Sep-12-06
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| chessgames.com: With great pleasure we present to you: the second official World Chess Championship. |
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| Sep-12-06 |
| jamesmaskell: Fantastic stuff...keep em coming! Like the 'Notable Games" bit as well. |
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| Sep-12-06 |
| babywizard: It was a suprise to see that a world championship match only had one draw and the rest were decisive games. Thank you chessgames.com for the hard work. |
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| Sep-12-06 |
| dehanne: Wow, this match was a real thriller. |
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| Sep-12-06 |
| jamesmaskell: Indeed, if a certain Mr Kramnik and Mr Topalov could have a match like this in the near future, I would not be too upset... |
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| Sep-16-06 |
| Bobak Zahmat: <jamesmaskell> I think a certain Kramnik and Topalov will show the world the best they have! This game should be fantastic. I truly believe we see a match like we haven't seen for years. |
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Sep-17-06
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| notyetagm: 17 games, 1 draw!
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Apr-16-07
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| Whack8888: A small note for chessgames.com--Game 7 appears to be missing from the listed games. It is in the Game Collection: WCC Index [Chigorin-Steinitz 1889] though for anyone who wants to find it. Hopefully it will be added as soon as that is possible. Also, it should be noted that a large number of these games are simply bizarre, and the high win loss ratio is not actually caused by a large degree of 'fighting' chess, but more from a large degree of outright and sometimes ridiculous blunders. In game 5, Chigorin makes the simply and horrible move 17. h3, forgetting that his f pawn is pinned. He basically drops a piece for nothing before move 20! Many of Steinitz's losses came about because of his ridiculous defensive ideas against the Chigorin. In Game 7, Steinitz's Queenside gets completely imprisoned after his horrible move c6, which is of course met by Chigorin's d6+ and the pawn remains their the rest of the game. At the same time, it was a great match between two very different types of players, both trying out different ideas in the opening and both playing very 'bravely' and enthuasiastically. |
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| Dec-14-07 |
| pawnofdoom: Ahhh. Back in the days where almost all games in big matches were decisive. And the only draw here was 70 moves long. But too bad grandmaster chess isn't mush like that anymore |
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Dec-14-07
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| keypusher: <Ahhh. Back in the days where almost all games in big matches were decisive. And the only draw here was 70 moves long. But too bad grandmaster chess isn't much like that anymore.> Yeah, but our GMs play much better chess.
Steinitz's troubles with the Evans Gambit are well-known, but Chigorin was equally at sea with the World Champion's bizarre 1. Nf3 opening. :) Chigorin scored one win and seven losses with Black in this match, including some horrific positional squashings. I think <Whack 8888> sums up this match pretty well. |
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Feb-27-08
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| Knight13: I would've cheered for Chigorin had I been there. |
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May-08-08
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| keypusher: <In reference to the Irregular (Zukertort) Opening which was invariably adopted by the author in this contest, we may state that we had never previously tried this debut in actual play. But we essayed it on this occasion for the purpose of testing our theory as regards the inadvisability of pinning a Knight early in the opening (especially the KKt) . . . against that of Mr. Tschigorin who was evidently not of the same opinion. For in the celebrated match by telegraph and correspondence which was won by St. Petersburg against London in 1888, and in which Mr. Tschigorin was the leader for the Russian side, Black (St. Petersburg) in one of the two games of the match, after the moves 1 KKt-B3, 1 P-Q4; 2 P-Q4, answered 2....B-Kt5. It was naturally to be expected that the Russian master would try the same experiment against the author, and we believe that not alone our actual score in the opening, but also the most stringent analytical examination of the play on both sides will now verify our view that 2....B-Kt5 ought to place the defence at a disadvantage.> Steinitz, <Modern Chess Instructor>, p. 164. |
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| Jul-28-08 |
| ath: You can find some arguments *against* this match being for the World Championship here: http://www.anders.thulin.name/SUBJE... I won't pretend that they are conclusive -- but there certainly are some odd goings-on in this corner of chess history. |
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| Jul-28-08 |
| Petrosianic: You don't find any of them worthy of comment. Steinitz's own booklet on this match calls it a championship match. Is there anything you can mention that would create enough doubt to make someone want to read a thesis on it? |
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| Jul-28-08 |
| Petrosianic: <and we believe that not alone our actual score in the opening, but also the most stringent analytical examination of the play on both sides will now verify our view that 2....B-Kt5 ought to place the defence at a disadvantage.> 2... B-Kt5 is too old fashioned. Better is 2...Bg4.
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| Jul-29-08 |
| ath: That's the rub, isn't it?
After NY 1889, Steinitz clearly states the match with Chigorin to have been for the title. Yet before NY 1889, any mention of the world championship match that I have found refers to the match that was planned to be part of the congress. There's not a word that Chigorin played for the title -- even the Havana arrangers say that the match was not for the championship. And as the plans for NY1889 were made a long time before the match with Chigorin was even thought of ... I can't really see that Steinitz comes across as entirely believable here. But I can't claim conclusive evidence -- only some notes on discrepancies and inconsistencies. |
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Jul-29-08
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| keypusher: <ath> <petrosianic> The article <ath> linked to is definitely worth a skim. Before the congress, Steinitz made statements to the effect that he would regard the winner as world champion, possibly subject to a later match between the winner and Steinitz (reminiscent of current events!). |
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| Jul-29-08 |
| Petrosianic: Okay, but I'd question whether it was even possible for Steinitz to play a non-title match at that point. The title only existed at all because he and Zukertort had invented it themselves. The only credibility it had was based on Steinitz's image as the king of match play. If he goes out and loses a big match to a top player, what credibility has he got left? Who'd want to challenge him rather than Tchigorin for any title after that? |
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| Jul-29-08 |
| RookFile: Well, Chigorin actually beat him in a 2 game Cable match, but nobody thought that was for the title. |
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| Jul-30-08 |
| ath: <Petrosianic> You have a point, and very probably the same point that the Havana people tried to make: to a certain extent, any match by a titleholder will involve that title. However, as Steinitz had promised the NY 1889 match to be for the title even before the Chigorin match was planned, the problem you mention never arises: Steinitz could easily point to the published programme of the NY 1889 congress and say 'these are the plans for the next WCh match. Anything else are assumptions.' And he did just that over other things, one of which was the idea that the winner of NY 1889 would have to play Steinitz for the title. |
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Dec-05-08
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| kevin86: What's with this match? Are all of the games here or are the draws extracted? The game ends in the only draw-was 10.5 points required to win,or what? |
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| Dec-24-08 |
| ath: <kevin86> Looks like all games are here. The match was planned for 20 games, but the remaining three were not played (as match games) as Steinitz clearly had won. |
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| Dec-24-08 |
| Petrosianic: Actually, all 20 games <were> played. But the final three games were played as exhibition consultation games, with both Steinitz and Tchigorin taking officials from the Havana club as their partners. Despite the fact that Steinitz should have had White in 2 of the 3 remaining games, they reversed it, and gave Tchigorin White in games 18 and 20, and Steinitz White in Game 19, so that Steinitz could test his Qf6 line in the Evans Gambit further. The result of those final three games was a win, a draw, and a loss for each side. |
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Jun-30-09
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| talisman: steinitz falls asleep and the "russians" smile. |
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Oct-30-09
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| whatthefat: Looking at the quality of the games in this match, it's a wonder the chess world championship didn't die in its cradle. The fact that Steinitz managed to score 3.5/8 with his horrible defence to the Evans Gambit is simply a crime against chess. I would even believe it if told this was a collection of blitz games. Using computer analysis, <nimh> has estimated the playing strength of Steinitz and Chigorin to be in the range 2350-2400 for modern players. Frankly, in light of this match it seems pretty generous to me. Note that his analysis excluded the opening moves, which is doubly generous here! |
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Steinitz-Chigorin World Championship Match (1889)
