The 1st Isaac Rice Memorial Tournament – fourteen participants played in
New York City, from January 18 to February 4, 1916. Wealthy German–American inventor
Isaac Leopold Rice (1850–1915) was a lover of chess (
Rice Gambit) and a patron of chess competitions. The event included two stages (preliminaries and final). The preliminaries started as a
round-robin tournament. Five players qualified for the final.
José Raúl Capablanca played superior chess in the preliminaries. Since the results of the preliminaries carried over into the finals, Capablanca with a 3½-point lead was a heavy favorite to win the tournament.
Dawid Janowski,
Boris Kostić and
Abraham Kupchik tied for 2nd-4th, and
Oscar Chajes took 5th place.[1] The final tournament was won by Chajes (who beat Capablanca) and Janowski, ahead of Capablanca, Kostić and Kupchik. Summary, the winner was Capablanca (+12 –1 =4), followed by Janowski 11 points, Chajes 10½ points, Kostić and Kupchik 10 points each.[2][3]