Tartakower’s Defence: life as experiment

Of the so called Hypermodern grandmasters, whose heyday approximately paralleled the Dada and Surrealist movements in art, Nimzowitsch, Reti, Breyer and Grünfeld all have specific openings or defences named in their honour. Reti has 1. Nf3 followed by the double bishop fianchetto . Breyer invented a popular variation in the Ruy Lopez or Spanish opening. Grunfeld has his controversial centre-surrendering defence to 1. d4, namely 1… Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5; Nimzowitsch even has three eponymous lines for Black: 1. e4 Nc6, the Nimzowitsch Defence; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6, the Sicilian Nimzowitsch-Rubinstein Defence;  and 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4, the famous Nimzo-Indian Defence.  Finally, Alekhine, though a contemporary of Dada, Surrealism and Hypermoderism, but self-avowedly not a Hypermodern, invented the most Hypermodern defence of them all : after 1. e 4, the challenging and highly provocative 1… Nf6.  

Strangely, the Polish Grandmaster Ksawery (better known as “Savielly”) Tartakower, a committed Hypermodern, also has his own defence, a King side parallel to the Nimzo-Indian. He has, though, received scant credit for his invention. This week I redress the balance. The opening, also a favourite of mine, commences 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6 3. Nf3 Bg4.

Tartakower was born to Jewish parents who were killed in a pogrom. When the Nazis rose to power he resolutely fought them in the Second World War, despite having converted to Christianity and espoused the Austro-Hungarian cause in the First World War. He represented Poland in six Olympiads and must be deemed the second most illustrious Polish Grandmaster, after Akiba Rubinstein.

From Poland, Tartakower studied at Geneva, where he matriculated in 1904, thence relocating to Vienna, where he qualified as a doctor in law at Vienna University, using that great chess city as the base for his early playing career.

Tartakower became recognised as a master player when he won the Hauptturnier (Major Tournament) of the Nuremberg Congress in 1906 . From then on till the outbreak of the Great War, he competed in many tournaments, with a respectable degree of success.

Decorated for valour in the field during the First World War, he resumed intensive tournament and matchplay in 1920, during which year he became a globally recognised figure, winning first prizes at Vienna, London 1927, Liège 1930 (ahead of Sultan Khan, Nimzowitsch and Rubinstein himself) and Jurata 1937, where he left future world title candidates Miguel Najdorf and Gideon Stahlberg in his wake.

By now he was resident in Paris and he remained in France for the rest of his life (except for some of the Second World War years when he fought from exile in the free French army). He eventually became a naturalised French citizen and played for France, rather than Poland, in the 1950 Olympiad at Dubrovnik.

The enforced break in play during the Second World War did not at first seem to affect his form when International chess was resumed. He was first at Hastings 1945/6, first at Venice 1947 and first at Beverwijk 1949.

But now a decline did set in and his results became rapidly worse. Always a gambler, Tartakower found himself harder and harder pressed to make sufficient money to cover his losses at the gaming table . This , together with incessant writing work, destroyed any real chance he may have had at maintaining his former grandmasterly results. When he died in Paris in 1956 his circumstances, though not exactly poverty-stricken, were in the nature of hand-to-mouth. As Dolly Levi says in   Hello Dolly , if you are living hand to mouth, it helps to be ambidextrous ; unfortunately, the ageing Grandmaster’s feats of legendary legerdemain were becoming harder to pull off. Tartakower’s previous magical feats of prestidigitation, as he was nearing the height of his once formidable powers,  are seen here against Maroczy .

As a grandmaster of enormous gifts, Tartakower dissipated many of them through a reckless passion for experiment and for the bizarre. Had he been content to be less experimental , he could, perhaps, have been world champion. As it was, he undoubtedly equalled the class of a world champion at some points of his career, notably at London 1927 and his great triumphs of Liège 1930 and Jurata 1937, the last of which, as was the case with  Petrosian’s great victory at Moscow 1971 , seems to have been mysteriously forgotten.

Tartakower has also gone down in chess lore as a great chess writer. His witty epigrams became proverbial: “The mistakes are all there, just waiting to be made”; “only a strong player knows how weakly he plays”; “ the player who wins is the one who makes the mistake before the last”, and so on. All have the ring of bitter truth. He was also the master of the devastating aphorism, referring, for instance, to the Ruy Lopez opening as “the Spanish Torture”.

The definitive Surrealism exhibition continues in the Pompidou Centre Paris until mid January 2025.  Significant homage is paid to chess, largely through the medium of chess themed, Alice Through the Looking Glass . Lewis Carroll was very much regarded by devotees as the John the Baptist of Surrealism .

The following two cross-tables illustrate Tartakower’s headline accomplishments.

Sample the following highlights to see what “Tartakowerism” is all abou t.

Carl Schlechter vs. Ksawery Tartakower (1917)

Isaak Appel vs. Ksawery Tartakower (1938)

Giorgio Coppini vs. Raymond Keene (1979)

For a full account of his own chessic imagination, one can do no better than to consult his magnificent memoir My Best Games of Chess 1905-1954, where he fully annotates more than 200 games, instructing, explaining and entertaining as he goes. Highly recommended.

Ray’s 206th book, “  Chess in the Year of the King  ”, written in collaboration with Adam Black, and his 207th, “  Napoleon and Goethe: The Touchstone of Genius  ” (which discusses their relationship with chess) are available from Amazon and Blackwells. 

A Message from TheArticle

We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times. So please, make a donation.