The last post commented that new games from long-ago events appear all the time. Here is another example, which has also surfaced this month, and which also involves John O’Hanlon.
This one is from a subsidiary event of the British Championship 1938, held in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. The game appeared in the Augsburger Schachblatt a month after the event (discovered by Ulrich Tamm and contributed by him to BritBase). O’Hanlon’s opponent was Jakob Adolf Seitz, 1898-1970, joint winner of the section, who had a column in the publication at least earlier in the 1930’s (source), and was perhaps giving one of his own games here. It’s not a surprise to find, therefore, that O’Hanlon lost.
42. ?
The game itself is a puzzle, though. O’Hanlon outplayed his opponent and built up a decisive advantage. In the diagrammed position, 42. Rxb4 Rd1+ 43. Ka2 Rxg1 44. Rb7 is winning (44… h6? 45. Ra5). O’Hanlon seemed to lose the thread, though, and after a series of aimless manoeuvres and passive choices, finally lost.
[Click to replay the full game.]
Another game from the event, versus Alfred Joseph Butcher, has long been available in the ICU game archive. It was annotated by O’Hanlon for the Belfast News-Letter, and, naturally, features a fine win: click to replay.
O’Hanlon scored a respectable +4 =2 -5 in this 12-player all-play-all, finishing in joint 7th-8th places. Full event information can be found, once again, on the BritBase event page.