Americans playing for the title: Wilhelm Steinitz

First steps

Steinitz was born on May 17, 1836, in the Jewish ghetto of Prague, the youngest of a tailor's thirteen sons to survive. Though he learned to play chess at age 12, he only began to take it seriously in his twenties, after leaving Prague in 1857 to study mathematics in Vienna, at the Vienna Polytechnic.

There he progressed swiftly, taking third in the 1859 Vienna City Championship, and two years later came in first in the 1961 Vienna City Championship with the spectacular score of 30.0/31. He was now acknowledged as the strongest player in Austra, and was sent as its representative to the 1862 London Chess Tournament. The winner was the number one player at the time, Adolf Anderssen, while he placed sixth, but he did earn the brilliancy prize with his victory over Augustus Mongredien.

Steinitz vs Mongredien (Annotations by Garry Kasparov)

The king of matches

Right after the tournament, he challenged Serafino Dubois, an Italian master who placed fifth, which Steinitz won 5½ : 3½. This started the greatest winning streak of matches in history, as rising star was to win every official match he played for the next 32 years, from 1862 until he relinquished his title in 1894 to Emanuel Lasker.

His claim to being the world’s best player would only come four years later when, in 1866, he played Adolf Anderssen in a match. Anderssen was widely considered the best active player (Morphy had already retired from play), having won both the 1851 and 1862 London International Tournaments. The stakes were enormous, with a prize money of 100 Pounds going to the winner, equivalent to $15 thousand today. It was a hard-fought match and after 12 games, the score was all tied up 6 : 6. Steinitz dug deep and won the last two games to finish with eight wins, six losses and no draws. As a result of this match victory, Steinitz inherited the mantle of world’s best player.

Father of chess strategy

Steinitz’s successes until 1872 had been with the attack-at-all-costs style that ruled the day, exemplified by Anderssen himself. However in 1873, at the Vienna International tournament, Steinitz unveiled his new concept of the “positional” style of play, which was to become the basis for modern chess.

Steinitz's play suddenly changed, giving priority to what is now called the positional elements in chess: pawn structure, space, outposts for knights, the advantage of the two bishops, etc. Although Steinitz often accepted unnecessarily difficult defensive positions in order to demonstrate the superiority of his theories, he also showed that his methods could provide a platform for crushing attacks.

Paulsen vs Steinitz (Annotations by Garry Kasparov)

Steinitz visited the US from December 1882 to May 1883, where was received with enthusiasm, as he played exhibitions, casual games, and won three serious matches, two against Alexander Sellman, and another against the Cuban champion, Celso Golmayo Zupide.

Later that year, after placing second in the 1883 London Chess Tournament, Steinitz left England and moved to New York, where would live for the rest of his life. Steinitz had been trying very hard to organize a match with Johannes Zukertort, the one player of the day who could cast doubt on Steinitz’s supremacy, but with little success.

Eventually, it was agreed that in 1886 Steinitz and Zukertort would play a match in New York, St. Louis and New Orleans and that the victor would be the player who first won 10 games. At Steinitz's insistence, the contract said it would be "for the Championship of the World". Though not yet officially an American citizen, Steinitz wanted the United States flag to be placed next to him during the match. He would officially become a US citizen on November 23, 1888, having resided for five years in New York.

Johannes Zukertort was a bitter rival of Wilhelm Steinitz in their day, and now faced him for the world title in 1886

After the five games played in New York, Zukertort led by 4 : 1, but in the end Steinitz won decisively by 12½ : 7½ (ten wins, five draws, five losses). The collapse by Zukertort, who won only one of the last 15 games, has been described as "perhaps the most thoroughgoing reversal of fortune in the history of world championship play."

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Around 1892, now 56 years old, Steinitz had been publicly speaking of retirement but changed his mind when he received a challenge by a relatively untested Emanuel Lasker, 32 years his junior. Initially, Laser had wanted to play for $5000 per side, but after finding it difficult to raise the sum, Steinitz agreed to play for just $2000 per side. Though widely viewed as a gesture of generosity, Steinitz, who ended his days in poverty due to an inability to manage his finances money, most likely badly needed the money.

The match was played in 1894, at venues in New York, Philadelphia and Montreal, Canada. The 32-year age difference between the combatants was the largest in the history of world championship play, and remains so today. Steinitz succumbed 7 : 12 to the brilliant Lasker. Lasker, who took the championship from Steinitz, wrote, "I who vanquished him must see to it that his great achievement, his theories should find justice, and I must avenge the wrongs he suffered."

Indeed, as a result of his play and writings Steinitz, along with Paul Morphy, is considered by many chess commentators to be the founder of modern chess.  Wilhelm Steinitz passed away of a heart attack on August 12, 1900, in New York. He is buried in the Cemetery of Evergreen in Brooklyn, New York.

What’s in a title?

The topic of the world title is one that is heavily debated to this day. None can disagree that per the contract itself, at Steinitz’s insistence, the 1886 match against Zukertort had been declaredly for the title of World Champion. This was hardly the first time a player had been referred to as the best player, or champion of the world, but one in which the clear best player of his day would defend that status with the victor laying claim to the official title. That said, Steinitz had first become the best player in the world not in 1886, but in 1866, 20 years earlier, when he defeated the incumbent no.1, Adolf Anderssen.

Links

• Americans playing for the title: Samuel Reshevsky
• Americans playing for the title: Frank Marshall