He met many notable masters of the time, among them Carl Schlechter, Géza Maróczy (against whom he played what was probably his most famous brilliancy[4]), Milan Vidmar, and Richard Réti.

During World War I Tartakower was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army and served as a staff officer on various posts.

He was the captain and trainer of the Polish chess team in six international tournaments, winning a gold medal for Poland at the Hamburg Olympiad in 1930.

On the latter occasion, he defeated such notable players as Frank Marshall, Milan Vidmar, and Efim Bogoljubov.

In 1939, the outbreak of World War II found him in Buenos Aires, where he was playing the 8th Chess Olympiad, representing Poland on a team which included Miguel Najdorf, who always called Tartakower "my teacher".

FIDE instituted the title of International Grandmaster in 1950; Tartakower was in the first group of players to receive it.

His extremely well stored mind and ever-flowing native wit make conversation with him a perpetual delight.

His talk and thought are rather like a modernized blend of Baruch Spinoza and Voltaire; and with it all a dash of paradoxical originality that is essential Tartakower.A talented chess player, Tartakower is also known for his countless aphorisms, sometimes called Tartakoverisms.

The Tartakower Defence in the Queen's Gambit Declined (also known as the Tartakower–Makogonov–Bondarevsky System) also bears his name, as does the most common variation of the Torre Attack.

But in Capablanca's reports of the 1939 Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires for the Argentine newspaper Crítica, he wrote: The Polish team … is captained and led by Dr S. Tartakower, a master with profound knowledge and great imagination, qualities which make him a formidable adversary.

The roulette table would regularly acquire both the Grandmaster's prizes and the numerous fees from his endless string of articles.