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Rudolf Spielmann: Master of Invention
Reviewed by Michael Jeffreys

The Art of the Fun Book

“The beauty of a game of chess is usually appraised, and with good reason, according
to the sacrifices it contains.”    –    Rudolf Spielmann, from The Art of Sacrifice in Chess

Player biographies have always been my favorite chess books.  Getting to know the man (or woman) behind the moves, and what their contemporaries had to say about them, helps bring them to life for me.  Brady’s Profile of a Prodigy about Fischer, Silman’s beautiful hardback on Benko, and Hartston’s out-of-print The Kings of Chess, with its awesome b&w photos and bios/games of greats of the past, are all fantastic reads.

After tackling Alekhine and Tal, Everyman has now put out its third book in “The Masters” series, this time offering up the master of the sacrifice, Rudolf Spielmann.  From the book’s introduction by McDonald:

Rudolf Spielmann was born in Vienna on the 5^th May 1883 and learnt to play chess at four or five years old.  According to Reti in Masters of the Chessboard, he was exhibited in public as a chess prodigy, ‘but in spite of that he later became a great master.’

 

As a young player, Spielmann had a dynamic chess style that was full of brilliant sacrifices and clever attacks, but lacking somewhat in solidity and proper technique.  Nevertheless, even in his earliest international tournaments, he was capable of upsetting a top-class player if he got the kind of game that suited him.

My Big Database 2005 lists a whopping 1153 games (445 wins, 428 draws, and 280 losses) for Spielmann over a 35 year period.  The first entry being against Ossip Bernstein in 1903, and the last against George Thomas in 1938.

As McDonald mentioned, on a good day Spielmann was capable of taking down the best of ‘em.  For example, in San Sebastian in 1912, he had the difficult task of facing the great Rubinstein—who at the time was winning one tournament after the other—with the Black pieces no less.

In the diagram below, Rubinstein has just played 25.b4, attacking Black’s queen:

Does Spielmann move his queen?  Heck no!  Not when he can play the stunning 25…Bxe4!!  A fantastic move.  The point being that if 26.bxc5?? Rf1+ 27.Rxf1 Rxf1#

So Rubinstein accepts the piece sacrifice: 26.Rxe4 Rf1+ 27.Bxf1 Rxf1+ 28.Kg2 Qf2+ 29.Kh3 Rh1 30.Rf3 Qxh2+ 31.Kg4 Qh5+ 32.Kf4 Qh6+ 33.Kg4

The only knock on Spielmann, was that he distained defense.  (Join the club, Rudolph!)  Said Nimzowitsch in his book on the Carlsbad 1929 tournament:  “No matter how much we have tried to convince Spielmann of the impossibility of surviving on nothing more than developing and attacking moves (and I have tried hardest of all, through my books and our conversations) still he tries, almost as a matter of principle, to avoid the necessity of defence!”

And Capablanca said this before the New York 1927 tournament:  “Of late, Spielmann’s style has changed considerably for the better.  He is now a far sounder player than he was ever before.  His main weaknesses are a very marked tendency to be discouraged when things do not break his way and an evident dislike to defend himself.”

However, it was BECAUSE he hated to “back-up” that made Spielmann’s games so interesting!  As someone who has drawn far too many chess games over his lifetime, I can only envy Spielmann.

As far as the layout is concerned, McDonald breaks the book down into nine chapters, the majority of which conclude with several tactical puzzles from Spielmann’s games.  Each chapter highlights a different theme:

1. Biography and Best Games;  2. The Bountiful Bishop;  3. The Noble Knights;  4. Rampaging Rooks;  5. Pawn Power;  6. Terrifying Tactics;  7. Catching the King in the Centre;  8. Storming the Kingside;  9. Solutions to Puzzles (the final two pages contain an index of Spielmann’s opponents.)

Here are three puzzles from the book (solutions at end of review):

The Bottom Line

This breezy book on Spielmann is a lot of fun.  McDonald throws in a nice mixture of biographical information between the game fragments and the puzzles.  These are the types of games I like to show my students, as they are usually more straightforward (and thus easier to follow) than many of the complicated GM battles that take place today.

My only criticism would be that since I am not a big fan of game fragments (e.g. starting the game from move 15), I would have preferred McDonald to have given all the moves to the games (yes, I know, space issues… but I still will take a few less games to get the moves to all of the ones presented!)  Also, some photos of Spielmann (besides the one on the cover) would have been nice (however this might just be an Everyman convention, as none of the other “master series” books have photos in them either.)

However, these are minor quibbles and overall I very much enjoyed this look at the life and games of the great Austrian master.  By the way, if you’re wondering what “Master of Invention” means, McDonald says that he chose this title because he felt that at least half of all of Spielmann’s games offer something of interest (a sacrifice, combo or some other creative idea.)  Thus, he considered the man to be very inventive, which after you play through some of his games, you will find is definitely the case!  On a scale of 1-10, Rudolph Spielmann: Master of Invention gets an 8.5.

Solutions to puzzles

1. 31...Re1+! 0-1, as after 32.Rxe1 Rxe1+, White can choose how he gets mated: 33.Qxe1 Qf3# or 33.Kg2 Rg1#  (Mieses-Spielmann, Vienna 1907)

2. 28.Rxe7! Qxe7 29.Nxf6+ gxf6 30.Qg4+ Kh7 31.Qxc8 1–0 (Spielmann-Yates, Semmering 1926)

3. 13.Bxg7! Wrecking the black kingside. If 13…Kxg7, 14.Nh5+ Kh8 15.Qh6 and mate follows on g7 or h7. So Tartakower tried 13…Re8, but resigned after 14.Qh6 Nf6 15.Ng5 Bf5 16.Nxf5 1–0 (Spielmann-Tartakower, Vienna, 1910)
 

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