Chess in French newspaper columns

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Does anyone think there would be any interest or value in looking in past French newspaper chess columns? I am thinking that there might be some games of interest there. The column I came across yesterday was a chess problem.

The archive I was doing some research in was this one:

https://www.archivesdepartementales76.net

That is the archives of the Departement de la Seine-Maritime. And the newspaper I found a chess column in is the one called 'Journal de Rouen', on 26 February 1925.

https://www.archivesdepartementales76.n ... nalderouen

The chess column is on page 4. I've attached a partial image to give an idea of what is there.

No idea if that column is problems only (this one appears to be a mate in three by someone named Densmore), or if it published games. The bit below the problem appears to be a description of some tournaments and games. (As the column is long and narrow, I attached it in two parts - the first image includes the last bit of the column in the next column of the newspaper - the second image is the lower part of the first column of the newspaper.)

I have no idea what is going on with the chess move notation!

[Roger Lancaster]

For any francophobes present: king = roi, queen = dame ('reine' wouId introduce another 'r'), rook = tour, bishop = fou, knight = cavalier, pawn = pion

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I have no idea what is going on with the chess move notation!"

It looks like French descriptive, so T2CR is probably R-KKt2/R-KN2 according to taste. Rook to the second square of the knight of the king might explain the order of the letters and number. Spanish descriptive does something similar.

[Tim Harding]

"I have no idea what is going on with the chess move notation!"

It looks like French descriptive, so T2CR is probably R-KKt2/R-KN2 according to taste. Rook to the second square of the knight of the king might explain the order of the letters and number. Spanish descriptive does something similar.

Precisely, and "pr" is short for "prend" so means a capture. Some other examples:
C7CD is Nb7 (for White) or Nb2 for Black
P3TR is h2-h3 (for White) or ...h7-h6

What I would like to find is any column or other non-English publication from 1878 that might have some of the missing games from the Paris 1878 international which began in mid-June and finished late July.
This is one of the most important 19th century tournaments to lack full documentation. Probably half the games would have been lost to posterity had they not been salvaged by contributors to the Westminster Papers which published a big supplement in its final volume.
The French failed to produce a tournament book and when one was edited by Schallopp it lacked (if I recall correctly) 17 game scores of which 16 remain unknown bar a few fragments.
Schallopp was unaware that the game Mason-PItschel had been published by G. A. MacDonnell in his column for the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (19 October 1878). He said it had been accidentally omitted from the WP.
(BCM did a reprint of Schallopp's book but they didn't include that game either.)

Unfortunately I suspect that there were not many French chess columns at that time.

[Gerard Killoran]

Just a quick search gave me https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k62487243 - (Le Monde illustré, 10 August 1878) where the game Zukertort - Winawer ends on 37. Rxg6 'Black resigns'.

Whereas Chessgames has White mating on move 40 https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1105360.

[Tim Harding]

Thanks Gerard. For the benefit of readers not fully au fait with this event, there were six games between Zukertort and Winawer at Paris 1878, two in the main tournament and four in the play-off match. We are discussing the third game of the play-off here.
It's interesting that Rosenthal says Black resigned at move 37 but no other source I have seen says that.
Rosenthal's column in Le Monde Illustre, 10 August 1878, was not the first publication of the game. Steinitz in The Field, 3 August 1878, has a note to move 37 ("The termination is most beautiful, and in Zukertort's finest style.") His report continued to 39 Rh8+ saying "and mates next move". The Westminster Papers, XI (Sept 1878) page 102, also goes to 39 Rh8+ saying "and mates next move" and this is what Jimmy Adams chose to say in his Zukertort book (pages 321-323). Schallopp's tournament book continued to move 40 without comment. Perhaps he was following the Deutsche Schachzeitung but I don't have a digitised copy of the volumes between 1875 and 1888 inclusive. (I don't think Google Books has released those years.)

CORRECTION: The LMI column in 1878 was conducted by Journoud. According to Whyld's "Chess Columns: A :List" Rosenthal only became editor in July 1884 and there was another editor in between.

[Gerard Killoran]

The Deutsche Schachzeitung for 1878 can be found here - and the link goes directly to the game.

https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/view ... 5?page=263

Would Winawer have allowed the mate? After all he was strong enough to have seen it coming and resign.