A Century of Chess: Teplitz-Schönau 1922

A real horse race, with five players in contention for first place right up until the last round.

Tartakower was the pace-setter with four straight wins to start the tournament. Spielmann took over at the halfway point and never fully relinquished his lead. Réti caught him with a late spurt of three consecutive wins.

Entering the last round, Réti, Spielmann, and Tartakower were tied, with Rubinstein and Grünfeld a half-point behind them. Spielmann had an undramatic draw with Wolf. In a tensely-played Ruy Lopez, Réti held on for a draw against Grünfeld, who was gunning for a win. Rubinstein played on in an equal or inferior position against Kostić and lost. Tartakower, needing only a draw for first place, instead inexplicably sacrificed or blundered an exchange on move 10 and lost to Teichmann. 

Capablanca in 1922 had said that Réti deserved greater tournament success and here he redeemed Capablanca’s compliment. The sense with Réti was that he was Rubinstein's heir in playing something like "higher chess" — where tactical considerations were secondary to a very deep sense of the "truth" of a position. 

With Spielmann, of course, the opposite principle was in effect: all possible emphasis was placed on energy and the tactical labyrinth. Spielmann's results were all over the place through the 1920s. He had negative scores at Gothenburg 1920 and Berlin 1920 and would lose his way again at Vienna, Karlsbad, and Maehrisch-Ostrau, but with his shared victory at Teplitz-Schönau he helped to demonstrate that he was a charter member of the world's elite. 

Tartakower had much to be embittered about in this tournament. With his last-round collapse, he undid his sparkling start. He was also robbed of the first brilliancy prize for his game against Maróczy, with, as Tartakower icily wrote, "the judges declaring in preemptory fashion that such sacrifices are incalculable in advance in all their ramifications and that, in consequence, they deserve no encouragement." 

The tournament was also the first scalp for the newly-developed Grünfeld Defense and a glimpse of the much-to-be-debated "Grünfeld Endgame." From a classical standpoint, Kostić appeared to get everything he wanted from the opening, but his central pawns proved to be exposed. 

Fifth place must have been bitter for Akiba Rubinstein, who set an all-time record with four brilliancy prizes in a single tournament (admittedly, it was highly unusual to bestow seven brilliancy prizes, as Teplitz-Schönau did). 

Of the older generation, Tarrasch, Maróczy, and Mieses continued to struggle. The all-but-forgotten Heinrich Wolf had a surprisingly strong tournament and won the first brilliancy prize, at Tartakower's expense. 

Sources: The most interesting place to read about Teplitz-Schönau is in Tartakower's two classics, The Hypermodern Game of Chess and My Best Games of Chess, both of which include extended tributes to his game against Maróczy.