William Henry Watts Editor (6 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. xxii+291+[5 ad] pages with frontispiece, tables, diagrams and index. Octavo (8 1/2" x 5 1/4") bound in original publisher's pictorial wrappers. (Betts: 34-234) Annotations by Alexander Alekhine. Round by round commentary by A J Mackenzie. First published by Dover in 1962. Nottingham 1936, was a 15-player round robin chess tournament held August 10-28 at the University of Nottingham. It was one of the strongest of all time. Dr. J. Hannak wrote in his 1959 biography of Emanuel Lasker that "when it comes to awarding the plum for 'the greatest chess tournament ever', in 1936, the Nottingham Tournament was certainly just that". W. H. Watts in the Introduction to the tournament book called Nottingham 1936 "the most important chess event the world has so far seen". It is one of the very few tournaments in chess history to include five past, present, or future world champions (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe and Botvinnik)! A number of other prominent players, such as Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky and Salo Flohr, were in the tournament. According to the unofficial Chessmetrics ratings, the tournament was (as of March 2005) one of only five tournaments in history that had the top eight players in the world playing, and was (in terms of the leading players playing) the third strongest in history. All of the top twelve players on Chessmetrics' August 1936 rating list competed in the tournament except for numbers nine and ten (Andor Lilienthal and Paul Keres). The event is also notable for being Lasker's last major event, and for Botvinnik achieving the first Soviet success outside the Soviet Union. In parallel with the main tournament, the venue also played host to the 1936 British Women's Championship. The event was won by Edith Holloway (1868-1956), age sixty-eight and a former winner in 1919. Condition: Light edge wear corners bumped else very good.…

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. 137 pages with 14 plates, 3 tables and diagrams. Octavo (8 3/4" x 5 3/4") issued in burgundy cloth with gilt lettering to the spine and ruled blind stamped of front cover in facsimile jacket. Annotations by Geza Maroczy. (Betts: 25-70) First edition. In 1922, Europe had been four years removed from the conflagration that was the First World War and the Russian Revolution. International chess had ceased from the time the war began in 1914, but by 1922 it was evidently back in full swing. Jose Raul Capablanca, in fact, had wrested the world title from the pre-war champion, Lasker, in Havana, Cuba, the previous year.   As though chess itself was rising from the war's ashes, the 1920s saw the development of novel ideas. Aron Nimzowitsch, Richard Reti, and Gyula Breyer, adventurous and creative players, shook the classical school with their revolutionary opening play.  When masters soon assimilated their dynamic, counter-attacking brand of chess, the Hypermodern Age began.   Amidst this backdrop, the British Chess Federation called for an international tournament that was to be the main event of its 1922 congress. The field it assembled was impressive. There were the World Champion, Capablanca, and the day's other leading lights who, sooner or later, were to become rightful contenders to the crown: Alexander Alekhine, Akiba Rubinstein, Efim Bogoljubov, Richard Reti, Savielly Tartakover, Milan Vidmar, and Machgielis Euwe.  Rounding the list were the current British Champion Frederick David Yates, Australian Champion Charles Gilbert Watson, Italian Champion Davide Marotti, Canadian Champion John Morrison, British master Henry Ernest Atkins, and Russian Master Eugene Znosko-Borovsky.   While Capablanca was quite modest, he never left any doubt about his superiority. He gained one victory after another with ease and scored 11 victories and four draws in 15 rounds as the runaway winner. Alekhine placed second, 1.5 points behind. Vidmar came third, Rubinstein fourth, and Bogoljubov fifth. Condition: Light rubbing to extremities, previous owner's name to front end paper else a very good copy in a facsimile dust wrapper. …

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. 88 pages with portraits, diagrams and illustrations. Quarto (11 1/2" x 9") bound in original publisher's pictorial wrappers. With the assistance of M E Goldstein. (Betts: 25-82) and Problem Supplement: Max Meyer No. 2 Problem Tourney 8 unpaginated pages with diagrams. First edition. A pre-tournament souvenir, not the book of the tournament itself. Contains biographical sketches of the players, each with a portrait and representative game; various articles, including "Ideas on solving the two-mover", by Brian Harley, "Chess in Schools", by H Meek; the entries for "Max Meyer No 2 Problem Tourney". In the fall of 1927, the British Empire Club organized an international Masters tournament to be held in London, England from October 10th to the 24th. The twelve chess masters invited to compete at the event were first served a banquet dinner at the Empire Club in London on October 9th. There the time control for the tournament was announced at 30 moves in two hours followed by 15 moves every hour. The participants were among the strongest assembled at the time. Frank James Marshall, a former contender for the world crown, journeyed from the United States. The great hypermodernists Aron Nimzowitsch, Richard Reti, and Savielly Tartakower were also in attendance. Milan Vidmar and Efim Bogoljubov who were two of the very best chess masters living in Europe were also present. The field was rounded out by the very strong British players and British tournament regulars Edgar Colle, William Winter, George Alan Thomas, Victor Berger, Fredrick D. Yates, and William Fairhurst. The only two noticeable absences from the event were the world champion Jose Raul Capablanca and his rival Alexander Alekhine, both of whom were in Argentina at the time contesting the world crown. Nimzowitsch and Tartakower took joint first after a race that started with Tartakower in the lead with Nimzowitsch catching up in the latter half leaving everyone else by the way side. The best game prize for the tournament went to Nimzowitsch for his win over Yates in the tenth round. Condition: Some extremity edge wear and light foxing. Problem Supplement with fore edge wear and darkening else a very good copy.…

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. 68+[4 ad] pages with photographs of each of the players, diagrams, tables and index. Octavo (9" x 5 3/4") bound in original publisher's red cloth with blind stamped ruled edges in original jacket. Annotations by A Alekhine. An account of the tournament by G A Thomas. (Betts: 25-65; Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana:5344) First edition. In September of 1922, the organizers of the Hastings chess congress decided to hold a masters tournament which would pit two English masters against four of the best from the European continent. The participants of the double round robin were Alexander Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubov, Akiba Rubinstein, Siegbert Tarrasch, George Alan Thomas, and Frederick Yates. Alekhine managed to edge out superstar Rubinstein by half a point in the final, winning his most famous game ever against long time rival Bogoljubov, whereas Rubinstein struggled for over a hundred moves against Thomas only to come up short at the end. The 30 games are fully annotated by Alekhine, with some notes from The Field column added. A distant third and fourth was a tie, Bogoljubow and Thomas with 4 1/2 points. Fifth was the aging Tarrasch with 4 and Yates sixth with 2 1/2. Condition: Book plate to front pastedown, pervious owner's name to front end paper, corners gently bumped, front inner hinge cracked, stain at heal end pages else about very good lacking jacket.…

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. xxii+291 pages with frontispiece, tables, diagrams and index. Octavo (8 3/4" x 5 1/2") Privately bound in blue artificial leather with gilt lettering to spine and blind stamped edge ruled. Facsimile jacket from Printing Craft edition. (Betts: 34-234) Signed by J.R. Capablanca, M. Botvinnik. Dr. Alekhine, W. Winter, G.A. Thomas, M. Euwe, and E. Bogoljubow  on paper slip laid in. Round by round commentary by A J Mackenzie. First edition. Nottingham 1936, was a 15-player round robin chess tournament held August 10-28 at the University of Nottingham. It was one of the strongest of all time.Dr. J. Hannak wrote in his 1959 biography of Emanuel Lasker that "when it comes to awarding the plum for 'the greatest chess tournament ever', in 1936, the Nottingham Tournament was certainly just that". W. H. Watts in the Introduction to the tournament book called Nottingham 1936 "the most important chess event the world has so far seen". It is one of the very few tournaments in chess history to include five past, present, or future world champions (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe and Botvinnik)! A number of other prominent players, such as Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky and Salo Flohr, were in the tournament. According to the unofficial Chessmetrics ratings, the tournament was (as of March 2005) one of only five tournaments in history that had the top eight players in the world playing, and was (in terms of the leading players playing) the third strongest in history. All of the top twelve players on Chessmetrics' August 1936 rating list competed in the tournament except for numbers nine and ten (Andor Lilienthal and Paul Keres). The event is also notable for being Lasker's last major event, and for Botvinnik achieving the first Soviet success outside the Soviet Union. In parallel with the main tournament, the venue also played host to the 1936 British Women's Championship. The event was won by Edith Holloway (1868-1956), age sixty-eight and a former winner in 1919. David DeLucia's chess library contains 7,000 to 8,000 chess books, a similar number of autographs (letters, score sheets, manuscripts), and about 1,000 items of "ephemera". DeLucia's library contains such items as "a 15th-century Lucena manuscript, score-sheets ranging from Fischer's Game of the Century against Donald Byrne to all the games of the 1927 New York tournament, eight letters by Morphy, over a hundred Lasker manuscripts, Capablanca's gold pocket watch, [and] the contract of the 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort world championship match". Condition: David DeLucia's book plate and Reginald George Hennessey Chess Library plate to front paste down. Points lightly rubbed. Signature leaf laid in else a very good copy. Signature leaf signed at the tournament and married to the book after publication. Leaf in fair condition. Signed by Author(s).…

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. 68+[4 ad] pages with photographs of each of the players, diagrams, tables and index. Octavo (9" x 5 3/4") bound in original publisher's red cloth with blind stamped ruled edges in original jacket. Annotations by A Alekhine. An account of the tournament by G A Thomas. (Betts: 25-65; Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana:5344) Autographed envelop by Alekhine laid in. First edition. In September of 1922, the organizers of the Hastings chess congress decided to hold a masters tournament which would pit two English masters against four of the best from the European continent. The participants of the double round robin were Alexander Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubov, Akiba Rubinstein, Siegbert Tarrasch, George Alan Thomas, and Frederick Yates. Alekhine managed to edge out superstar Rubinstein by half a point in the final, winning his most famous game ever against long time rival Bogoljubov, whereas Rubinstein struggled for over a hundred moves against Thomas only to come up short at the end. The 30 games are fully annotated by Alekhine, with some notes from The Field column added. A distant third and fourth was a tie, Bogoljubow and Thomas with 4 1/2 points. Fifth was the aging Tarrasch with 4 and Yates sixth with 2 1/2. Condition: Jacket with edge wear, small tears and chips else a better than very good copy in like scarce jacket. Signed by Author(s).…