Westdeutsche Schachbund, 1877 (Köln)

Early announcements and programmes are unclear as to the number of prizes: the judges announced two prizes, while the arrangers only announced one but allowed the possibility of additional prizes. The exchange in Deutsche Schachzeitung between the judges and the arrangers over this question ends with the second prize announced by the judges being accepted as an official prize after the necessary funds had been donated by them, but with some acrimony on the side of the judges, who announce that after finishing the agreed-upon work for the tourney, they would resign from the Committee of the Westdeutsche Schachbund.

This may explain the lack of a formal report from the tourney.

23 sets were submitted, of which 9 were found to be correct.

The judges are said to have published notes and comments for individual sets and problems in their chess column in Zum Feierabend, the Sunday supplement to Handels- und Börsenzeitung für Rheinland und Westphalien, which may be the earliest publication of the problems. The editor of Deutsche Schachzeitung reprinted some of this information in November, 1877, which was also used as a the basis for the information published in the congress book.

When the table over sent-in problems was published in Deutsche Schachzeitung, 1878, the judges also stated that they released any remaining unpublished problems to their authors.