Deschapelles. Metzner says de Labourdonnais beat Cochrane 6-1; Hooper & Whyld, Utterberg, Spinrad and Sarah say 7-0. However, reports in the Chess Player's Chronicle and Le Palamède indicate that there were 21 all-play-all rounds, de Labourdonnais winning 14 rounds, Cochrane 1 and Deschapelles 6. The source of the erroneous results in other sources may have been P.W. Sergeant's book A Century of British Chess, in which it is suggested that the results Labourdonnais 14, Deschapelles 6, Cochrane 1 can be used to deduce the results of 'the individual matches', mistaking the nature of the 'pools'. Knowing the winner of each round does not tell us exactly the results of individual games. However, the most likely numbers of wins, losses and draws between each pair of players can be estimated by a probabilistic analysis, taking into account the possibility of redundant games (when one player beat both the others and won the pool before the other two could play), the possibility of tied pools (each player wins one game), and the possibility of drawn games, where a draw-propensity parameter is estimated from other matches among strong players in the same epoch, for which exact numbers of draws as well as wins and losses are known. I have written a paper carrying out this analysis, which is currently available on the online arXiv of mathematical pre-prints (see https://www.arxiv.org/abs/2507.03894). The scores used here are approximations (to nearest half integers) of the estimates found there.
 
References
Books
   Golombek, Golombek's Encyclopedia, page 85
   Hooper and Whyld, Oxford Companion (1st ed.), page 47, 88, 243
   Murray, History of Chess, page 879
   Sergeant, Century of British Chess, page 27
   Utterberg, De la Bourdonnais versus McDonnell, page 11
   Walker, Chess and Chess Players, page 345
Periodicals
   [BLL], 11 Dec. 1836, page 3
   [BLL], 25 Dec. 1836, page 3
   [BLL], 13 Dec. 1840, page 4
   [CPC], vol. 1, no. 2, 8 May 1841, page 25
   [CPC], vol. 4, no. 8, Aug. 1843, page 250
   [CPC], vol. 9, no. 2, Feb. 1848, page 60
   [CPM], vol. 2, no. 9, Sep. 1864, page 265
   [DSZ], vol. 28, no. 2, Feb. 1873, page 36
   [ILN], vol. 57, no. 1602, 9 July 1870, page 48
   [Pal], vol. 4, no. 7, 15 July 1844, page 313
   [Pal], vol. 7, no. 11, Nov. 1847, page 505
   [Str], vol. 4, no. 3, 15 Mar. 1870, page 49
   [SZ], vol. 3, no. 4, Apr. 1848, page 162
Web
   Edwards, Rod.  ['Le temps des combats de géants']
   Metzner, Paul.  [Philidor and the Café de la Régence Chess Masters]
   Sarah.  [Deschapelles]
   Sarah.  [France - Deschapelles]
   Sarah.  [John Cochrane]
   Spinrad, Jeremy P.  [Forgotten Masters 3: John Cochrane]

Tournament information updated: 17 Jul. 2025