BCM 1896

Here are two rather interesting items I stumbled upon in the 1896 edition of the British Chess Magazine.

The first is a reprint of a problem by Ercole del Rio

from an 1769 Ponziani edition of his book.            

White to move and mate in 3

The second is a description of a unique blitz tournament held at the Brooklyn Chess Club in New York:

     The Brooklyn Chess Club, New York, held on December 14th, a tournament of a somewhat novel character in two respects; first, that though there were 16 competitors, the whole thing was finished in one evening; and secondly, that this was accomplished by allowing, after the opening moves, only half-a-minute to each move. The conductor of the tourney, five seconds before each half-minute, called out the word "ready," and at the half-minute the word "move," whereupon if he whose turn it was did not make his move within five seconds more, he lost the game. It wil thus be seen that really the players had just one minute for consideration between their moves, but if either chose to move before is time was up, he was only benefitting his opponent, for he could not, as in ordinary tourneys, store up the time gained for future use.  The tourney, it is needless to say, was on the putting-out system, the losers in each round retiring, and in case of a draw the players had to toss up to decide which should go on and which should retire. The entries included nearly all the most prominent experts in New York:  Messrs. Lipschutz, Showalter, Hodges, Delmar, Hanham, Richardson, Hymes, Souweine, Tatum, Frere and Rocamora, as well as five less well-known names. Curiously enough, Messrs. Showalter and Lipschutz came together in the third round, and the result was a draw. Mr. Lipschutz then won the toss, and by defeating Mr. Hymes in the final round became the winner of the tournament.