This article recalls a forgotten chess player of the past, James Mortimer.
Mortimer lived from 1833 to 1911, and had a life full of great triumphs
and great failures.

It was the failures at the chess board that first brought Mortimer to my
attention. To explain how Mortimer first caught my eye, I must make a small
digression.

I have wanted to get my hands on Gaige's book of tournament
crosstables for a long time, and finally was able to obtain them through
interlibrary loan. Or at least, to obtain all of them except the one I
wanted most, volume 1, which covers the years from 1851 to 1900. Frustrated,
I hit upon a scheme of "reverse engineering" Gaige's tables from Anders
Thulin's index to the tables (available on the net). During my wife's month
long trip, I logged on late at night and managed to get the standings for
the tournaments in Gaige's book constructed; I am still in the process of
finding the players actual scores for as many tournaments as I can find.

The process described above is long and tedious, and you may feel free to
question my sanity. However, there are a few advantages of entering every
score by hand as opposed to buying a book; you end up looking at all the
data, and noticing oddities which cry out for further inspection. For example,
there have been a number of unknowns who did extraordinarily well in some
particular tournament, never to be heard of again. Sometimes the player simply
was lucky, but there often is a compelling story; some players died young,
some were forced into exile, some gave up chess for business, and in at
least one case (which I will discuss in a different article) the player was
accused of cheating and was ostracized by the chess community.

Mortimer stands out in a different way. Mortimer had a reverse clean score
in a tournament in London 1887, going 0-9 against top-flight competition.
This type of wipe-out is fairly rare, but Mortimer's case is not the worst.
Famously, Col. Moreau went 0-26 in Monte Carlo 1903. Moreau's case is very
different than Mortimer's, however. Moreau agreed to be a last minute
substitute in a top-flight tournament; he does not appear anywhere else in
Gaige's books. Mortimer, however, continued to be invited regularly to top
level tournaments, almost always getting very low scores. These invitations
seem odd because even when Mortimer played in non-master tournaments, he was
not winning them.

Reviewing Mortimer's tournaments from Gaige (I have discrepancies from
different sources on a couple of these):

London 1883: 3-23, tied for last out of 14
London 1885: tied for 10th to 11th out of 12 players
London 1886 4-8, 11th out of 13
London 1887 0-9, 10th out of 10
Bradford 1888 6.5-9.5, tied 10th to 12th, or 13th, of 17
London 1889 3-7 10th of 11
Manchester 1890 8.5-10.5, 14th of 20
London 1891 4th out of 10
London 1891 tied 6th through 9th of 10
London 1892 3.5-7.5, 10th of 12
London 1896 tied 8th through 11th of 12
London 1900 5th of 5
Paris 1900 2-14 15th of 17
Folkstone 1901 2-3 tied 3-5 out of 6
Monte Carlo 1902 1-18 last of 20
Norwich 1902 2.5-8.5 tied 10-11 of 12
Turnbridge Wells 1902 3.5-5.5 7th of 10?
Canterbury 1903 4-4 5th out of 9
Plymouth 1903 4.5-3.5 tie 3,4 out of 9
Brighton 1904 5-3 4th out of 9
London 1904 4-12 last of 17
London 1904 Rice Gambit 2.5-13.5 last of 9
Ostend 1907 5-23 last of 29
London 1907 10-9 tie 8-10 of 20
London 1909 6-11 15th out of 18
Paris 1910 2.5-13.5 16th out of 17


Where are the scores that justify invitations to major tournaments like Paris,
Monte Carlo, or Ostend? His positive scores are in second rate events; for
example, Plymouth 1903, where he finished 4.5-3.5, was a qualifying
section featuring the players (in order of finish) Gunston, Emery, Allcock,
Mortimer, Fawcett, RB Jones, A West, Dunstan, and T Taylor. Gunston was
the only player besides Mortimer who ever played a major event, and he
finished 3 points ahead of Mortimer with the kind of score (7.5-0.5) which
you would expect of a good player in a weak section.

Even his obituary in the London Times (Feb 25, 1911; he was covering the
chess tournament in San Sebastian as a reporter) notes that Mortimer was well
known as a chess player, though as a personality rather than a master player.

When I mentioned this oddity to my younger daughter, she replied with the
cynicism of modern youth that Mortimer must have "had connections". I am
not sure whether this is exactly correct, but I do believe that the invitations
came because of Mortimer's interesting life beyond the chessboard.

Mortimer had done a little writing, both as a journalist and playwright,
before joining the diplomatic service. While stationed in Paris, he became
friends with Morphy during Morphy's first visit. After being stationed for
a time in St Petersburg, Mortimer returned to Paris and worked as a journalist.

His articles supporting Napoleon III brought him many rewards, including the
cross of the Legion of Honor; he is said to have been the last person to
speak to Napoleon III. Mortimer was made responsible for the princess'
arrangements when she fled to England, where the emperor had previously
given Mortimer funds to set up a newspaper, the London Figaro. Figaro chess
columnists were, at various times, Loewenthal and Steinitz, so there may be
some truth in the notion that Mortimer's connections were responsible for some
tournament invitations.

Mortimer was now free to practice two of his three passions (the third being
chess); journalism, and theater, in which he was both a critic and a
playwright. He could be delightfully nasty as a critic, which made him
some powerful enemies. He despised one of the most famous tragic actors
of the time, who he called "The Eminent I"; you can find Mortimer's poem
"The Fall of the Eminent I", fantasizing about the actor being killed by irate
fans stuffing playbills down his throat, reprinted in Appleton's Journal, Nov
16, 1875.

These journalistic assaults had repercussions for his own plays. The following
incident is described in Appleton's Journal, June 10, 1875, pg 59, during
a positive review of a Mortimer adaptation.

"On the first night, by the way, there was an amusing scene. Mr. Mortimer is
out of the good books of the "gods". In his paper, some time ago, he called
them "rabble", and they have never forgiven him for it; wherefore, whenever
he appears in a theater, they hoot and hiss at him, and address to him
remarks anything but complimentary. On this first night they made an energetic
attempt to "damn" his piece. Again and again were the opening scenes
interrupted by them; they "chaffed" the actors and actresses, and jeeringly
called for their arch-enemy, Mr. Mortimer himself. Suddenly, while Miss Barry
was standing alone upon the stage in a pathetic attitude, in rushed Mr. Eignold,
his eyes flashing fire, his great fists clinched. "Stop! Stop!" he yelled.
"If you are an Englishman, those of you who have mothers, wives, or daughters,
remember there is a lady before you! For myself," he went on, still at the
top of his powerful voice, "all I ask is justice! Hiss me, howl at me, if you
like, but don't abuse me before you see the picture I am about to draw." This
exhortation saved the piece. The "gods" were completely cowed. Probably if they
had known, as I did, that Mr. Eignold had merely repeated a bit of "copy"- that,
as opposition was foreseen, he had learned the words by heart, in order to rush in with them on his tongue at the most fitting moment- they only would have
laughed at him."

Mortimer specialized in liberal adaptations of plays which he would translate
from the French, usually light comedy. His own life took a strange turn,
worthy of a play with farcical moments but ending as a tragedy, as a result of
a libel action against his paper.

If you read the Oxford Companion to Chess' version of the case, Mortimer
bravely went to prison, rather than revealing the source for his story.
What actually happened was much stranger; you can find accounts in the London
Times (Nov 25, 1879) or the New York Times (Dec 25, 1879).

Mortimer chose to defend himself in the libel case, which proved to be a
serious mistake. As well as not having a grasp for important nuances of
the law (he didn't realize that a witness needed to be cross-examined,
instead waiting patiently for his turn to tell his side), acting as his own
counsel meant that he was unable to testify on his own behalf. Thus, it was
not until after the jury had found him guilty that Mortimer was able to
show the judges compelling evidence that he had no personal knowledge of
the article printed, and that it had all been handled by a sub-editor who
was in America during the trial. The judges were surprised at this, and
eventually ruled that although the evidence might very well have cleared
him, they could not overturn the verdict of the jury. More surprisingly,
the senior judge ruled that instead of just ordering a fine, Mortimer would
be subject to 3 months imprisonment. He argues that fines are not enough of
a punishment for libel, since this just encourages newspapers to print
more scandalous material, which increases their circulation by more than
the costs of the fine; Mortimer's specific extenuating circumstances seem
to have had no effect at all on the sentence.

So Mortimer was sent to prison, though as the New York Times article makes
clear, this was considered by many to be an unjust outcome. As well as
striking me as unjust, the trial illustrates Mortimer's most famous line
about chess: "It will be cheering to know that many people are skillful chess
players, though in many instances their brains, in a general way, compare
unfavourably with cognitive facilities of a rabbit."

The Figaro went under as a result of Mortimer's imprisonment. When he got
out, Mortimer's livelihood came from the theater, in which he continued both
to be both a playwright and a critic.

I do not get the impression that Mortimer was a very good playwright. However,
in those pre-television days, London was crowded with theaters, and had a
great appetite for new material. In fairness to Mortimer, some of his plays
got mildly positive reviews. As is generally the case in theater, the bad
reviews are more fun to read. He was accused in some reviews of changing
plays solely in order to make himself an author rather than a translator.
The worst reviews came from his attempt to mimic The Pirates of Penzance with
an operetta called "Polly, the Pet of the Regiment". Although panned in the
London Times ("If popular taste has latterly been falling away from the comic
opera it is not likely to be stimulated by the new production"), it
managed to cross the Atlantic, where the New York Times declared that "Of the
many worthless operettas that have been brought out for the delectation of the
New York public "Polly" is undoubtedly the most unsatisfactory. It contains
nothing original, nothing novel, and nothing good."

However, Mortimer's most lasting influence may be on a most unlikely
artistic medium, the comic strip. An article called London Literary Letter,
which appeared in the New York Times on January 27, 1900, investigates a
dichotomy of British humor which exists to this day; British comedy seems to
go in for either the extremely clever or extraordinarily stupid. The author
laments the fact that some good rivals for Punch have fallen by the wayside,
wondering if the French are right that the typical Englishman is

"a grim melancholy person, who only smiles when he beats his wife.

On the other hand, there is a swarm of professedly comic papers, some of which
make fortunes for their owners. Nearly twenty years ago Mr. James Mortimer, in
his weekly paper called Figaro, invented a bottle-nosed drunken Londoner,
whom he named Ally Sloper, and who was every week represented by getting
himself into difficulties, chiefly through too much drink. Ally Sloper became
such a favorite among the class which has never heard of Meredith or Stevenson
that a comic illustrated paper called Ally Sloper's Half-Holiday was started,
part of which is every week devoted to chronicling the deeds of the bottle
nosed drunkard. There is not a gleam of humor rightly so-called in the paper,
but it has an enormous sale, and now owns a large building, which it calls
with its peculiar humor, "The Sloperies." This is but one of the alleged
comic illustrated papers which flourish in London, and it success shows that
the Londoner is extremely fond of what he conceives to be humor.

Just at present, the sort of person who who takes in Ally Sloper's Half-Holiday
remarks a dozen times a day, "What ho! She bumps!" This is regarded as a
killer ..."

Ally Sloper was an incredibly influential comic, and has been called the
first comic superstar. Echoes of its humor remained long after the strip died;
WC Fields seems to be consciously fashioned on Ally Sloper, and even a
cartoon as recent as Andy Capp seems to follow the same tradition. I should
say that according to current sources Mortimer is not usually credited as the
inventor, but from other gleanings (an 1875 article talks of Mortimer trying
to raise capitol for the first London illustrated paper) I feel that he must
have had something to do at least with its early success.

Mortimer may not have done very well in chess, but there were some shining
moments. Mortimer beats Emanuel Lasker in the following game:

Mortimer-Lasker London 1891: 1 e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5
4. b4 BxB4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 exd4 7. 0-0 dxc3 9. e5 Qg6 10. Nxc3 Nge7
11. Ba3 b5 12. Nxb5 Rb8 13. Bxe7 Kxe7 14. Qe3 Bb6 15. Qa3+ Kd8 16. Rad1 Re8
17. Bd5 Nxe5 18. Nxe5 Rxe5 19 Nxa7 Bxa7 10. Qxa7 Rb5 21. Qa3 Rbxd5
22. Rxd5 Bb7 23. Qf8+ Re8 24. Rxd7+ Kxd7 25. Rd1+ Bd5 26. Rxd5+ Ke6
27. Qxe8+ Kxd5 28. Qd7+ Ke4 29. Qxc7 Qe6 30. f3+ Kd3 31. Qd8+ Ke2
32. Qd4 f5 33. Qb2+ Kd3 34. Qb3+ 1-0

How could a player with such a sorry history beat one of the all-time greats?
It gives all of us a little hope in our quixotic battles, which Mortimer
carried out both on and off the board. Or, to put it another way: What, ho!
She bumps!

"Jeremy Spinrad" skrev i melding
...


This article recalls a forgotten chess player of the past, James Mortimer.
Mortimer lived from 1833 to 1911, and had a life full of great triumphs
and great failures.

It was the failures at the chess board that first brought Mortimer to my
attention. To explain how Mortimer first caught my eye, I must make a
small
digression.

I have wanted to get my hands on Gaige's book of tournament
crosstables for a long time, and finally was able to obtain them through
interlibrary loan. Or at least, to obtain all of them except the one I
wanted most, volume 1, which covers the years from 1851 to 1900.
Frustrated,
I hit upon a scheme of "reverse engineering" Gaige's tables from Anders
Thulin's index to the tables (available on the net). During my wife's
month
long trip, I logged on late at night and managed to get the standings for
the tournaments in Gaige's book constructed; I am still in the process of
finding the players actual scores for as many tournaments as I can find.

The process described above is long and tedious, and you may feel free to
question my sanity. However, there are a few advantages of entering every
score by hand as opposed to buying a book; you end up looking at all the
data, and noticing oddities which cry out for further inspection. For
example,
there have been a number of unknowns who did extraordinarily well in some
particular tournament, never to be heard of again. Sometimes the player
simply
was lucky, but there often is a compelling story; some players died young,
some were forced into exile, some gave up chess for business, and in at
least one case (which I will discuss in a different article) the player
was
accused of cheating and was ostracized by the chess community.

Mortimer stands out in a different way. Mortimer had a reverse clean score
in a tournament in London 1887, going 0-9 against top-flight competition.
This type of wipe-out is fairly rare, but Mortimer's case is not the
worst.
Famously, Col. Moreau went 0-26 in Monte Carlo 1903. Moreau's case is very
different than Mortimer's, however. Moreau agreed to be a last minute
substitute in a top-flight tournament; he does not appear anywhere else in
Gaige's books. Mortimer, however, continued to be invited regularly to
top
level tournaments, almost always getting very low scores. These
invitations
seem odd because even when Mortimer played in non-master tournaments, he
was
not winning them.

Reviewing Mortimer's tournaments from Gaige (I have discrepancies from
different sources on a couple of these):

London 1883: 3-23, tied for last out of 14
London 1885: tied for 10th to 11th out of 12 players
London 1886 4-8, 11th out of 13
London 1887 0-9, 10th out of 10
Bradford 1888 6.5-9.5, tied 10th to 12th, or 13th, of 17
London 1889 3-7 10th of 11
Manchester 1890 8.5-10.5, 14th of 20
London 1891 4th out of 10
London 1891 tied 6th through 9th of 10
London 1892 3.5-7.5, 10th of 12
London 1896 tied 8th through 11th of 12
London 1900 5th of 5
Paris 1900 2-14 15th of 17
Folkstone 1901 2-3 tied 3-5 out of 6
Monte Carlo 1902 1-18 last of 20
Norwich 1902 2.5-8.5 tied 10-11 of 12
Turnbridge Wells 1902 3.5-5.5 7th of 10?
Canterbury 1903 4-4 5th out of 9
Plymouth 1903 4.5-3.5 tie 3,4 out of 9
Brighton 1904 5-3 4th out of 9
London 1904 4-12 last of 17
London 1904 Rice Gambit 2.5-13.5 last of 9
Ostend 1907 5-23 last of 29
London 1907 10-9 tie 8-10 of 20
London 1909 6-11 15th out of 18
Paris 1910 2.5-13.5 16th out of 17


Where are the scores that justify invitations to major tournaments like
Paris,
Monte Carlo, or Ostend? His positive scores are in second rate events; for
example, Plymouth 1903, where he finished 4.5-3.5, was a qualifying
section featuring the players (in order of finish) Gunston, Emery,
Allcock,
Mortimer, Fawcett, RB Jones, A West, Dunstan, and T Taylor. Gunston was
the only player besides Mortimer who ever played a major event, and he
finished 3 points ahead of Mortimer with the kind of score (7.5-0.5) which
you would expect of a good player in a weak section.

Even his obituary in the London Times (Feb 25, 1911; he was covering the
chess tournament in San Sebastian as a reporter) notes that Mortimer was
well
known as a chess player, though as a personality rather than a master
player.

When I mentioned this oddity to my younger daughter, she replied with the
cynicism of modern youth that Mortimer must have "had connections". I am
not sure whether this is exactly correct, but I do believe that the
invitations
came because of Mortimer's interesting life beyond the chessboard.

Mortimer had done a little writing, both as a journalist and playwright,
before joining the diplomatic service. While stationed in Paris, he became
friends with Morphy during Morphy's first visit. After being stationed for
a time in St Petersburg, Mortimer returned to Paris and worked as a
journalist.

His articles supporting Napoleon III brought him many rewards, including
the
cross of the Legion of Honor; he is said to have been the last person to
speak to Napoleon III. Mortimer was made responsible for the princess'
arrangements when she fled to England, where the emperor had previously
given Mortimer funds to set up a newspaper, the London Figaro. Figaro
chess
columnists were, at various times, Loewenthal and Steinitz, so there may
be
some truth in the notion that Mortimer's connections were responsible for
some
tournament invitations.

Mortimer was now free to practice two of his three passions (the third
being
chess); journalism, and theater, in which he was both a critic and a
playwright. He could be delightfully nasty as a critic, which made him
some powerful enemies. He despised one of the most famous tragic actors
of the time, who he called "The Eminent I"; you can find Mortimer's poem
"The Fall of the Eminent I", fantasizing about the actor being killed by
irate
fans stuffing playbills down his throat, reprinted in Appleton's Journal,
Nov
16, 1875.

These journalistic assaults had repercussions for his own plays. The
following
incident is described in Appleton's Journal, June 10, 1875, pg 59, during
a positive review of a Mortimer adaptation.

"On the first night, by the way, there was an amusing scene. Mr. Mortimer
is
out of the good books of the "gods". In his paper, some time ago, he
called
them "rabble", and they have never forgiven him for it; wherefore,
whenever
he appears in a theater, they hoot and hiss at him, and address to him
remarks anything but complimentary. On this first night they made an
energetic
attempt to "damn" his piece. Again and again were the opening scenes
interrupted by them; they "chaffed" the actors and actresses, and
jeeringly
called for their arch-enemy, Mr. Mortimer himself. Suddenly, while Miss
Barry
was standing alone upon the stage in a pathetic attitude, in rushed Mr.
Eignold,
his eyes flashing fire, his great fists clinched. "Stop! Stop!" he yelled.
"If you are an Englishman, those of you who have mothers, wives, or
daughters,
remember there is a lady before you! For myself," he went on, still at the
top of his powerful voice, "all I ask is justice! Hiss me, howl at me, if
you
like, but don't abuse me before you see the picture I am about to draw."
This
exhortation saved the piece. The "gods" were completely cowed. Probably if
they
had known, as I did, that Mr. Eignold had merely repeated a bit of "copy"-
that,
as opposition was foreseen, he had learned the words by heart, in order to
rush in with them on his tongue at the most fitting moment- they only would
have
laughed at him."

Mortimer specialized in liberal adaptations of plays which he would
translate
from the French, usually light comedy. His own life took a strange turn,
worthy of a play with farcical moments but ending as a tragedy, as a
result of
a libel action against his paper.

If you read the Oxford Companion to Chess' version of the case, Mortimer
bravely went to prison, rather than revealing the source for his story.
What actually happened was much stranger; you can find accounts in the
London
Times (Nov 25, 1879) or the New York Times (Dec 25, 1879).

Mortimer chose to defend himself in the libel case, which proved to be a
serious mistake. As well as not having a grasp for important nuances of
the law (he didn't realize that a witness needed to be cross-examined,
instead waiting patiently for his turn to tell his side), acting as his
own
counsel meant that he was unable to testify on his own behalf. Thus, it
was
not until after the jury had found him guilty that Mortimer was able to
show the judges compelling evidence that he had no personal knowledge of
the article printed, and that it had all been handled by a sub-editor who
was in America during the trial. The judges were surprised at this, and
eventually ruled that although the evidence might very well have cleared
him, they could not overturn the verdict of the jury. More surprisingly,
the senior judge ruled that instead of just ordering a fine, Mortimer
would
be subject to 3 months imprisonment. He argues that fines are not enough
of
a punishment for libel, since this just encourages newspapers to print
more scandalous material, which increases their circulation by more than
the costs of the fine; Mortimer's specific extenuating circumstances seem
to have had no effect at all on the sentence.

So Mortimer was sent to prison, though as the New York Times article makes
clear, this was considered by many to be an unjust outcome. As well as
striking me as unjust, the trial illustrates Mortimer's most famous line
about chess: "It will be cheering to know that many people are skillful
chess
players, though in many instances their brains, in a general way, compare
unfavourably with cognitive facilities of a rabbit."

The Figaro went under as a result of Mortimer's imprisonment. When he got
out, Mortimer's livelihood came from the theater, in which he continued
both
to be both a playwright and a critic.

I do not get the impression that Mortimer was a very good playwright.
However,
in those pre-television days, London was crowded with theaters, and had a
great appetite for new material. In fairness to Mortimer, some of his
plays
got mildly positive reviews. As is generally the case in theater, the bad
reviews are more fun to read. He was accused in some reviews of changing
plays solely in order to make himself an author rather than a translator.
The worst reviews came from his attempt to mimic The Pirates of Penzance
with
an operetta called "Polly, the Pet of the Regiment". Although panned in
the
London Times ("If popular taste has latterly been falling away from the
comic
opera it is not likely to be stimulated by the new production"), it
managed to cross the Atlantic, where the New York Times declared that "Of
the
many worthless operettas that have been brought out for the delectation of
the
New York public "Polly" is undoubtedly the most unsatisfactory. It
contains
nothing original, nothing novel, and nothing good."

However, Mortimer's most lasting influence may be on a most unlikely
artistic medium, the comic strip. An article called London Literary
Letter,
which appeared in the New York Times on January 27, 1900, investigates a
dichotomy of British humor which exists to this day; British comedy seems
to
go in for either the extremely clever or extraordinarily stupid. The
author
laments the fact that some good rivals for Punch have fallen by the
wayside,
wondering if the French are right that the typical Englishman is

"a grim melancholy person, who only smiles when he beats his wife.

On the other hand, there is a swarm of professedly comic papers, some of
which
make fortunes for their owners. Nearly twenty years ago Mr. James
Mortimer, in
his weekly paper called Figaro, invented a bottle-nosed drunken Londoner,
whom he named Ally Sloper, and who was every week represented by getting
himself into difficulties, chiefly through too much drink. Ally Sloper
became
such a favorite among the class which has never heard of Meredith or
Stevenson
that a comic illustrated paper called Ally Sloper's Half-Holiday was
started,
part of which is every week devoted to chronicling the deeds of the bottle
nosed drunkard. There is not a gleam of humor rightly so-called in the
paper,
but it has an enormous sale, and now owns a large building, which it calls
with its peculiar humor, "The Sloperies." This is but one of the alleged
comic illustrated papers which flourish in London, and it success shows
that
the Londoner is extremely fond of what he conceives to be humor.

Just at present, the sort of person who who takes in Ally Sloper's
Half-Holiday
remarks a dozen times a day, "What ho! She bumps!" This is regarded as a
killer ..."

Ally Sloper was an incredibly influential comic, and has been called the
first comic superstar. Echoes of its humor remained long after the strip
died;
WC Fields seems to be consciously fashioned on Ally Sloper, and even a
cartoon as recent as Andy Capp seems to follow the same tradition. I
should
say that according to current sources Mortimer is not usually credited as
the
inventor, but from other gleanings (an 1875 article talks of Mortimer
trying
to raise capitol for the first London illustrated paper) I feel that he
must
have had something to do at least with its early success.

Mortimer may not have done very well in chess, but there were some shining
moments. Mortimer beats Emanuel Lasker in the following game:

Mortimer-Lasker London 1891: 1 e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5
4. b4 BxB4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 exd4 7. 0-0 dxc3 9. e5 Qg6 10. Nxc3 Nge7
11. Ba3 b5 12. Nxb5 Rb8 13. Bxe7 Kxe7 14. Qe3 Bb6 15. Qa3+ Kd8 16. Rad1
Re8
17. Bd5 Nxe5 18. Nxe5 Rxe5 19 Nxa7 Bxa7 10. Qxa7 Rb5 21. Qa3 Rbxd5
22. Rxd5 Bb7 23. Qf8+ Re8 24. Rxd7+ Kxd7 25. Rd1+ Bd5 26. Rxd5+ Ke6
27. Qxe8+ Kxd5 28. Qd7+ Ke4 29. Qxc7 Qe6 30. f3+ Kd3 31. Qd8+ Ke2
32. Qd4 f5 33. Qb2+ Kd3 34. Qb3+ 1-0

How could a player with such a sorry history beat one of the all-time
greats?
It gives all of us a little hope in our quixotic battles, which Mortimer
carried out both on and off the board. Or, to put it another way: What,
ho!
She bumps!

Are you refering to this game? There is a few moves after 34. Qb3+ :

(10056) Mortimer,J - Lasker,E [C52]
London London ENG, 1891
Database: ECO A00-E99 - ChessliB 2004


1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.d4 exd4 7.0-0 dxc3 8.Qb3
Qf6 9.e5 Qg6 10.Nxc3 Nge7 11.Ba3 b5 12.Nxb5 Rb8 13.Bxe7 Kxe7 14.Qe3 Bb6
15.Qa3+ Kd8 16.Rad1 Re8 17.Bd5 Nxe5 18.Nxe5 Rxe5 19.Nxa7 Bxa7 20.Qxa7 Rb5
21.Qa3 Rbxd5 22.Rxd5 Bb7 23.Qf8+ Re8 24.Rxd7+ Kxd7 25.Rd1+ Bd5 26.Rxd5+ Ke6
27.Qxe8+ Kxd5 28.Qd7+ Ke4 29.Qxc7 Qe6 30.f3+ Kd3 31.Qd8+ Ke2 32.Qd4 f5
33.Qb2+ Kd3 34.Qb3+ Qxb3 35.axb3 Kc3 36.Kf2 Kxb3 37.Ke3 Kc4 38.Kf4 g6 39.g4
fxg4 40.fxg4 Kd4 41.Kg5 Ke4 42.Kh6 Kf4 43.h3 Kg3 44.Kxh7 Kxh3 45.g5 1-0

Jeremy Spinrad wrote:

I hit upon a scheme of "reverse engineering" Gaige's tables from Anders
Thulin's index to the tables (available on the net).

It is probably worth observing that it is a 'name index', not a 'player
index'. That is, it only notes that one or more players listed as
'Mortimer' appears in a number of tournaments, but does not make any attempt
to decide if the name identifies one, two or even a dozen of different
players. That's left as an exercise for the reader :-)

For top players, the danger of confusion is comparatively small: it's
fairly well known if there are collsions. For back-benchers, such
disambiguation can be difficult: don't assume your list of tournaments
are the tournament record of one single person, unless you have reason to.

There are two entries: 'Mortimer' (covering 1883 to 1907), and
'Mortimer, J.' (three London tournaments 1907-1910). That just might be
an indication that it was necessary to separate a J. Mortimer from
some other of the same name, but with a different initial. (On the other
hand, there are *no* entries after the death of James Mortimer, so
perhaps there was noone else, after all.)

Where are the scores that justify invitations to major tournaments like Paris,
Monte Carlo, or Ostend?

*Was* he invited?

Take Monte Carlo: there were first 16 of 20 players listed as players,
and the committee decided to allow other players than those originally
planned with just one or two weeks to go. At the time of drawing lots,
there were 22 names on the list, but Taubenhaus and Blackburne were not
present, so they ended up with 20 players. The first 16 seems to have
been Chigorin, Janowski, Marco, Schlecter, Maroczy, Reggio, Winawer*,
Mieses, v. Scheve, Billecard*, Burn*, Blackburne*, Gunsberg, Teichmann,
Marshall and Pillsbury. Late-comers we Albin, Mortimer, von Popiel,
Eisenberg, Mason, Napier, H. Wolf and Taubenhaus* (in no particular order
-- I may have missed someone). Looks like a rather shaky start for a
fairly large tournament. (* indicates players who did not participate.)

In Paris Mortimer is mentioned in the preliminary list of players, though.
No last-second fill in there.

Can't say about Ostende: it certainly was a super-event. Application forms
were printed in periodicals of the time, so just about anyone could
have entered for that one -- and typically ended up in one of the amateur
sub-tournaments. Mortimer just might have been 'promoted' from the amateur
tournament(s) to the masters tournament when someone dropped out. The tournament
book would probably say if anything like that happened.


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

"ChessliB" wrote in message news:s8dMc.2921$vH5.1412@amstwist00...
"Jeremy Spinrad" skrev i melding
...


This article recalls a forgotten chess player of the past, James Mortimer.
Mortimer lived from 1833 to 1911, and had a life full of great triumphs
and great failures.

It was the failures at the chess board that first brought Mortimer to my
attention. To explain how Mortimer first caught my eye, I must make a
small
digression.

I have wanted to get my hands on Gaige's book of tournament
crosstables for a long time, and finally was able to obtain them through
interlibrary loan. Or at least, to obtain all of them except the one I
wanted most, volume 1, which covers the years from 1851 to 1900.


This book from McFarland & Company might interest you and many people
when available:

Chess Results, 1747–1900
A Comprehensive Record with 465 Tournament Crosstables and 590 Match
Scores
Gino Di Felice

ISBN 0-7864-2041-3
tables, indexes
[256]pp. library binding (7 x 10) 2004
$35
Not Yet Published, Available Fall/Winter 2004

Description
Here, in one volume, are the results of the main chess
competitions—both tournaments and matches—that took place around the
world from 1747 to 1900.

To further clarify the results listed, this work also includes
sections on both symbols and abbreviations. Additionally, three
different indices offer entries on events, players and sources.






Frustrated,
I hit upon a scheme of "reverse engineering" Gaige's tables from Anders
Thulin's index to the tables (available on the net). During my wife's
month
long trip, I logged on late at night and managed to get the standings for
the tournaments in Gaige's book constructed; I am still in the process of
finding the players actual scores for as many tournaments as I can find.

The process described above is long and tedious, and you may feel free to
question my sanity. However, there are a few advantages of entering every
score by hand as opposed to buying a book; you end up looking at all the
data, and noticing oddities which cry out for further inspection. For
example,
there have been a number of unknowns who did extraordinarily well in some
particular tournament, never to be heard of again. Sometimes the player
simply
was lucky, but there often is a compelling story; some players died young,
some were forced into exile, some gave up chess for business, and in at
least one case (which I will discuss in a different article) the player
was
accused of cheating and was ostracized by the chess community.

Mortimer stands out in a different way. Mortimer had a reverse clean score
in a tournament in London 1887, going 0-9 against top-flight competition.
This type of wipe-out is fairly rare, but Mortimer's case is not the
worst.
Famously, Col. Moreau went 0-26 in Monte Carlo 1903. Moreau's case is very
different than Mortimer's, however. Moreau agreed to be a last minute
substitute in a top-flight tournament; he does not appear anywhere else in
Gaige's books. Mortimer, however, continued to be invited regularly to
top
level tournaments, almost always getting very low scores. These
invitations
seem odd because even when Mortimer played in non-master tournaments, he
was
not winning them.

Reviewing Mortimer's tournaments from Gaige (I have discrepancies from
different sources on a couple of these):

London 1883: 3-23, tied for last out of 14
London 1885: tied for 10th to 11th out of 12 players
London 1886 4-8, 11th out of 13
London 1887 0-9, 10th out of 10
Bradford 1888 6.5-9.5, tied 10th to 12th, or 13th, of 17
London 1889 3-7 10th of 11
Manchester 1890 8.5-10.5, 14th of 20
London 1891 4th out of 10
London 1891 tied 6th through 9th of 10
London 1892 3.5-7.5, 10th of 12
London 1896 tied 8th through 11th of 12
London 1900 5th of 5
Paris 1900 2-14 15th of 17
Folkstone 1901 2-3 tied 3-5 out of 6
Monte Carlo 1902 1-18 last of 20
Norwich 1902 2.5-8.5 tied 10-11 of 12
Turnbridge Wells 1902 3.5-5.5 7th of 10?
Canterbury 1903 4-4 5th out of 9
Plymouth 1903 4.5-3.5 tie 3,4 out of 9
Brighton 1904 5-3 4th out of 9
London 1904 4-12 last of 17
London 1904 Rice Gambit 2.5-13.5 last of 9
Ostend 1907 5-23 last of 29
London 1907 10-9 tie 8-10 of 20
London 1909 6-11 15th out of 18
Paris 1910 2.5-13.5 16th out of 17


Where are the scores that justify invitations to major tournaments like
Paris,
Monte Carlo, or Ostend? His positive scores are in second rate events; for
example, Plymouth 1903, where he finished 4.5-3.5, was a qualifying
section featuring the players (in order of finish) Gunston, Emery,
Allcock,
Mortimer, Fawcett, RB Jones, A West, Dunstan, and T Taylor. Gunston was
the only player besides Mortimer who ever played a major event, and he
finished 3 points ahead of Mortimer with the kind of score (7.5-0.5) which
you would expect of a good player in a weak section.

Even his obituary in the London Times (Feb 25, 1911; he was covering the
chess tournament in San Sebastian as a reporter) notes that Mortimer was
well
known as a chess player, though as a personality rather than a master
player.

When I mentioned this oddity to my younger daughter, she replied with the
cynicism of modern youth that Mortimer must have "had connections". I am
not sure whether this is exactly correct, but I do believe that the
invitations
came because of Mortimer's interesting life beyond the chessboard.

Mortimer had done a little writing, both as a journalist and playwright,
before joining the diplomatic service. While stationed in Paris, he became
friends with Morphy during Morphy's first visit. After being stationed for
a time in St Petersburg, Mortimer returned to Paris and worked as a
journalist.

His articles supporting Napoleon III brought him many rewards, including
the
cross of the Legion of Honor; he is said to have been the last person to
speak to Napoleon III. Mortimer was made responsible for the princess'
arrangements when she fled to England, where the emperor had previously
given Mortimer funds to set up a newspaper, the London Figaro. Figaro
chess
columnists were, at various times, Loewenthal and Steinitz, so there may
be
some truth in the notion that Mortimer's connections were responsible for
some
tournament invitations.

Mortimer was now free to practice two of his three passions (the third
being
chess); journalism, and theater, in which he was both a critic and a
playwright. He could be delightfully nasty as a critic, which made him
some powerful enemies. He despised one of the most famous tragic actors
of the time, who he called "The Eminent I"; you can find Mortimer's poem
"The Fall of the Eminent I", fantasizing about the actor being killed by
irate
fans stuffing playbills down his throat, reprinted in Appleton's Journal,
Nov
16, 1875.

These journalistic assaults had repercussions for his own plays. The
following
incident is described in Appleton's Journal, June 10, 1875, pg 59, during
a positive review of a Mortimer adaptation.

"On the first night, by the way, there was an amusing scene. Mr. Mortimer
is
out of the good books of the "gods". In his paper, some time ago, he
called
them "rabble", and they have never forgiven him for it; wherefore,
whenever
he appears in a theater, they hoot and hiss at him, and address to him
remarks anything but complimentary. On this first night they made an
energetic
attempt to "damn" his piece. Again and again were the opening scenes
interrupted by them; they "chaffed" the actors and actresses, and
jeeringly
called for their arch-enemy, Mr. Mortimer himself. Suddenly, while Miss
Barry
was standing alone upon the stage in a pathetic attitude, in rushed Mr.
Eignold,
his eyes flashing fire, his great fists clinched. "Stop! Stop!" he yelled.
"If you are an Englishman, those of you who have mothers, wives, or
daughters,
remember there is a lady before you! For myself," he went on, still at the
top of his powerful voice, "all I ask is justice! Hiss me, howl at me, if
you
like, but don't abuse me before you see the picture I am about to draw."
This
exhortation saved the piece. The "gods" were completely cowed. Probably if
they
had known, as I did, that Mr. Eignold had merely repeated a bit of "copy"-
that,
as opposition was foreseen, he had learned the words by heart, in order to
rush in with them on his tongue at the most fitting moment- they only would
have
laughed at him."

Mortimer specialized in liberal adaptations of plays which he would
translate
from the French, usually light comedy. His own life took a strange turn,
worthy of a play with farcical moments but ending as a tragedy, as a
result of
a libel action against his paper.

If you read the Oxford Companion to Chess' version of the case, Mortimer
bravely went to prison, rather than revealing the source for his story.
What actually happened was much stranger; you can find accounts in the
London
Times (Nov 25, 1879) or the New York Times (Dec 25, 1879).

Mortimer chose to defend himself in the libel case, which proved to be a
serious mistake. As well as not having a grasp for important nuances of
the law (he didn't realize that a witness needed to be cross-examined,
instead waiting patiently for his turn to tell his side), acting as his
own
counsel meant that he was unable to testify on his own behalf. Thus, it
was
not until after the jury had found him guilty that Mortimer was able to
show the judges compelling evidence that he had no personal knowledge of
the article printed, and that it had all been handled by a sub-editor who
was in America during the trial. The judges were surprised at this, and
eventually ruled that although the evidence might very well have cleared
him, they could not overturn the verdict of the jury. More surprisingly,
the senior judge ruled that instead of just ordering a fine, Mortimer
would
be subject to 3 months imprisonment. He argues that fines are not enough
of
a punishment for libel, since this just encourages newspapers to print
more scandalous material, which increases their circulation by more than
the costs of the fine; Mortimer's specific extenuating circumstances seem
to have had no effect at all on the sentence.

So Mortimer was sent to prison, though as the New York Times article makes
clear, this was considered by many to be an unjust outcome. As well as
striking me as unjust, the trial illustrates Mortimer's most famous line
about chess: "It will be cheering to know that many people are skillful
chess
players, though in many instances their brains, in a general way, compare
unfavourably with cognitive facilities of a rabbit."

The Figaro went under as a result of Mortimer's imprisonment. When he got
out, Mortimer's livelihood came from the theater, in which he continued
both
to be both a playwright and a critic.

I do not get the impression that Mortimer was a very good playwright.
However,
in those pre-television days, London was crowded with theaters, and had a
great appetite for new material. In fairness to Mortimer, some of his
plays
got mildly positive reviews. As is generally the case in theater, the bad
reviews are more fun to read. He was accused in some reviews of changing
plays solely in order to make himself an author rather than a translator.
The worst reviews came from his attempt to mimic The Pirates of Penzance
with
an operetta called "Polly, the Pet of the Regiment". Although panned in
the
London Times ("If popular taste has latterly been falling away from the
comic
opera it is not likely to be stimulated by the new production"), it
managed to cross the Atlantic, where the New York Times declared that "Of
the
many worthless operettas that have been brought out for the delectation of
the
New York public "Polly" is undoubtedly the most unsatisfactory. It
contains
nothing original, nothing novel, and nothing good."

However, Mortimer's most lasting influence may be on a most unlikely
artistic medium, the comic strip. An article called London Literary
Letter,
which appeared in the New York Times on January 27, 1900, investigates a
dichotomy of British humor which exists to this day; British comedy seems
to
go in for either the extremely clever or extraordinarily stupid. The
author
laments the fact that some good rivals for Punch have fallen by the
wayside,
wondering if the French are right that the typical Englishman is

"a grim melancholy person, who only smiles when he beats his wife.

On the other hand, there is a swarm of professedly comic papers, some of
which
make fortunes for their owners. Nearly twenty years ago Mr. James
Mortimer, in
his weekly paper called Figaro, invented a bottle-nosed drunken Londoner,
whom he named Ally Sloper, and who was every week represented by getting
himself into difficulties, chiefly through too much drink. Ally Sloper
became
such a favorite among the class which has never heard of Meredith or
Stevenson
that a comic illustrated paper called Ally Sloper's Half-Holiday was
started,
part of which is every week devoted to chronicling the deeds of the bottle
nosed drunkard. There is not a gleam of humor rightly so-called in the
paper,
but it has an enormous sale, and now owns a large building, which it calls
with its peculiar humor, "The Sloperies." This is but one of the alleged
comic illustrated papers which flourish in London, and it success shows
that
the Londoner is extremely fond of what he conceives to be humor.

Just at present, the sort of person who who takes in Ally Sloper's
Half-Holiday
remarks a dozen times a day, "What ho! She bumps!" This is regarded as a
killer ..."

Ally Sloper was an incredibly influential comic, and has been called the
first comic superstar. Echoes of its humor remained long after the strip
died;
WC Fields seems to be consciously fashioned on Ally Sloper, and even a
cartoon as recent as Andy Capp seems to follow the same tradition. I
should
say that according to current sources Mortimer is not usually credited as
the
inventor, but from other gleanings (an 1875 article talks of Mortimer
trying
to raise capitol for the first London illustrated paper) I feel that he
must
have had something to do at least with its early success.

Mortimer may not have done very well in chess, but there were some shining
moments. Mortimer beats Emanuel Lasker in the following game:

Mortimer-Lasker London 1891: 1 e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5
4. b4 BxB4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 exd4 7. 0-0 dxc3 9. e5 Qg6 10. Nxc3 Nge7
11. Ba3 b5 12. Nxb5 Rb8 13. Bxe7 Kxe7 14. Qe3 Bb6 15. Qa3+ Kd8 16. Rad1
Re8
17. Bd5 Nxe5 18. Nxe5 Rxe5 19 Nxa7 Bxa7 10. Qxa7 Rb5 21. Qa3 Rbxd5
22. Rxd5 Bb7 23. Qf8+ Re8 24. Rxd7+ Kxd7 25. Rd1+ Bd5 26. Rxd5+ Ke6
27. Qxe8+ Kxd5 28. Qd7+ Ke4 29. Qxc7 Qe6 30. f3+ Kd3 31. Qd8+ Ke2
32. Qd4 f5 33. Qb2+ Kd3 34. Qb3+ 1-0

How could a player with such a sorry history beat one of the all-time
greats?
It gives all of us a little hope in our quixotic battles, which Mortimer
carried out both on and off the board. Or, to put it another way: What,
ho!
She bumps!

Are you refering to this game? There is a few moves after 34. Qb3+ :

(10056) Mortimer,J - Lasker,E [C52]
London London ENG, 1891
Database: ECO A00-E99 - ChessliB 2004


1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.d4 exd4 7.0-0 dxc3 8.Qb3
Qf6 9.e5 Qg6 10.Nxc3 Nge7 11.Ba3 b5 12.Nxb5 Rb8 13.Bxe7 Kxe7 14.Qe3 Bb6
15.Qa3+ Kd8 16.Rad1 Re8 17.Bd5 Nxe5 18.Nxe5 Rxe5 19.Nxa7 Bxa7 20.Qxa7 Rb5
21.Qa3 Rbxd5 22.Rxd5 Bb7 23.Qf8+ Re8 24.Rxd7+ Kxd7 25.Rd1+ Bd5 26.Rxd5+ Ke6
27.Qxe8+ Kxd5 28.Qd7+ Ke4 29.Qxc7 Qe6 30.f3+ Kd3 31.Qd8+ Ke2 32.Qd4 f5
33.Qb2+ Kd3 34.Qb3+ Qxb3 35.axb3 Kc3 36.Kf2 Kxb3 37.Ke3 Kc4 38.Kf4 g6 39.g4
fxg4 40.fxg4 Kd4 41.Kg5 Ke4 42.Kh6 Kf4 43.h3 Kg3 44.Kxh7 Kxh3 45.g5 1-0