August 12, 1906 Los Angeles Herald, Chess and Checkers, Los Angeles, California

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Chess 12 Aug 1906, Sun Los Angeles Herald (Los Angeles, California) Newspapers.com

OPENINGS in chess in many ways resemble the fashions.
Certain openings may for a time be well thought of and played by leading masters, and then, without any particular reason, be discontinued, only again to be resurrected several years afterwards.
An excellent illustration of how an opening may be fashionable at one time and frowned down upon afterwards is the Ponziani opening to wit: 1. P-K4 P-K4; 2. KN-B3 QN-B3; 3. P-QB3. Major Jaenisch, a Russian officer, in his work on chess, published in 1842 (which, by the way, was and is today an exceptionally able book), says of this opening: “This is a tolerably good attack.” And Howard Staunton in 1848 remarked: “It deserves and, if we mistake not, will yet attain a higher place in the category of legitimate openings than has hitherto been assigned to it,” and some years later the same authority remarked, “The opening has been grudgingly admitted into favor, but another quarter of a century may be required to enable it to take the rank it deserves among our best debutes.”
It was not until the sixth American Chess Congress that the game really became popular. M. Tchigorin, having carefully worked up the main variations, played the opening in that tournament with marked success. After that the game was widely played, until W. Steinitz, in his Modern Chess Instructor, published an analysis, of which we give the main variation in a note to the following game, claiming that he had demolished the strength of the attack. After that the opening was again almost entirely abandoned. We fail, however, to see any good reason for thus discarding the opening, and believe that any first class chess player who will carefully study up the main lines of play can use it with success in any modern tournament.
The following game illustrates one of the variations. It was played comparatively recently by Tchigorin during a visit to the Moscow Chess Club:

Mikhail Chigorin vs. Vainshtein/Nasarovski
Ponziani Opening: Jaenisch Counterattack
Submitted to chessgames.com on 04/27/2025

Descriptive 1. P-K4 P-K4 2. N-KB3 N-QB3 3. P-B3 N-B3 4. P-Q4 PxP 5. P-K5 N-K5 6. Q-K2 N-B4 7. PxP N-K3 8. P-Q5 QN-Q5 9. NxN NxN 10. Q-K4 B-N5ch 11. N-B3 P-QB4 12. B-Q3 Q-K2 13. O-O P-Q3 14. PxP QxQ 15. NxQ B-B4 16. P-QR3 BxN 17. BxB B-R4 18. B-K3 K-Q2 19. P-QN4 B-N3 20. KR-Q N-N6 21. B-B5ch KxP 22. QR-N P-B5 23. B-B4ch K-K2 24. B-B2 N-Q5 25. R-Kch K-Q 26. B-R4 P-QR3 27. R-K4 N-N4 28. QR-K B-B2 29. P-Q6 B-N3 30. R-K7 QR-B 31. RxBP B-Q5 32. RxQNP Resigns

Algebraic 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3 Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. e5 Ne4 6. Qe2 Nc5 7. cxd4 Ne6 8. d5 Nd4 9. Nxd4 Nxd4 10. Qe4 Bb4+ 11. Nc3 c5 12. Bd3 Qe7 13. 0-0 d6 14. exd6 Qxe4 15. Nxe4 Bf5 16. a3 Bxe4 17. Bxe4 Ba5 18. Be3 Kd7 19. b4 Bb6 20. Rd1 Nb3 21. Bf5+ Kxd6 22. Rb1 c4 23. Bf4+ Ke7 24. Bc2 Nd4 25. Rfe1+ Kd8 26. Ba4 a6 27. Re4 Nb5 28. Ree1 Bc7 29. d6 Bb6 30. Re7 Rc8 31. Rxf7 Bd4 32. Rxb7 1-0