St. Petersburg Series Luxury Chess Set

Following the success of Hastings 1895 Tournament, the first "super-tournament" of the modern era, the legendary St. Petersburg Chess Club in Russia organized an ambitious tournament whose objective was to have the strongest Chess masters in the world participate. The organizers of the St. Petersburg 1895 Tournament invited the 5 top finishers at the Hastings 1895 to participate in a quadruple round robin-style tournament with a total prize fund of $550.00 USD, with additional cash prizes awarded based upon the results of the individual games. The invitees were Harry Nelson Pillsbury, Mikhail Chigorin, Emmanuel Lasker, Siegbert Tarrasch and Wilhelm Steinitz. Only Mr. Tarrasch declined the invitation to participate in the event. As a result, the tournament was changed to a sextuple round robin-style tournament where each of the participants would face each other a total of 6 times.
At the mid-point of the tournament, the American Harry Nelson Pillsbury had a commanding lead over his competition, which included the reigning World Chess Champion Lasker and former World Chess Championship Stenitz. With a score of 6.5/9, Mr. Pillsbury was well positioned to win the tournament and force a world championship match against Lasker. However, Pillsbury became ill and was plagued with severe headaches throughout the second half of the match, scoring only 1.5/9. At the end of the match, the reigning World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker was the winner with 11.5/18, following by Steinitz 9.5, Pillsbury 8, and Chigorin 7.
It would be another 20 years before the world would experience a tournament comparable to the legendary St. Petersburg 1895. DeluxeChessSets.com