The tournament was held in St. Petersburg from April 21 to Mai 22, 1914.
The tournament was divided into a preliminary tournament and a final tournament. In the preliminary tournament, 11 players played a single round-robin. In the final tournament, the five best players competed against each other in a double round-robin. The points from the preliminary tournament were added to the final tournament.
World Champion Emanuel Lasker won the tournament with a score of 13.5/18. Capablanca came second, only half a point behind Lasker. Alekhine finished third, 3.5 points behind Lasker.
The prizes for the first three places were 1200, 800 and 500 Rubles. Lasker also obtained an appearance fee of 4500 Rubles.
The beauty prizes were awarded to Capablanca (Capablanca-Bernstein, 125 rubles), Tarrasch (Nimzowitsch-Tarrasch, 75 rubles) and Blackburne (Blackburne-Nimzowitsch, 50 rubles).
After the preliminary tournament Capablanca led with 8 out of 11, 1.5 points ahead of Lasker and Tarrasch.
The Lasker-Capablanca game proved to be extremely important for the outcome of the tournament. Lasker managed to defeat the leading Capablanca in the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation by playing the "anti-positional" f4-f5 and subsequently placing a knight on e6. Capablanca also lost the very next round against Tarrasch. Two defeats in a row were extremely rare in Capablanca's tournament career.
Rubinstein's performance was disappointing. Before the tournament - due to his outstanding tournament successes from 1907 to 1912 - he was considered a possible challenger to Lasker in a world championship match.
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