New Stories about Old Chess Players

Baron von Heydebrand und der Lasa

It is not clear if he should be considered a “forgotten” master, but several
people have told me independently that they would like to know more about
Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa (1818-1899). It may seem strange, but
von der Lasa manages to be both an underrated and an overrated player from
chess history.

Von der Lasa was one of the “Pleiades,” the group of Berlin players and
analysts that included Bledow and Bilguer. Then, as now, strong chess players
seem to come in two flavors: educated, cultured people for whom chess is one
of several intellectual activities, and others who essentially live for chess, and
New Stories may seem quite coarse away from the chessboard. Von der Lasa was very
clearly of the first type, a highly successful and influential diplomat,
about Old extremely well read and an excellent writer, and rather wealthy. Every chess
player seemed to like and respect von der Lasa, both as a player and a person.
Chess Players However, because of his diplomatic career, which involved a lot of travel and
attention to work, he was unable to play nearly as often as the other great
players of his time. Thus, von der Lasa did not play at London 1851 (though
Jeremy P. Spinrad his absence was noted with great regret by Staunton, who emphasized that
Anderssen was the second-best player in Germany), nor in any other
tournament, despite a lifelong interest in chess extending well into the period
when tournaments became more common. His reputation is based largely on
match play, but these were not glamorous showdowns played in front of a
crowd; some were even played in private at his home.

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Since von der Lasa did not have famous tournament or high-profile match
wins, he was largely forgotten as a player after his death, though his writings
(especially the Handbuch des Schachspiels, which he edited for the first four
editions, and his work on chess history) remained very influential. For many
years, von der Lasa was considered a minor figure in chess history, when
compared to the likes of Saint Amant, Staunton, Anderssen, Morphy and
others who grabbed the attention of the world, even the attention of those who
knew little of chess. The closest von der Lasa came to international chess
celebrity was during the Morphy craze, when a rumor went about that he
would return from Brazil to challenge Morphy, and that Morphy would delay
his return to the U.S. for this match. Lasa telegraphed that this rumor was
completely unfounded, and some people viewed him as Morphy’s last
potential challenger, given that the match with Staunton seemed to have fallen
through.

For many years, accounts of the romantic period were unlikely to mention von
der Lasa at all. Already by the time of his death, his status as one of the real
leading players was largely forgotten; his London Times obituary says that in
his day he met all the old masters of the past generation, including Staunton,
Mayet, Anderssen, von Bilguer, Buckle, Cunningham, Jänisch, and others,
with many of whom he could hold his own pretty well in practical play (The
Times, Aug 22, 1899). This is actually quite an understatement of his ability.

Von der Lasa’s reputation in chess history has more recently become much
greater, because, in my opinion, of two distinct important sources. One was a
1985 article by Nathan Divinsky in the British Chess Magazine, “The Mighty
Baron.” You can see important points from this article summarized in a
Diggle article here. Divinsky looked at games of von der Lasa against top
players (30 games from the Oxford Encyclopedia of Chess Games, 40 from
Bachmann’s Aus Vergangenen Zeiten Volume 2, and 9 from various other
sources), and found that he had a remarkably good score against the top
masters of his time. Later, Divinsky had access to Lasa’s entire chess library
(perhaps the best in the world for its time, and still kept intact); he no doubt
found many other forgotten von der Lasa games, but did not complete a
planned biography on the subject before his death.

The second boost to von der Lasa’s reputation has come from the statistical
rankings applied to game databases, especially Jeff Sonas’ Chessmetrics,
where von der Lasa comes out as top player in the world for an extended
period, enough for people to really take notice and place him in the top rank
of players. Before that, Dr. Arpad Elo’s The Rating of Chessplayers Past and
Present (1978) rated nearly 200 players who died too soon to receive an
official FIDE rating. Of these, there are about 35 or 40, born circa 1800-1840,
who could reasonably be called “Lasa and his contemporaries.” Among them,
the highest rated are Morphy (2690), Steinitz (2650), Anderssen and, yes, von
der Lasa (both 2600).

Let me first say that these claims that von der Lasa was among the top players

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of his time are not merely some weird revisionist history that would have
seemed absurd to chess players of the period. A quote from a British
newspaper of the time explicitly calling von der Lasa the best player in
Europe is given in my previous article, “Early World Rankings.” Von der
Lasa was viewed as a very strong player, and players as diverse and mutually
antagonistic as Staunton, Morphy (who reportedly felt that von der Lasa was
the best player of his time), Anderssen, and Kieseritzky had high praise for his
chess. Certainly, he would have been one of the favorites to win in London
1851, but he did not play.

However, the notion that von der Lasa was the dominant player in the world
for a period of more than 10 years is more than a bit of a stretch. (I found this
claim on a website. Stan Vaughan, a notorious and eccentric chess
personality, seems to have, among his other oddities, an intense dislike of
Staunton, and talks of how much stronger von der Lasa was than Staunton.) In
large part, these claims come from the statistical analysis of wins in game
databases. However, these databases contain a highly skewed sample. Von der
Lasa was a good correspondent, and regularly answered requests from chess
journals with scores from games he was proud of. I am not accusing von der
Lasa of misrepresenting himself in any way, but he naturally submitted games
that he won, much more frequently than his losses. For example, although we
know that Szén won two of three games played against von der Lasa on a trip
to Berlin, and have all the game scores (Szén’s wins will be seen in another
article) the databases seem to have only von der Lasa’s win over Szén.

Von der Lasa participated in at least five events that can reasonably be called
matches, though I believe none of these were played for financial stakes. In
1845-46, he scored 4-2 against Anderssen. In 1846, he played a series of
games against Löwenthal; the sources I have are inconsistent on the result.
Die bedeutendsten Schachzweikampfe 1851-1860 gives a score of 5 wins by
von der Lasa, with 2 drawn games. However, Bachmann in his Ubersicht der
Spielerfolge der bedeutendsten Schachmeister, part of the Teplitz-Schönau
1922 tournament book, gives the score as 3 wins by Löwenthal, with 2 draws.
In 1850, he scored 4 wins and a loss against Schulten. In 1851, after several
months of notes on an anticipated match between Anderssen and Lasa, a
single line in The Chess Player gives the current score of the match as Lasa
ahead 10-5, indicating that the match is continuing. In 1853, he played a
series of games against Staunton; the usual score given is +5 –4 =4 for Lasa
(one game is sometimes not counted; I believe the view is that the game was
abandoned because of Staunton’s poor health). Other series of games include
Szén beating von der Lasa in 2 of 3 games during a visit in 1838. Lasa
mentions in a letter beating Buckle in 2 of 3 games played in 1843.

There is one result sometimes cited that is quite mysterious. The Oxford
Companion to Chess says that Lasa won the majority of games in a series
against Staunton in 1844. This may be true (Whyld certainly has read more
sources than I have), but if so it was not known at the time; Volume 1 of The
Chess Player published in 1851 (page 56) states explicitly that the two men
had never played each other. I originally believed that this was the result of

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confusing Staunton with Buckle, since the reports in the Chess Player’s
Chronicle had von der Lasa winning a majority of games against Buckle.
However, I later was informed that Divinsky wrote in the Proceedings of the
Chronicle of Chess Historians, 2002 that Lasa played 7 games with Staunton
in 1844, at Berlin, and won 5 to 2. Thus, I now imagine that Divinsky was the
source for the Companion’s claim. However, since Staunton writes in the
Chess Player’s Chronicle that he had the pleasure of making the personal
acquaintance of von der Lasa in their 1853 encounter, I still do not believe
that the two played in 1844.

I found a web reference that the president of the San Francisco club, a Dr.
Marshall, had achieved a 2-3 score against von der Lasa, presumably when
the latter was in the U.S. and far past his prime chess years.

It seems odd to me that we do not have game scores from these matches, even
though I believe Lasa kept all the scores; we have a few of the games, when
Lasa sent them to journals sometimes many years after they were played. I
had hoped to get these from Divinsky’s book, but it seems that we will have
to wait for someone else to pick up the project. Divinsky mentioned finding
games against such players as Lange, Buckle, Rivière, and Horwitz, which do
not appear in the standard databases. An attempt to collect the known games
of von der Lasa can be downloaded here. If I have not made any errors, the
results against named players in this collection are +6 –3 vs. Anderssen, +4 –8
=2 vs. Bilguer, +5 –3 =2 vs. Bledow, 1-0 vs. de Rives, +1 –1 vs. Dufresne,
+13 –11 =9 vs. Hanstein, +4 –1 =2 vs. Jänisch, =2 vs. Löwenthal (frustrating,
since it still allows either version of the match score to be correct!), +10 –2 =2
vs. Mayet, 1-0 vs. Otto, 1-0 vs. Schorn, +5 –4 =4 vs. Staunton, 1-0 vs. Szén, 1-
0 vs. Vitzthum, and 1-0 vs. von der Goltz. The database chessgames.com
contains a different set of 130 Lasa games. It is quite easy to find other von
der Lasa games not in these files; I will list some below, but many of these are
simply games selected from the Schachzeitung/DSZ, which no doubt contains
many more of his games.

I have checked that these games were not in the Trier file above, though I
haven’t checked whether some might duplicate each other, or checked
carefully against the games in chessgames.com. A game vs. Heinemann in
1888 is available here, a Lasa-Jänisch 1842 game not included above is in
Tim Harding’s The Kibitzer “A History of the City of London Chess
Magazine (Part 2),” a game Lasa-Nielsen 1874 is in “A History of the City of
London Chess Magazine (Part 1).” A game Lasa-Allies 1860 is in the Oxford
Encyclopedia of Chess Games, and I believe is not in the downloaded games.
A game vs. Anderssen is game 353 in the Anderssen collection annotated by
Burnett. A game vs. Jänisch appears on page 675 of Schlechter’s edition of
the Handbuch des Schachspiels, and a game against Hanstein appears in
footnotes 6-7 on page 746. Golombek’s column in the London Times of April
30 1983 gives a game against Jänisch that is not in the Trier file. A game
against Buckle appears in the Chess Player’s Chronicle 1846, as well as
Hilbert’s collection of Buckle’s games in the Quarterly for Chess History.

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I found several games in my few issues of Chess Player’s Chronicle extracted

from SZ that did not appear in the file; Chess Player’s Chronicle 1852 page
109 gives a game against Dufresne; note that here and elsewhere, Staunton
refers to von der Lasa as Heydebrand. CPC 1854 has 3 games against Allies
played at P+1 (pgs 273-275), a game with an interesting opening vs. De Rives
on page 276, and two games (one unfinished) against “another German player
of deserved eminence” on pages 28-39. CPC 1856 has two games vs. Allix at
P+1 (33, 34), three games vs. Hanstein on pages 132-134 (in one of these
games, each players preferred the other’s position, so they switched sides in
mid-game! How do you score that in a database!?), a game vs. Hanstein
(which I give below) on page 206, and the two losses to Szén in the encounter
mentioned earlier on pages two and three.

Lasa-Hanstein, game and notes from Chess Player’s Chronicle 1856 p. 206
(notes in italics by Fritz8): 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5 h5 — At
this stage in the opening several defences may be adopted. Nf6, in the present
state of our theory, seems to be the most forcible move. 6.Bc4 Rh7 — The h-
pawn having been advanced, as in this game, the great Chess-Players of the
Continent have recommended this move. In England, Nh6, followed by Mr.
Knight’s clever invention, has received more favour. See the English Chess
treatises. 7.d4 d6 8.Nd3 — The first player may obtain a showy, but hardly a
sound, attack by now giving up his bishop and knight for the rook and two
pawns upon the f file. At odds this mode of play is said to be much more
advantageous. 8…f3 — This move is played at an earlier stage in the next
game. The reader should notice the importance of this exchange of moves.
9.g3 Bg7 10.Be3 c6 11.Nc3 b5

12.Nxb5 d5 — The queen’s knight could

not have been taken with profit, as the
hostile bishop could then have occupied
d5. 13.Bb3 — The move on which White
must have relied when he took the b pawn.
(Fritz prefers 13.Bf4 dxc4 14.Nc7+ Kf8
15.Nc5 Na6 16.Nxa8 with a roughly equal
position.) 13…dxe4 14.Nf4 —
Threatening again to occupy d5 with the
bishop, if the knight be taken. 14…Nf6?
— Better 14...Ne7! 15.Nc3 Nf5 16.Kf2 (if
16.Bf2? e3) 16...Nxe3 17.Kxe3 f5 18.Qd2
Qd6 19.Rad1 Bh6 and after exchanges on f4, Black’s three connected passed
pawns bode well for the endgame. 15.Nc3 Bh6 16.Qd2 a5 17.0-0-0 Bb7 —
Black’s pieces have not the unity of action which White displays in this game.
Those who love a comparison between the different styles of play may
contrast in the games preserved to us the systematic development of Herr Von
Der Lasa’s forces with the resource of Herr Hanstein; not, however, carrying
the theory too far, as in these players of the first class they will find “omnia
magna.” 18.Rhe1 Qd6

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19.Bf2 — Missing 19.Nxh5! Nxh5 (or

19...Bxe3 20.Nxf6+ Qxf6 21.Rxe3)
20.Nxe4 Qg6 21.Bxh6 Qxh6 (or 21...Rxh6
22.Ng5+ Kd7 23.Nxf7) 22.Ng5+ Kd7
23.Nxh7 and wins. 19…Bxf4 20.gxf4
Nbd7 21.Nxe4 Nxe4 22.Rxe4+ Kf8
23.Bg3 c5

24.Qe1 — An extremely able rejoinder,

menacing, if Black take rook, the attack
upon his two rooks, and also bringing the
white queen’s rook into still better play.
24…Qa6 25.d5 Nf6 26.Bc4 — Preventing
Black from gaining time subsequently.
26…Qb6 27.Re7 Bc8 28.d6 Qb4 29.Qe5
— This move seems to be more conclusive
than d7, although the advance of the d-
pawn would also, we believe, give White
the advantage. (Strongest was 29.Re8+!
Kg7 (if 29…Nxe8 30.Qe7+ and mate in 8)
30.Qe5 etc.) 29…Qxc4 30.Qxf6 Be6 31.d7 Bd5 32.f5 Rh6 33.Rxf7+ — The
best mode of terminating the game. Re8+ leads to mate in four, not three,
moves. 33…Bxf7 34.d8=Q+ Rxd8 35.Rxd8#

Basterot’s book Traite elementaire du jeu des echecs gives a game against an
amateur on pages 451-2. The book Social Chess by Mason gives a game won
by von der Lasa as Game 46. This book does not give the names of losers of
games; when trying to look up the game elsewhere, I noted that
chessgames.com gives this game twice, with opponents listed as Jänisch and
Z. Jakovljev! Chess Brilliants, a book by I. O. Howard Taylor of Norwich,
gives a game Goltz-Lasa, which does not seem to appear elsewhere.

Another major source of Lasa games is the 1843 edition of the Handbuch des
Schachspiels. Opponents are not identified, but one can often guess since the
first name is given and a dot for each letter. Thus, M.... is probably Mayet,
B..... Bledow, etc. I give the page number of games not found in the Trier file,
and opponent as listed in the Handbuch in parentheses.

Page 79 (E..), 108 (Bilguer), 110 (-. -), 111 (H.......), 112 (M....), 130
(J.......), 133 (H.......), 144 (M....) (two such games), 160 (B.....), 168
(H.......), 169 (M....), 232 (H.......), 234 (H........), 244 (B.....), 275
(H.......), 282 (H.......) (two such games), 296 (M....), 304 (M....), 304
(H.......), 335 (M....), 336 (M....), 350 (H.......), 362 (M....), 368 (J.......)
with P+1 odds, 374 (M-.) with QN and move odds.

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I pick the game below not because it is a great game, but because it illustrates
a point about chess of this time. Von der Lasa seems to have played the
widest range of openings of any player of his day. This is probably because he
was playing lines that he was preparing for inclusion in the Handbuch. In
attacking lines, such as the King’s Gambit, the theory (much of which he was
formalizing in the Handbuch) looks quite a bit like important lines we know.
In the next game, however, things look very different in what we
oxymoronically call closed openings. Even in the d-pawn openings, players
tried for the same slashing kingside attacks. Von der Lasa plays the game
well, even if it looks nothing like games we see today. His opponent, almost
certainly Mayet, unfortunately loses through a fairly basic error; White’s 16th
move is a blunder. Perhaps he does not realize that the threatened royal fork
on e7 can be averted by Qe8, leaving two pieces attacked. He might think that
the knight check will save his position, but von der Lasa has seen further. Von
der Lasa’s sharp 22nd move seals the game; mate is forced once the bishop is
accepted.

M.... - von der Lasa, Handbuch (1843 edition), page 362: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6
3.Nc3 f5 4.h3 Nf6 5.Bg5 Bb4 6.g4

Kingside attack at all costs! 6…0-0 7.gxf5

exf5 — An interesting alternative that
plays on the weakness White has just
created is 7…dxc4, and if 8.fxe6 Qd5!.
8.e3 Be6 9.Qb3 Nc6 10.Nf3 Qd6 11.c5
Qd7 12.Bb5 Ne4 13.Ne5 Bxc3+ 14.bxc3
Qc8 15.Bxc6 bxc6

16.Nxc6? — Correct was 16.Bf4, when

Fritz8 prefers White. 16…Qe8! 17.Ne7+
Kh8 18.Bh4 g5 19.f3 gxh4 20.fxe4 Qxe7
21.exd5 Rab8 22.Qc4 Bxd5

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The coup de grace (or for Lasa, a better

word would be Todesstoss, German for
death blow), which also could have been
played the move before. 23.Qxd5 Qxe3+
24.Kf1 Qd3+ 1-0. It’s mate in at most 10.

How should von der Lasa’s record be viewed? It is hard to dispute the fact
that over a period of years, von der Lasa was competitive with everyone. The
1845/46 win 4-2 over Anderssen is a good result, but remember that Bledow
had beaten Anderssen by more than this (5-0, 4-0-1, and 4-1 are given in
various sources) in 1845. Assuming he beat Löwenthal, this is a good result,
but this is before Löwenthal became a champion-class player. He defeated
Schulten easily, but Schulten was a second-ranker beaten badly by many
others. The eye-catching win is against Anderssen in 1851. Of course, there is
a question on the final score and on whether Anderssen viewed it as a “real
match.” Anderssen lost by a similar score in informal games against
Kieseritzky in London, but both in the great tournament and the all-play-all
tournament Anderssen seemed much stronger. There is a similar story
regarding Anderssen and Zukertort: after Zukertort won a series vs.
Anderssen and claimed to have won a match, Anderssen said that was no
match since there were no stakes, and beat Zukertort handily when they
played what he viewed as a real match. Winning by the odd game in 13
against Staunton in 1853 is an acceptable result, but not a real sign of being
the world’s dominant player, since Staunton was not believed to be quite the
best at that point in history.

All in all, I think it is fair to say that in the years 1846-53, Lasa was one of the
very best players, and would not have been an underdog against any
opponent. That is less than saying that he was the world’s dominant player,
however, and seems unfair to players who were putting their reputations on
the line much more frequently, and with great success as well. Taking the
border years (in which Lasa was active) as examples, in 1853, when Lasa
edged Staunton, Harrwitz beat Williams, Löwenthal, and Szén, all strong
players, in matches; it seems odd to call Lasa dominant over Harrwitz at this
time. In 1845/46, Lasa beat Anderssen 4-2 and (let us presume) Löwenthal
decisively, but Staunton beat Williams, Mongrédien, Harrwitz, Horwitz, and
others, and Kieseritzky beat Harrwitz and Horwitz at about the same time.
Lasa (unlike Staunton) seemed to feel no compulsion to prove that he was the
world’s best player. He was one of the best, but by not pursuing matches
against other top players, there is no point in time when we can really say that
he was the world’s dominant player.

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We’ll close with a von der Lasa highlight:

Staunton-Lasa, match, Brussels, 1853:

23...Rxf3! 24.gxf3 Nh2! 25.Kxh2 (if 25.f4
Qh3 and mate in at most 10.) 25...Rf4
26.Rg1 Rh4+ 27.Kg2 Qh3#.

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