Chess Journal, 1886 (1st Pleisoi Tourney)

This is more of a mini-tourney, as the first closing date is within one month after the announcement. A possibly significant difference with other tourneys is that there is no mention of entry fee.

Problem 1528, mentioned in the announcement, was published on the title page of the same issue: Chess Journal, i. 90 (Aug., 1886), p. [1], prb. 1528 by H. F. L. Meyer.

As the #1 pr. winner has the same number of key moves as prb. 1528, it does not strictly fulfill the requirement of having 'more mates'.

Together with the prize awards, a clarification was made: Our intention as to the one move more ways to mate than Meyer's 1528, was according to the rules under which it and Ordinary chess problems are constructed. See Rules pages 32 and 33 Journal No. 91; ... . This clarification probably refer to use of promoted pieces in some of the contributed problems.

While a prize was announced for #3 problems, no such prize appears to have been published. (There is an award for a #3 in Dec., 1886, p. 32, but as it is presented as an 'October Prize', and without any explicit reference to this tourney, it has not been included.)

In January, 1887 a special prize was awarded to H. F. L. Meyer, whose #3 had not arrived in time. The editor noted in Nov., 1886 that in the future two weeks extra will be be allowed for entries from Europe. Although Chess Journal described it as a Class II pleisoi, it was judged as a Class I problem.


An improvement to the #1 pr. problem was printed in Nov., 1886, p. 18. By adding a wQa8, the number of mates was increased to 53.

An earlier counterpart to section A can be found in the Illustrirte Zeitung, 1859 tourney, where the goal of showing the most mates in #1 is also present.