<Botvinnik won three of the first four games, but by the 11th game Smyslov had taken the lead. Just as with his match against Bronstein, once again Mikhail Botvinnik retained his title on a tied match.>

Yep much clearer- Enacted, thank you.

I think Alekhine-Botvinnik would be better.

I have edited all the titles in the mirror collections to have "Champion first" and also to distinguish between "Rematch" (contracted before a previous match) and "Return match" (not contracted before a previous match).

Game Collection: WCC: FIDE WCC Tournament 1948

<In a seesaw battle, Botvinnik won three of the first four games, but by the 11th game Smyslov had taken a 6-5 lead.>

Yes, that's why we have to make it clear and consistent throughout that the sitting Champion (is there any other kind?) always comes first in the title.

If it says "Euwe-Alekhine" it means Euwe was World Champion.

Brinckmann is quoted <Der Weltmeister des nächsten Jahrzehnts heißt Capablanca!> (the World Champion of the next decade is called Capablanca!) - page 266 of the 1927 'Neue Wiener Schachzeitung'

Spielmann's assessment can be found in C.N. 5338 http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Reti in C.N. 5665 http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Game Collection: WCC: Capablanca-Alekhine 1927

I especially like the <Winter> links because they give the primary sources.

I added all your material to the mirror edit.

In general, I think we should avoid websites as references if we can find a primary print source. That's what is so great (ironically) about the website <Chessnotes>, as I mentioned- Winter always gives the oldest reference he can find for the information in each of his "chessnotes."

It's best to list the oldest source in any case, but there's another reason- chess websites tend to disappear suddenly. One of the most maddening experiences I had with the original intros was thinking "hey is that really true?" and then clicking on the citation links and half of them are dead.

Same goes for Wikipedia, so many dead citation links.

We want to erect citations that don't "go dead."

Speaking of "going dead," as you all know this forum has a lifetime membership, so all of the material we store in these edit mirrors will stay here as long as Cg.com survives.

We can build our own reference library here in the process of editing all the intros.

<This was not the first match betwen Korchnoi and Karpov. In the 1974 candidates matches, after defeating Lev Polugaevsky and Boris Spassky in preliminary matches, Karpov narrowly beat Korchnoi in the 1974 candidates final by the score of +3 -2 =19.>

Lot of extra words. I think you could go with "edged" instead of "narrowly beat". I think you can eliminate the second "1974 candidates". So, I prefer:

This was not the first match betwen Korchnoi and Karpov. In the 1974 candidates matches, after defeating Lev Polugaevsky and Boris Spassky in preliminary matches, Karpov edged Korchnoi in the final by the score of +3 -2 =19.

<The political ramifications of a Soviet defector winning the chess crown hung heavy on the match atmosphere.>

Not sure I can do any better, but I am leaving it her to consider reworking.

<Karpov objected to Korchnoi's wearing of sunglasses which he said deflected light in to his eyes.>

Possibly "Karpov objected to Korchnoi wearing sunglasses....". The "he" and "his" seem a bit like orphans but might be okay. I'd very slightly prefer a comma after "sunglasses".

A thousand apologies for not responding quicker. I got the quote from an 1894 book on the match, made by cobbling together annotations from various places. But it didn't give an original source for the Tarrasch quote. I'm sure the quote is genuine, but I can't tell you where it is from originally.

On page 315 of the 1909 'Wiener Schachzeitung' is the anouncement that the WC match would take place (signed by Dr. Lasker and Schlechter, Berlin and Vienna, 1909.09.15), as the financing seemed to be secure (it's mentioned that the chess friends from St. Petersburg (<die St. Petersburger Schachfreunde>) are willing to pay 3000 roubles honorarium for the last 6 games to take place in St. Petersburg, as an example).

Both players are willing to play either in December, January, February or March of the coming winter (i. e. the winter 1909/1910) and fees were to be given to <Regierungsrat> J. Berger from Graz, Austria (so probably Johann Nepomuk Berger ) and it would be a public match (so the games could be reprinted and so on).

Now from the 1910 'Wiener Schachzeitung'

Page 1: Vienna, January 7, the match begins and many guests were at the opening ceremony like Albert Freiherr von Rothschild (honorary president of the Wiener Schach-Klub), Arnold Mandel (president of the Wiener Schach-Klub) and the vice-presidents Dr. Franz Liharzik and Heinrich Groß. There were people from the press like Semion Alapin and Jacques Mieses. The seconds were Hugo Fähndrich, Dr. Siegmund Pollak and Dr. Edouard Stiaßny (though it's not clear whose seconds they were exactly). <Kampfleiter> Georg Marco started the game at <5 Uhr> (5 pm as it says on p. 3 that the game was paused after 3 hours play at 8 o'clock in he evening).

Page 2: Among the spectators were Dr. Tartakower, Dr. Perlis, Weiß, Zinkl, Horwitz, Krejcik and Dr. Ph. Meitner among others. It is mentioned (see post above) that the reprint of game scores is only allowed if permitted by Dr. Lasker). First game was played on January 7 and 10.

Page 3: Dr. Lasker chose to take his rest day on January 8. Game resumed on January 10. Again, many guests like Adolf Albin and Heinrich Wolf to name just two, but not only chessplayers.

Page 5: Game 2 played on January 13 and 14, ending in a draw. Also drawn was game 3, played on January 15.

Page 25: Just a short report on the results of the games 4 to 9 (Schlechter now leading 5-4) and that the <Wiener Schule> is the basis of his success.

Page 58: Report from Georg Marco (originally 'Interessantes Blatt', Nr. 3, 1910), about the match (January 7 to February 10). First 3 games played in the <Wiener Schach-Klub>, the next 2 games shall be played at a public Viennese pub/saloon (<Lokal>) and then they move on to Berlin.

Page 72: 4th game resumed on Januray 20 at the Cafe Herz (Rotenturmstraße 31) and Dr. Lasker offered a draw immediately and Schlechter accepted after having a look at the sealed move.

Page 73: Game 5 played on January 21 and 24 (Monday) at the Cafe "zur Marienbrücke".

Page 78: After 4 rest days, 2nd leg of the match at Berlin.

Page 81: 6th game played on January 29 and 30.

Page 84: 7th game played on January 30 (directly after the 6th game) and February 1.

Page 88: 8th game played on February 2, 4 and 5.

Page 89: 9th game played on February 5 (directly after game 8), 6 and 7.

Page 91: 10th game played on February 8, 9 and 10.

Page 92: Conjectures on why Schlechter played the 10th game the way he did: 1) Fearing a malicious ambush 2) Increasing his lead in case the <Zufallssieg> (Zufall = accident/chance) in game 5 appeared to him too insignificant 3) Hoping to win the match easier this way as he probably had researched the variation deeply - but no match conditions of +2 mentioned. In the annotations to the game (on move 10...b4) it is specifically mentioned that a draw would have been enough for a match win (stated again on pages 93-94 on 34...Nc5).

Game Collection: WCC: Karpov-Korchnoi 1978

Enacted:
<This was not the first match betwen Korchnoi and Karpov. In the 1974 candidates matches, Karpov edged Korchnoi in the final by the score of +3 -2 =19.>

Regarding the match conditions of Game Collection: WCC: Lasker-Schlechter 1910 :

First of all, I don't think that the new history page should be centered around it exclusively as it was before, but maybe just a short mention.

While the 1908 conditions clearly support the +2 conjecture, I think that it can hardly be upheld though. After all, they possibly came to a new agreement (but I didn't see the exact conditions for 1910 published anywhere).

But we can conclude from the lack of evidence that a +2 rule was unlikely - why should there be hypotheses about Schlechter's aggressive (opening) play if it was clear that he needed another win (and this not being one of the hypotheses)? Then it's mentioned 2 times in the annotations that a draw would have been enough. Furthermore, Schlechter mentions that he didn't want to "play for a draw" - why should he have felt compelled to say that, if it was clear to everyone that he needed +2?

I doubt there was such a clause in 1910 as it is mentioned nowhere and everyone acts as if it didn't exist (so maybe it did).

But his relatively reckless play puzzled them already back then. I'm sure that the 1908 conditions helped to create the myth in later times. For certain, Dr. Lasker seemed to have liked the clause but if we look closer at the 1908 match conditions and the 1910 match, there is one huge difference: The 1908 rules were for a 30 games match, in 1910 there were only 10 games. If Dr. Lasker had had a +2 clause in the latter match, it would have been absurd not only in the eyes of the public.

Though only 7109 (newer sources listed) and 4144 could be interesting.

<In 1960, the chess world gained a champion who breathed new life into the ancient game. Mikhail Tal seemed to have ushered in a new era. Perhaps he did but his tenure as champion was short lived.>

I don't care for this, the second sentence in particular.

<Tal's loss might be attributed to a health failure due to his serious kidney disorder. >

"failure" isn't right. Ultimately, a health failure = death.