James Mason

#59

Chessmetrics Ranking: World Number One 1877-1878

Tournament Career: winner of two super-tournaments:

American Chess Congress 1876

New York Chess Tournament 1876

Matches: Mason vs Bird 11:4 (=4)

Why he deserved it:

James Mason was the world number one and especially towards the end of the 1870s, one of the leading players in the world. He won two strong tournaments for that time, although both were in the USA, where the competition was weaker. However, he also held his own in European competition, collecting several second and third places in very strongly contested tournaments.

Despite winning his two tournaments in the USA, he was not American, as many think. He was born in Ireland and lived most of his life in Europe.

Why he isn’t higher:

His best period did not last very long. At the strongest tournament of the nineteenth century, in Hastings 1895, he had a very weak result.

Best Game:

James Mason vs Szymon Winawer

Vienna 1882

Miroslav Janeček

Miroslav Janeček graduated in English Philology at Palacký University Olomouc. Currently he works in Prague as a content editor for a large marketing company. His roots are in Opava - the historic and cultural centre of the Czech part of Silesia. That city is also the home of Slezan Opava, the chess club where Miroslav started to play chess, later went on to work as a youth coach and which he to this day proudly represents. As an aspiring chess publicist, he is the main author of articles on ChessDB.cz. In his free time, in addition to chess and writing, he also devotes himself to racket sports, history, and literature.