Vienna 1873




Results
 
Crosstable scores
Name   Edo    Dev.   Score  /  Games   
Blackburne, Joseph    2615 (40) 21.5 / 30 
Steinitz, Wilhelm    2758 (42) 20.5 / 25 
Anderssen, Adolf    2614 (43) 19 / 30 
Rosenthal, Samuel    2559 (44) 15 / 25 
Paulsen, Louis    2607 (43) 14 / 25 
Bird, Henry    2497 (33) 14.5 / 24 
Heral, Josef    2393 (54) 12 / 31 
Fleissig, Maximilian    2414 (48) 10.5 / 27 
Meitner, Philipp    2418 (50) 8.5 / 25 
Schwarz, Adolf    2397 (47) 10.5 / 30 
Gelbfuhs, Oscar    2377 (51) 10 / 29 
Pitschel, Karl    2274 (52) 5 / 21 
 
 
Match scores
Name   Edo    Dev.   Score  /  Games 
Steinitz, Wilhelm    2758 (42) 2 /
Blackburne, Joseph    2615 (40) 0 /
 

Event table notes

Event data
Name: Vienna International Tournament
Place: Vienna
Start date: 21 July 1873
End date: 29 Aug. 1873
 
Notes:
This was a 12-player all-play-all, with a match for best of 3 games in each pairing. Scoring was by number of matches won and drawn, not number of games, so since Steinitz and Blackburne each won 10 matches, they played a play-off match for 1st prize. There are discrepancies and ambiguities in how the defaulted games are reported. Feenstra Kuiper and La Grande Storia degli Scacchi give all games as if played and make no indication that some were defaulted. Gaige indicates that there were defaults in the Fleissig-Meitner match, but is not clear whether all were defaulted (in which case why 011 for Fleissig?) or just the first and third games were defaulted; Di Felice indicates that just the first and third games were defaulted. Gaige also indicates that Pitschel's matches against Rosenthal, Paulsen and Meitner involved defaults but again it is unclear whether he means that one or both games were defaulted by Pitschel in each case; Di Felice indicates that both were defaulted in each case. The Era of 5 Oct. 1873 (p.2) indicates that Pitschel defaulted two games to each of Meitner, Paulsen and Rosenthal. The Westminster Papers also show the result of Paulsen-Heral in the crosstable as 0-0, but then on p.186 of the 1 Jan. 1874 issue, they give one of the games between Paulsen and Heral. The Field (from personal communication with Tim Harding) and the Westminster Papers of 1 Sept. 1873 (p.85) and 1 Oct. 1873 (p.105) say that Pitschel did not play his last 3 rounds and so defaulted 2 games against each of those opponents. Feenstra Kuiper, Gaige and Di Felice give the start date as 19 July 1873. The Illustrated London News of 12 July 1873 says the tournament is to start 20 July 1873. The Field, the Westminster Papers and Bell's Life in London say that play actually began on 21 July 1873. The Chess Player's Chronicle of Oct. 1873 (p.344) says that players gathered for initial pairings on 20 July 1873.
 
References
Books
   Barcza, Magyar Sakktörténet, Vol.1, page 244
   Di Felice, Chess Results, 1747-1900, page 56
   Feenstra Kuiper, 100 Jahre Schachturniere, page 24, 203
   Forster, Amos Burn, page 82
   Gaige, Chess Tournament Crosstables I, page 17
   Harding, Eminent Victorian Chess Players, page 174, 212
   Harding, Joseph Henry Blackburne, page 93, 510
   Harding, Steinitz in London, page 219, 225, 347
   Reichhelm and Shipley, Chess in Philadelphia, page 142
   Sergeant, Century of British Chess, page 162
Periodicals
   [BLL], no. 2769, 26 July 1873, page 2
   [BLL], no. 2774, 30 Aug. 1873, page 3
   [CPC], vol. 3, no. 11, Oct. 1873, page 343
   [Era], vol. 35, no. 1824, 7 Sep. 1873, page 3
   [Era], vol. 36, no. 1828, 5 Oct. 1873, page 2
   [Fld], 2 Aug. 1873
   [Fld], 30 Aug. 1873
   [ILN], vol. 63, no. 1767, 12 July 1873, page 47
   [ILN], vol. 63, no. 1774, 30 Aug. 1873, page 207
   [ILN], vol. 63, no. 1775, 6 Sep. 1873, page 231
   [SoT], 16 Aug. 1873
   [SoT], 20 Sep. 1873
   [WP], vol. 6, no. 4, 1 Aug. 1873, page 65
   [WP], vol. 6, no. 5, 1 Sep. 1873, page 85
   [WP], vol. 6, no. 6, 1 Oct. 1873, page 105
   [WP], vol. 6, no. 9, 1 Jan. 1874, page 186
Web
   Sericano, C.  [Vienna 1873]

Tournament information updated: 6 May 2022