April 21 1914
St. Petersburg International Chess Tournament, April 21, 1914 – May 22, 1914.
St. Petersburg 1914 was organized by the St. Petersburg Chess Society to commemorate its tenth anniversary. It invited the world’s top twenty players, but Amos Burn, Richard Teichmann, and Szymon Winawer declined for personal reasons. Oldrich Duras, Geza Maroczy, Carl Schlechter, Rudolf Spielmann, Savielly Tartakower, Milan Vidmar, and Max Weiss, on the other hand, declined due to tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary.
The remaining eleven, nonetheless, made a formidable cast. These included the world champion in Emanuel Lasker, the leading title contenders in Akiba Rubinstein and Jose Raul Capablanca, former world championship contenders in Isidor Gunsberg, Frank Marshall, Siegbert Tarrasch, and David Janowski, a 19th century great in Joseph Henry Blackburne, a leading Russian master in Ossip Bernstein, and the joint winners of the 1913 All-Russian Masters Tournament in Alexander Alekhine and Aron Nimzowitsch.
Source: Chessbase, Revisiting St. Petersburg 1914
“The St Petersburg Tournament of 1914 featured the joint winners of the 1914 All Russian Championship (Alekhine and Nimzowitsch) and players who had won at least one major tournament. There were the veterans Blackburne and Gunsberg, established masters such as Tarrasch, Bernstein, Janowski, Nimzowitsch, Alekhine and Marshall as well as the World Champion Lasker and his two most prominent rivals, Rubinstein and Capablanca.
The tournament was divided into two sections. The first stage from the 21st April to the 6th of May was an all-play-all event with the first five finishers proceeding into the second stage which ran from the 10th to the 22nd of May. This second stage was a double round all-play-all with the scores from the preliminaries being carried over to the final.
It was expected that there would be a great struggle among Lasker, Capablanca and Rubinstein, but the latter failed to make the final, leaving Lasker and Capablanca to battle it out. Lasker was 1½ points behind Capablanca at the start of the finals but in the end ran out the winner by a ½ point, by scoring seven points from eight games, including a celebrated victory over Capablanca.”
Source: Chessgames.com: St. Petersburg (1914)
