English Chess Forum

I'm holding out a forlorn hope that someone may have the score of Yates - Mansfield from the 4th WECU Premier, Cheltenham, 4th April 1928 drawn in 52 moves.

It probably means scouring the local papers as a game with Yates is likely to have been recorded somewhere.

Thanks for your help!

John Upham wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 28, 2021 10:11 pm

I'm holding out a forlorn hope that someone may have the score of Yates - Mansfield from the 4th WECU Premier, Cheltenham, 4th April 1928 drawn in 52 moves.

It probably means scouring the local papers as a game with Yates is likely to have been recorded somewhere.

Thanks for your help!

Several newspapers around the country, not only local ones, seem to have reported this event, probably thanks to wire reports from the Press Association.
I have spent the best part of an hour on this but there are too many reports to read them all.

Some of your information (certainly the date) appears incorrect.

Yates and Mansfield met in the fifth round of the WECU Premier. The 8-player event had begun the previous Saturday, the 7th.
April 8th was Easter Sunday that year.
The field was strong, including Znosko-Borovsky, and Miss Menchik was only in the second section which she won with 6/6. Round 5 was played on Wednesday 11th April.

The Yorkshire Post of the 12th carried a report datelined the 11th which said the game was a Ruy Lopez and was adjourned, to be continued that evening after dinner.

The Western Daily Press of the 12th says that Yates at call of time was pressing Mansfield in a Ruy Lopez.

The Scotsman, also of the 12th, contradicts your claim that the game was drawn. It says:

Mansfield in the same round , found the complications of the Ruy Lopez, as handled by the British champion , too severe for him. Yates secured one of his favourite-positions , and by the offered sacrifice of a knight, backed up by a combination of pieces , forced a clever win in about 40 moves.

The Sheffield Daily Telegraph (12 April) said

Yates beat Mansfield in a clever game

.

The Yorkshire Post of the 13th says Mansfield was White against Yates in a QP in round 6 and drew.
Perhaps that was your source but it seems to be wrong. They cannot have met twice in a 7-round all-play-all.

The Sheffield Daily Telegraph (12 April) says Mansfield's 6th round game on the Thursday was a quick loss to Znosko-Borovsky, In that round Yates played an Indian Defence against Seitz. The score of M's game with Z-B was annotated in The Scotsman on the 14th and it says it was from round 6.
Afterwards Seitz won his second round adjournment against Mansfield.

Mansfield's only win was his shock defeat of Thomas in the final round, played on the Friday, which is in your article.

It is pretty clear (with one dissenting voice) that Mansfield did NOT draw with Yates and the game did not last 52 moves, but I have not found the score. It may be somewhere in the chess press or British Newspaper Archive. Now you know the correct result you may find it.

Tim,

That is most helpful.

I've rechecked my two sources for this game:

Megabase 2020 says that the game was from round 5 and only gives 1928 and the moves

1.e4 e5;2.Nf3 Nc6;3.Bb5 a6;4.Ba4 and drawn in 52 moves. The game source is given as EXT 2001 (whatever that means).

My other source was Britbase and the date is given as 12th April 1928 (not the 4th as I erroneously gave earlier) with the same details as from Megabase.

PW Sergeant does not give the crosstable and I do not have BCM for 1928 unfortunately.

Was the event reported in BCM?

I imported the pgn from the CM section of Britbase into Megabase and got this partial crosstable:

Anyone got BCM for 1928 that can help?

BCM 1928 gives a crosstable claiming that Mansfield drew with Yates. It's clear from contemporary newspaper reports that this is wrong, although the final scores for each player appear to be correct.

If I can find time I'll see if I can construct a correct crosstable.

"We are unable to give space to report the Premier tournament round by round owning to the limited space at our disposal."

The 1928 BCM has a report on the Cheltenham Congress at pages 191-193. Crosstables are given for both the Premier and Major Open. The Yates-Mansfield game is given in the crosstable for the Premier as a draw. Incidentally Miss Menchik won the Major Open with 6.5 out of 7.

There is also a modern tournament book: "Hastings 1927/8 Cheltenham 1928 Scarborough 1928" edited by A.J. Gillam. It is number 36 in his "Rare and Unpublished Tournaments and Matches series". The commentary on the game is as follows:

Yates against Mansfield ran the normal course of the Morphy defence, with a complicated position following an absence of exchanges. Yates began a king's side attack on his 17th move, and though Mansfield worked up a counter attack on the other side, his defence was very cramped. The position favoured Yates at the adjournment.1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 [/b] Adjourned, 52 moves. .... ½-½[/b]

The report in the Yorkshire Post for the 13th regarding the Round 6 pairings has a clear internal contradiction in listing games between Mansfield and Yates and Snosko-Borowski and Mansfield. Clearly a typo here and the pairing should have been Seitz v- Yates. The Post report goes on to comment that "Snosko-Borowski also manoeuvred successfully against Mansfield's rather irregular defence and won." The reporting of Yates -v Mansfield as a draw is in a passage dealing with the results of adjourned games.

It is difficult to resolve conflicting reports from nearly a century ago, However I think the BCM report and Gillam's research support the view that the Yates -v- Mansfield game was a draw.

Returning to the quest for the full game-score, if Gillam didn't locate it, I think the chances of locating it now are slim. However his book was published in 1999 and since then there has been an enormous increase in the digitisation of newspapers, so maybe there's still a little hope left.

Edit: Beaten to the punch by Richard. It seems I am in a minority against Tim and Richard - not necessarily a comfortable place to be! I look forward to Richard's attempt to construct a crosstable. He might want to check with Tony Gillam before starting.

David & Richard,

Many thanks for your help.

I will email Tony Gillam today who usually responds very helpfully.

Possibly the game appeared to be won or better for Yates at the adjournment and the game was drawn on resumption?

John

Yes on reflection I think it seems that the newspapers which reported a win for Yates must have been wrong, probably due to an error in a Press Association wire report.
The final reports which state the total scores of the players do add up to the correct 28 points with Mansfield scoring 2. It now seems to me that Yates must have gone wrong in the adjournment session but this wasn't clarified at the time.

I've now updated the Comins Mansfield page on BritBase to correct the dates when games were played...

https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/m ... iewer.html

I have also added a crosstable (which I worked out for myself but it also tallies with the table in Tony's booklet).

I echo what David wrote above as regards the chances of finding the game score. Short and/or interesting decisive games find their way into newspaper reports but draws / long-drawn-out games go unpublished. Twas ever thus.

Whilst having a look though what I have on this tournament, I came upon this one:

3bn3/5p2/2k1p1p1/K1p1P3/2P1NPP1/2B5/8/8 w - - 0 3

Sir George Thomas is White (to play, of course) against WH Watts (not, incidentally, JH Watts as given in the Gillam booklet crosstable - this typo was copied from the table given in BCM). Sir George finds the WMOTB...

Well he only has two legal moves to choose from

and black has to move the correct piece in response...

I'm guessing it went something like Ka6 Bb6, the table was flipped over in a fit of rage and sir George demanded satisfaction in the form of pistols at dawn?