XVIII. Kongreß des Deutschen Schachbundes, e.V. Breslau 1912

viii+202 pages with photographs, diagrams and tables. Royal octavo (9 1/2" x 6 3/4") bound in brown cloth with gilt lettering to cover. (Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana: 5310) First edition.

Breslau played host to the 18th Congress of the German Chess Federation. It took place form July 14th through August 7th and it was a single round tournament with 30 move time limit in two hours. The competition was the first German tournament that Rubinstein participated in - while it turned out to be the last one for Amos Burn. The implacable Rubinstein repeated his triumphs of San Sebastian and Pistyan (9+ -2 =6), but had to share honors with Duras (+10 -3 =4). Rubinstein relinquished the lead to Tarrasch, Marshall and Teichmann in turn between the eight and 15th rounds, but he entered the last round with a half-point lead. Meanwhile, Duras secured his share of the first prize by defeating Burn in the last round. The excitement of the tournament is underscored by the fact that the leaders remained bunched throughout the competition. Teichmann, Tarrasch and Schlechter were always within striking distance of pocketing the 2,000 mark first prize. The closeness of the Breslau struggle is seen in the fact that only a single point separated the first five players. Squeaking out third-place honors was Teichmann (+7 -1 =9), who finished a scant half-point ahead of Schlechter and Tarrasch, the fourth-fifth place winners. His only setback came at the hands of Tarrasch in the second round. Surprise of the 17th and final round was Carls' defeat of the veteran Tarrasch. It is noteworthy that Schlechter followed up his score of drawn games at Pistyan (14!) by going through he Breslau tournament undefeated. Despite compiling 12 draws, Schlechter amassed six points against the top finishers. The always exuberant Spielmann (+7 -4 =6) got off to a falter start, losing the first two games to Lowtzky and Carls. Mieses made a welcome reappearance in the tournament arena and following an unpromising start, quickly recovered his earlier form to tally five points against the top finishers. Two native sons, Barasz (+3 -3 =11) and Breyer (+6 -6 =5), performed well to dived the eight and ninth prizes. The German master Erich Cohn (+3 -6 =8) received a special prize for the best score (four draws) by a nonprizewinner against the top four places.

Condition: Rebound in attractive cloth, some occasional internal pencil marginalia, notes on back end paper in ink else a very good copy.