WILHELM STEINITZ (born May-14-1836, died Aug-12-1900, 64 years old) Austria (federation/nationality United States of America) PRONUNCIATION: [what is this?] William (né Wolfgang, aka Wilhelm) Steinitz, born Prague BOH (Austrian Empire); died New York, NY USA. Wilhelm Steinitz is the earliest World Champion of chess recognized by FIDE. Background The last of thirteen sons of a hardware retailer, he was born in Prague in what was then the Kingdom of Bohemia within the Austrian Empire and which is now within the Czech republic. Like his father he was a Talmudic scholar, but then he left to study mathematics in the Vienna Polytechnic. He eventually dropped out of the Polytechnic to play chess professionally. Soon after, he played in the London tournament of 1862, and then settled in London for over twenty years, making his living at the London Chess Club. He emigrated to the USA in 1883, taking out US citizenship, living in New York for the rest of his life, and changing his first name to "William". Matches He was recognized as the world's leading player, and considered to be the world champion by many, after he defeated the then-acknowledged number one chess player in the world (now that Paul Morphy had retired), Adolf Anderssen, in a match in 1866 which he won by 8-6. However, it was not until his victory in the Steinitz - Zukertort World Championship Match (1886) – where he sat beside a US flag - that he was recognised as the first undisputed world chess champion. He successfully defended his title three times in the Steinitz - Chigorin World Championship Match (1889), the Steinitz - Gunsberg World Championship Match (1890), and in the Steinitz - Chigorin World Championship Rematch (1892). In 1894, Emanuel Lasker won the crown from Steinitz by winning the Steinitz - Lasker World Championship Match (1894) and retained it by winning the Lasker - Steinitz World Championship Rematch (1896). Steinitz was an extremely successful match player. Between 1860 and 1897, he played 36 matches, winning every serious match with the exception of his two matches against Lasker. Some of the prominent players of the day that he defeated in match play other than in his world championship matches included Max Lange, Serafino Dubois, Frederick Deacon, Dionisio Martinez, Joseph Blackburne, Anderssen, Augustus Mongredien, Henry Bird, Johannes Zukertort, George Mackenzie, and Celso Golmayo Zupide. Tournaments Steinitz was more adept at winning matches than tournaments in his early years, a factor, which alongside his prolonged absences from competition chess after 1873, may have prevented more widespread recognition of his dominance of chess as world champion until the first "official" world championship match in 1886. Nevertheless, between 1859 and his death in 1900, the only tournament in which he did not win prize money was his final tournament in London in 1899. His wins include the Vienna Championship of 1861 which he won with 30/31 and earned him the nickname the "Austrian Morphy", the London Championship of 1862, Dublin 1865 (equal first with George MacDonnell), London 1872, equal first at Vienna 1873 and 1882 (the latter was the strongest tournament to that time, and Steinitz had just returned from 9 years of absence from tournament chess), and first in the New York Championship of 1894. Other successes include 3rd and 2nd at the Vienna Championships of 1859 and 1860 respectively, 2nd at Dundee in 1867, 3rd in Paris in 1867, 2nd in Baden Baden in 1870, 2nd in London in 1883, 5th at the Hastings super tournament in 1895, 2nd at the sextuple round robin St Petersburg quadrangular tournament behind Lasker and ahead of Harry Pillsbury and Mikhail Chigorin, 6th at Nuremburg in 1896, and 4th at Vienna in 1898. Steinitz's Legacy The extent of Steinitz's dominance in world chess is evident from the fact that from 1866, when he beat Adolf Anderssen, to 1894, when he relinquished the world crown to Emanuel Lasker, Steinitz won all his matches, sometimes by wide margins. His worst tournament performance in that period was third place in Paris in 1867. This period of Steinitz's career was closely examined by Chessmetrics exponent and advocate, Jeff Sonas, who wrote an article in 2005 in which he found that Steinitz was further ahead of his contemporaries in the 1870s than Robert James Fischer was in his peak period (1970–1972), that he had the third-highest total number of years as the world's top player, behind Emanuel Lasker and Garry Kasparov, and that he placed 7th in a comparison the length of time great players were ranked in the world's top three. Despite his pre-eminence in chess for those decades in the late 19th century, Steinitz's main contribution to chess was as its first true theoretician. He rose to prominence in the 1860s on the back of highly competent handling of the romantic attacking style of chess that had been popularised by Morphy and Anderssen and which characterised the style of the era. However, in the Vienna tournament of 1873, he introduced a new positional style of play which not only commenced his run of 25 consecutive high level victories, but profoundly transformed the way chess was played from shortly after that time, when its efficacy was embraced by the chess world. It enabled him to establish his complete dominance over his long time rival, Johannes Zukertort, and to easily win the first official match for the World Championship. Lasker summarised Steinitz's ideas as follows: "In the beginning of the game ignore the search for combinations, abstain from violent moves, aim for small advantages, accumulate them, and only after having attained these ends search for the combination – and then with all the power of will and intellect, because then the combination must exist, however deeply hidden." Although these ideas were controversial and fiercely debated for some years in what has become known as the <Ink Wars>, Lasker and the next generation of the world's best players acknowledged their debt to him. "He was a thinker worthy of a seat in the halls of a University. A player, as the world believed he was, he was not; his studious temperament made that impossible; and thus he was conquered by a player ..." - <Emanuel Lasker>. "He understood more about the use of squares than did Morphy, and contributed a great deal more to chess theory.' - <Bobby Fischer>. Sources <jessicafischerqueen>'s YouTube documentary http://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... - in turn sourced mainly from <Kurt Landsberger's> biography "Bohemian Caesar." References Wikipedia article: Wilhelm Steinitz https://www.findagrave.com/memorial... Last updated: 2025-04-13 18:53:01

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page 1 of 44; games 1-25 of 1,085  Game   Result Moves Year Event/Locale Opening 1. K Hamppe vs Steinitz 0-1 23 1859 Vienna C29 Vienna Gambit 2. Lenhof vs Steinitz 0-1 45 1859 Casual game C23 Bishop's Opening 3. Steinitz vs Lenhof 1-0 32 1859 Casual game C52 Evans Gambit 4. Steinitz vs P Meitner 1-0 34 1859 Casual game C52 Evans Gambit 5. E Pilhal vs Steinitz 0-1 21 1859 Casual game C53 Giuoco Piano 6. K Hamppe vs Steinitz 0-1 28 1859 Casual game C38 King's Gambit Accepted 7. Steinitz vs F Nowotny 1-0 31 1859 Vienna CC t C55 Two Knights Defense 8. Steinitz vs NN 1-0 12 1860 Unknown C25 Vienna 9. Steinitz vs Harrwitz   0-1 39 1860 Casual game B44 Sicilian 10. Steinitz vs NN   1-0 20 1860 Odds game 000 Chess variants 11. Steinitz vs NN   1-0 15 1860 Casual game C41 Philidor Defense 12. Steinitz vs NN 1-0 16 1860 Casual game C50 Giuoco Piano 13. Steinitz vs NN   1-0 18 1860 Casual game 000 Chess variants 14. NN vs Steinitz 0-1 24 1860 Casual game C59 Two Knights 15. Harrwitz vs Steinitz   1-0 25 1860 Casual game D20 Queen's Gambit Accepted 16. K Hamppe vs Steinitz 0-1 31 1860 Casual game C27 Vienna Game 17. Steinitz vs NN   1-0 20 1860 Casual game C52 Evans Gambit 18. Steinitz vs E Pilhal 1-0 17 1860 Vienna C52 Evans Gambit 19. Steinitz vs NN   1-0 24 1860 Odds game 000 Chess variants 20. H Strauss vs Steinitz 0-1 31 1860 Casual game C51 Evans Gambit 21. Steinitz vs H Strauss 1-0 33 1860 Casual game C29 Vienna Gambit 22. Steinitz vs P Meitner 1-0 26 1860 Casual game C55 Two Knights Defense 23. Steinitz vs Lang 1-0 19 1860 Casual game C37 King's Gambit Accepted 24. Steinitz vs Reiner 1-0 32 1860 Casual game C51 Evans Gambit 25. Steinitz vs Lang 1-0 29 1860 Casual game C25 Vienna  page 1 of 44; games 1-25 of 1,085

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< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 22 OF 48 ·  Later Kibitzing> Jul-01-06    lblai: Some information about Lasa can be found right here at Baron Tassilo Heydebrand und der Lasa Also, see http://groups.google.com/group/rec.... Jul-01-06    SBC: And about The Pleiades in general here: http://batgirl.atspace.com/Pleiades... Jul-07-06    RookFile: SBC, I have question for you. On your web site, it says that Morphy's father left an estate of of $146,162.54 upon his death. Who received this inheritence? Paul Morphy, or someone else? Thank you. Jul-07-06    lblai: It is probably better to pose this question at Paul Morphy . Jul-07-06    SBC: <RookFile> A lot of people automatically assume that this money was Paul's inheritance. While no where that I know is it stated how much of an inheritance he received personally, he undoubtedly didn't receive his father's entire estate. His mother would have received the bulk of it, with Paul, his brother and two sisters each receiving a child's portion. But another factor to consider is that of the famous $146,162.54, about $88,000 was in real estate and about $7,500 in accounts receivable - money that had to be collected. (see- http://batgirl.atspace.com/AlonzoEs...) Even Paul's share may not have gone to him until he reached a certain age. What is clear is that his brother-in-law, John Darius Sybrandt, was the administrator (though how he got this position, I have no idea) of the funds in the estate. Since Paul tried to sue Sybrandt for mismanagement of his portion of the inheritance, it seems likely to me that whatever Paul spent was paid for by the estate and recorded in a ledger. Then, at some point he couldn't understand how his balance had dwindled and could only deduce that his money had been either mismanaged or stolen. Does that help? Jul-07-06    SBC: <RookFile> By the way, keep up your free-thinking ways. Although I don't always agree with some of your conclusions, I do enjoy your flow of reasoning. Jul-07-06    RookFile: Thank you SBC. I was actually going to say the same thing about you. Now: Iblai doesn't see the point of this yet - after all, this is a page about Steinitz, and here we are talking about Morphy's inheritence. However, I think you see the point. $146,000 is a staggering amount of money in 1857, or whatever year this was. To get an idea of just how staggering, we can consult an Inflation Calculator, such as this one: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ Typing in 146,000 for 1857, and the end year as 2005, we see a 2005 equivalent of 2,999,171.03. The point is: any way this money is split up, Morphy probably at a minimum is receiving $500,000 in today's terms of money that is either his own, or that he will be re-imbursed for if he spends. Therefore: <trumpets blaring>, in connection with our earlier discussion, as to whether Morphy could financially afford to offer pawn and move to anyone in the world, for any stakes whatsoever, (Steinitz included) - can we agree now that the lack of financial resources on Morphy's part to make such an offer is no longer a consideration? Jul-08-06    SBC: <RookFile> I don't think obtaining money was, or ever would be, an issue with Morphy playing chess. Even without his own funds, he had plenty of folks who would back him. The problem with Morphy wasn't getting the money, but getting around his no public chess agreement with his mother and his own belief that chess should not be played for money. Jul-08-06    lblai: Again, in 1859 (the year of the Morphy "Pawn and move" announcement), Steinitz did not have much of a reputation as a chessplayer. It seems that by 1863 Morphy was pretty well set on his personal no-more-matches rule, and publicly indicating this. An 1866 chess magazine mentioned that "Mr. Morphy no longer considers himself a chessplayer". 1866, of course, was the year that Steinitz had his famous success against Anderssen. In view of this, it seems unlikely that there was ever much serious thought given to the possibility of a Morphy-Steinitz match. Over the last four weeks, I have not seen anyone argue here that Morphy could not have financially afforded "to offer pawn and move to anyone in the world, for any stakes whatsoever", although it is not unreasonable to pose the question (at Paul Morphy). Morphy himself referred to his "share" of the $146,162.54, but it does not appear that he had access to that kind of money during his first trip to Europe. (He wrote to Fiske, asking for help with obtaining the funds for the contemplated Staunton match.) I would guess that financial support could have been obtained for a match at odds between Morphy and Anderssen (for example), but I do not see any way to be sure about something like that. The real argument against a supposed Morphy offer of "pawn and move to anyone in the world, for any stakes whatsoever" is the absence of any known record of such an offer. My instinct is that, if there had been such a challenge, it would have received a lot of attention at the time, and there would be no trouble finding a record of it. Also, there is the matter of Morphy's growing "antipathy to chess" and resistance to playing for money. Jul-08-06    SBC: Steinitz, of course, was never a serious opponent for Morphy since he emerged too late. As for funds for a match (with anyone), it seems likely Morphy could get backing. As with his intended match with Staunton - "...without mentioning Englishmen, Morphy could be backed against Staunton for £10,000, and the money be raised in twenty-four hours. I mentioned this fact to a noble lady in Paris, in order to show the confidence in which the young American was held, and she replied, "Oh, as regards that, you may tell Mr. Morphy from me, that for £10,000 against Mr. Staunton *or any player in Europe*, he must not go further than my house." -Edge Jul-10-06    lblai: Back on Jun-18-06, someone asked what Fischer thought about Steinitz. Fischer DID include Steinitz in his famous 1960s ten-best list. As for the availability of people willing to put up money for Morphy, it seems to me to be at least possible that funds might have been harder to obtain for a match GIVING ODDS to Anderssen. Jul-10-06    SBC: In Frank Brady's Chessworld magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, Jan.-Feb. 1964, RJ Fischer gave his list of "The 10 Greatest Players of all Time." Steinitz was listed as #3, after Morphy and Staunton (though there doesn't seem to have been any ranking intended by the order). Of Steinitz, Fischer wrote, "He always sought completely original lines and didn't mind getting into cramped quarters if he thought that his position was essentially sound." At another time Ficher said, "He [Steinitz] is the so-called father of the modern school of chess; before him, the King was considered a weak piece and players set out to attack the King directly. Steinitz claimed that the King was well able to take care of itself, and ought not to be attacked until one had some other positional advantage. He understood more about the use of squares than Morphy and contributed a great deal more to chess theory." Chessworld was underfunded and only lasted three issues. http://batgirl.atspace.com/TopTen.h... Jul-10-06    RookFile: Iblai: I was responding to something earlier in this thread about Steinitz. You'd have to go back a bit to see it. However, it's not really a big deal, all sides are in agreement now that essentially if Morphy wanted any type of chess match, there would be absolutely no finincial problems of any kind whatever for Morphy. Jul-10-06    RookFile: Interestingly enough, Chigorin also made Fischer's list. Jul-10-06    lblai: My "side" on the financial question would be more accurately described by what I wrote: "I would guess that financial support could have been obtained for a match at odds between Morphy and Anderssen (for example), but I do not see any way to be sure about something like that." Moreover, I was writing about 1859. It is another matter to consider what might have happened in 1866 or 1883 if Morphy had expressed any willingness to play at such times. Jul-10-06    RookFile: lblai, no worries, it wasn't your quote being discussed. Jul-17-06    offramp: Here is an interesting table: Name / First serious game / Year he became WC / gap Steinitz, 1859, 1886, 17 Lasker, 1889, 1894, 5 Capablanca, 1911, 1921, 10 Alekhine, 1907, 1927, 20 Euwe, 1919, 1935, 16 Botvinnik, 1925, 1948, 23 Smyslov, 1938, 1957, 19 Tal, 1955, 1960, 5 Petrosian, 1947, 1963, 16 Spassky, 1953, 1966, 13 Fischer, 1956, 1972, 16 Karpov, 1965, 1975, 10 Kasparov, 1976, 1985, 9 Kramnik, 1988, 2000, 12 Topalov, 1989, 2005, 16 Jul-17-06    offramp: Sorry; Steinitz's gap should be 27 years. Jul-17-06    whatthefat: Interesting. How did you define "first serious game" though? Jul-17-06    offramp: <whatthefat: Interesting. How did you define "first serious game" though?> I think it'll be close to within about a year for all of them; I know it is not perfect. It doesn't mean much anyway! I really did it out of my own curiosity, but I thought I'd post it here... I am hoping others will nail down some of the dates in column 2. Jul-17-06    lblai: The year Steinitz became world champion is one of those traditional debate topics (arising, in my opinion, primarily because of different perceptions about what it means to be world champion). If one uses 1886 as the year, then it has to be kept in mind that the basis for that choice is that it was the first time that Steinitz won a much that was announced IN ADVANCE as being for the world championship. It may well be (indeed it seems likely) that he would have won such a match earlier if there had been one earlier. Jul-17-06    whatthefat: <offramp> In Tal's case, one should go back to 1951 at the latest for the "first serious game", since he competed in the finals of the Latvian championship for the first time that year. Jul-17-06    lblai: For Spassky, "1966" should be "1969". Jul-18-06    lblai: I just noticed that, on this page, the biography states that Steinitz "was recognized as the world's leading player after he defeated Adolf Anderssen in a match in 1866". In fact, in several investigations of this matter, nobody was able to produce any record of such recognition that was earlier than the 1870s. See, for example, the Steinitz entry of the Oxford Companion and page 135 of Chess Facts and Fables. Jul-18-06    keypusher: <offramp> interesting table! For Capablanca, I would think the first year should be 1909 for the Marshall match, or maybe 1900 for the Corzo match?! Jump to page #   (enter # from 1 to 48) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 22 OF 48 ·  Later Kibitzing>

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