Chess Monthly, 1857, says that Staunton is playing a match against an amateur
from Mexico. Has anyone ever heard of such a match?

Jerry Spinrad

Jeremy Spinrad wrote (2004-02-06 14:51:23 PST):

Chess Monthly, 1857, says that Staunton is playing a
match against an amateur from Mexico. Has anyone ever
heard of such a match?

_
The December 1998 and May 1999 issues of Chess
describe Staunton as playing a "14-game match at
odds against T. H. Worrall in the early weeks of"
1858. Staunton's opponent "had recently returned
to England from Mexico". According to the Oxford
Companion, Worrall was "appointed British Commissioner
in Mexico". There seems to have been some confusion
about when the Staunton-Worrall games were played.
The Keene and Coles book says 1859, and Levy's
Staunton biography says 1860. It would be of some
interest if it could be conclusively demonstrated
that the true year was 1857. Does the 1857 Chess
Monthly describe the match as already in progress
or something that will start soon?

Louis Blair wrote:

in Mexico". There seems to have been some confusion
about when the Staunton-Worrall games were played.

That may be because they played several games over
a period of time.

There's one 17?-game match in 1856 (or at least starting
in 1856) (London), 14 games in 1858? (London), one game in
1859?, and five games in 1860 (Cambridge).
(Source: OECG).

The only series of games tagged as a match in OECG is
the 1856?-series (p. 222). The source for the scores is
Illustrated London News from 1856 and 1857 -- it seems
reasonable to suspect this is the match mentioned
in Chess Monthly.

It's a 'fuzzy' match in so far as no final scores appear
to be known. OECG tags every result in the 'crosstable'
with ^, indicating an uncertain value. The uncertainty seems
to be only as to the order of the games, though, as the
individual scores give definite results: +8=0-4 to Staunton,
but there are 5 games scores missing.

The odds are interesting: Staunton gave Ra1 in five of
the scores, and Nb1 in six, but he also received odds
in that he played white in all of the games.

--
Anders Thulin http://www.algonet.se/~ath

Anders Thulin wrote:


The odds are interesting: Staunton gave Ra1 in five of
the scores, and Nb1 in six, but he also received odds
in that he played white in all of the games.

I just realized that that is ambiguous -- better: Staunton
got the first move in all of the games

--
Anders Thulin http://www.algonet.se/~ath