David Janowski was a World Championship Challenger and one of the world’s leading players in the first decade of the 20th century. Below, I explore his life and games.
Photo: Cleveland Public Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Table of contents:
Biography
Early life
Dawid Janowski was born in Wolkowysk, Poland, in 1868. However, he moved to Paris in his early twenties, around 1890. This was important for his later career as a chess player, as Paris was one of the world’s major chess cities at the time.
International breakthrough
Janowski improved his play quickly in Paris, which showed in his early international tournament results. He took 5th place at the strong Nuremberg tournament in 1896, ahead of Steinitz, Schlechter and Chigorin. This was followed by an impressive performance at the Vienna tournament in 1898, where he finished third.
American adventure
Following these initial successes, Janowski travelled to America to challenge its strongest masters. Over the two years 1898 and 1899, Janowski played three matches against Jackson Showalter, who at the time had won four of his eventual five US Champion titles. Although Janowski won the first match, Showalter got revenge with victory in the next two, which were significantly shorter. In December of 1898, Janowski gave a simul at the Brooklyn Chess Club, winning 17 games and losing five.
The following year, Janowski continued his plans to challenge the leading American masters by playing a short match against Frank Marshall. They played four games, with the Brooklyn and Manhattan Chess Clubs hosting the match. Janowski won the match by three wins to one, which significantly enhanced his reputation in America.
Return to Europe
Following his match victory over Marshall, Janowski returned to Europe to compete in the strong tournament at London in 1899. There he shared second place with Pillsbury and Maroczy, finishing behind only Lasker, the World Champion. He subsequently challenged Lasker to a match for the World Championship, but the two could not agree terms, and the match did not take place.
The turn of the century did not slow down Janowski’s impressive tournament performances. In 1901, he took first place at Monte Carlo, ahead of Alapin, Chigorin, Marshall and Gunsberg. The following year, he finished 3rd at the next edition of the same tournament, behind Maroczy and Pillsbury, but ahead of leading players like Tarrasch, Chigorin, Marshall and Schlechter. 1902 also saw Janowski become the chess editor of the French news magazine, Le Monde Illustré.
International success
At the strong international tournament at Cambridge Springs in 1904, Janowski shared second place with World Champion Lasker. Marshall won the tournament, and so there was interest in arranging a match between Marshall and Janowski. This match took place the following year in Paris, Marshall ultimately winning by eight wins to five, with four draws.
Janowski, however, continued to improve as his experience of international chess grew. 1905 was a particularly good year for him, as he shared second with Tarrasch, behind only Maroczy, at Ostend. He then shared first with Maroczy at Barmen, ahead of a field which included Marshall, Bernstein, and Schlechter.
Janowski and Nardus
In 1907, Janowski shared 3rd place at Ostend with Marshall, behind Tarrasch and Schlechter. The following year, he played another match with Marshall, at the home of the wealthy Leo Nardus in Paris. There Janowski took revenge for their match three years earlier, winning by five wins to two, with three draws.
Janowski vs Lasker
Potentially influenced by this success, Nardus financially backed a short match between Janowski and the World Champion Lasker in 1909. This match ended drawn, with both players recording two wins. This made an even greater impression on Nardus, who began to play a major role in financing Janowski’s chess career. After the match, Lasker and Janowski agreed to contest a World Championship match, should Lasker retain his title against Schlechter in 1910.
Later in 1909, Janowski and Lasker played another, longer match, intended as training for Lasker’s upcoming title defence against Schlechter. This time, however, Janowski found himself completely outclassed, and lost by one win to seven, with two draws.
World Championship Challenger
This did not deter Janowski, and after Lasker retained his title against Schlechter, Janowski got his chance at a World Championship Match later in 1910. Unfortunately for him, however, Lasker dominated the match, and took victory with eight wins and three draws, going undefeated. Although it was a World Championship Match, it received limited coverage at the time. This was because Lasker owned the copyright of the games, and because Janowski was generally not considered capable of mounting a serious challenge to Lasker’s crown.
WWI
Perhaps due to the one sided nature of the match, Janowski’s results suffered in the years leading up to the war. He played another match with Marshall, again at the home of Leo Nardus, but lost by two wins to six, with two draws. At the very strong tournament at St Petersburg in 1914, he shared 9th place with Blackburne. Janowski then travelled to participate in the tournament at Mannheim, but this event was interrupted after 11 rounds by the start of WWI.
Various participants, including Janowski, were interned by German authorities. He was held in Switzerland, before he managed to leave Europe and travel to the United States. There, he attempted to continue his chess career.
Life in America
Janowski announced his arrival in January 1916 with an impressive 2nd place, behind only Capablanca, at the Rice Memorial tournament in New York. In February, he won a match against Charles Jaffe, one of the leading chess players around New York, by five wins to four, with four draws.
June saw Janowski lose a match to Marshall at the Manhattan Chess Club. It was played to the best of ten games, but Marshall won the match ahead of schedule by four wins to one, with three draws. However, Janowski bounced back to end the year with a match victory over Showalter by seven wins to two, with two draws.
In the next few years, Janowski continued to play matches against leading American masters and competed in tournaments. Notably, he won the eighth American Chess Congress in 1921. He followed this up with third in the ninth American Chess Congress in 1923, where he finished only half a point behind the leaders, Marshall and Kupchik.
Later years
Janowski was now well past his prime, however. His results began to decline, and he regularly finished in the lower end of the field at the strong international tournaments of the 1920s. He began to have problems with his health, and he died from tuberculosis in Hyeres, France in 1927, at the age of 58.
Legacy
Today, Janowski is remembered as the only master apart from Tarrasch to defeat the first four World Champions: Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine. He is also remembered for his World Championship Match in 1910, and the numerous brilliant attacking games which he left behind for generations of players to study and enjoy.
Game Analysis
Janowski won an instructive game against Marco at Vienna 1898, which illustrates the power of attacking along a weak colour complex.
Lessons from this game:
- A backward or isolated pawn is only weak if it can be attacked. In this game, white did not manage to put any pressure on the c6 and a7 pawns.
- An attack on the king often takes place along a weak colour complex, where the defending king suffers from multiple weak squares of the same colour.
- A typical idea when attacking along a weak colour complex is to exchange the bishop of the opposite colour, which could never attack the weak squares directly, for a knight, which can defend them.
Puzzles
Janowski – Schlechter, London 1899
Janowski – Tarrasch, Ostend 1905
Janowski – Alapin, Barmen 1905
Janowski – Saemisch, Marienbad 1925
Solutions
Further Reading
For more information about Janowski and his life and games, the following are useful sources:
The first volume of Kasparov’s My Great Predecessors,
Janowski’s chessgames.com page,
his chess.com page,
and this chessgames.com page about his World Championship Match with Lasker.
If you’d like to receive notifications when new articles are posted, consider subscribing to Chessaglow.