| Ostende 1906 (Caissa Editions - PO Box 151, Yorklyn, DE 19736, hardback, 445 pages, long algebraic, $49) edited by A.J. Gillam is a research tour de force and a most welcome addition to chess literature. This thick volume is dedicated to one of the longest tournaments in history of the game. Those with good memories might remember the mammoth 20 player Soviet Championships of the 1950s and 60s or the 26 player round robin held in Indonesia in 1982, but Ostende 1906 was even longer. Those who made it to the end contested 30 games. Schlechter won the event which featured all top players of the day except Lasker, Tarrasch and the dying Pillsbury. Two earlier books were published on Ostende 1906, both rare and containing but a small number of the 326 games that were played by the 36 contestants. One of them, by Marco, contained the first four rounds (72 games) and was to have been one of a series on the event. Regrettably sales were such that he abandoned the project and the fate of the score sheets is a mystery. Mr. Gillam, who has worked on this tournament off and on for several decades, was able to find additional games in British and continental papers as well as relevant games collections and biographies which brought the total to 160 games or so, just under 50 percent of those played. This looked to be the final tally for this important event when Caissa smiled upon her faithful servant. Noticing that the American Chess Bulletin coverage was drawn exclusively from the German language New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, Gillam as a matter of completeness asked Nick Pope of Michigan to check to see if any additional material not reprinted in the A.C.B. was published in the column. Hopes were not high and a new game or two would have been most welcome. Gillam mentions several other similar searches amounting to hundred of man hours that yielded nothing, but Pope struck gold. Nearly sixty unknown games were unearthed! Hartwig Cassel, the chess columnist for the Staats- Zeitung and an unknown confederate sending the games from Ostende deserve a big thanks. It is fitting that Gillam not only provides biographies and photographs of the contestants but also key contributors Cassel, Leopold Hoffer (chess correspondent for the Field) and Isidor Gunsberg (the tournament organizer). Among the members of The US Chess Hall of Fame is Hermann Helms, the noted chess journalist and organizer. Nominations have been made for Walter Penn Shipley, whose chief contributions also fall into these categories, but no mention has ever been of Cassel. Columnist for several New York papers, co-founder of the American Chess Bulletin and co-organizer of Cambridge Springs 1904 (the latter two with Helms), Hartwig Cassel contributed greatly to American chess from his arrival in the United States in 1889 until his death in 1929 and deserves more recognition for his efforts. Ostende 1906 is not only 230 game scores. Many of the games are annotated from sources of the day drawn from a variety of newspapers, magazines and books. All of the notes by Marco from the aforementioned book and those of Hoffer from his column are here. Even games for which no score currently exists are given a place in the book in the round in which they were played, often with a paragraph or two describing what transpired. Besides the extensive biographical material on the contestants (36 pages) there are also many contemporary reports of the events dealing with not only the play but also the organizational details. Many photographs of the contestants and the playing hall, numerous indices and crosstables and numerous insightful comments by Gillam (Ginsberg's system of running the tournament which was never repeated needs some explanation!) make this a first rate book. Like all Caissa publications the physical qualities are first rate. Ostende 1906 is a sturdily bound book with a handsome red binding. The two column layout with long algebraic notation (e2-e4) is clear and easy on the eye. All those with an interest in chess history will greatly enjoy this book which would make an excellent Christmas present. |