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STYLE IN CHESS
Some chess players make more lively games than others, and more interesting to watch, and it is curious what different styles can be discerned in the play of the greatest masters of assumed equal ability, a proof of the great versatility of the game; Anderssen was remarkable for ingenuity and invention, Morphy for intuitive genius and grace, Zukertort for scientific development and Staunton, Buckle, Steinitz and Mason for patience, care and power of utilizing to the utmost the smallest advantages winning by hairs breadth merely. The above represent distinctive schools at chess. Blackburne's play shews little resemblance to that of Bird, Tarrasch and Tchigorin are quite different in style, the former most learned and profound the latter most enterprising.
Lasker's play partakes somewhat of the characteristics of both, Burn and Gunsberg have each a style of their own, and Mackenzie was particularly grand and irresistible in his attacks, Bird is sometimes called the best player of bad games and he often makes a capital middle and splendid end game from an unscientific and erratic beginning. One enthusiast observed that there were only three parts of the game he could not play, viz., the beginning, the middle and the end.
The following is an illustration of four styles of play; the reader can supply real names to satisfy his own taste and imagination.
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STYLE AT CHESS
After a slumber of four years Bangs the fresh, the growing, the vigorous, has risen from his lair, and shaking the dew from his mane, has given utterance to a roar that no champion of chess can hear without a shudder. There is no doubt that he has gained at least a pawn in strength since 1868. Dr. Hooker too, the lightning player, now gives where he once received a Castle. Beach has returned to his native heath rich with the experience of Morphy's old haunt the Cafe de la Regence. Hall has toughened his sinews by many a desperate tug with the paladins of New York. Mackenzie himself has felt the force of his genius and gazed on his moves with astonishment. Between the styles of these four great players there is a notable difference. Bangs, like the lion, tears everything absolutely to fragments that comes within the reach of his claws. Hooker, like the eagle, soars screaming aloft sometimes to such a height that he loses himself but only to return with a desperate sense which Bangs himself can hardly withstand. Beach, more like the slow worm, insinuates gradually into the bowels of the enemy making his presence only felt by the effect, while Hall, on the contrary, rushes right onward like the locomotive scattering obstacles to right and left, and treating his antagonist with no more ceremony than if he were a cow strayed accidentally upon the track.
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