I put two missing hyperlinks in Game Collection: WCC: Steinitz-Gunsberg 1890 now, in the notes section. I added the links here:

13 Rod Edwards http://www.edochess.ca/tournaments/...

14 "International Chess Magazine", November 1890, pp. 325-328. In Edward Winter, World Chess Championship Rules http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Please check the mirror draft to make sure the notes are all in the right order and so on?

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With respect to this: WCC Editing Project chessforum and this: Game Collection: WCC: Lasker-Janowski 1910 I'm not sure what you mean. I have both of them up on my screen here at the same time, and they appear to be identical?

Thank you, I think this is better too:

<"Alekhine led 6 wins to 1 after 17 games and easily won the match after 26 games, 8 wins to 3.">

But I think there's still something wooden or "off" about the whole sentence and context.

I'd like the learned member from <Ohio> to weigh in if he has time?

Specifically:

Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov 1934

All of it in context with <Tim's> new sentence added:

<The match was held in Germany from April 1 to June 14, 1934 in Baden-Baden (games 1-3), Villingen (games 4-5), Freiburg (games 6-8), Pforzheim (games 9-10), Stuttgart (games 11-12), Munich (games 13-15), Bayreuth (game 16), Bad Kissingen (games 17-18), Nuremberg (games 19-20), Karlsruhe (game 21), Mannheim (games 22-24), and Berlin (games 25-26).7

<Alekhine led 6 wins to 1 after 17 games and easily won the match after 26 games, 8 wins to 3.> The American Chess Bulletin promptly declared the result "wholly in accordance with general expectations."2 Three years later, in an annotation he wrote to game 4 of the match, Alekhine disparaged the lack of quality in both his own and Bogoljubov's play:

"This game – more than any other – proves how useless from the sporting point of view was the arrangement of this second match, and at the same time explains my indifferent play on a number of occasions."8>

Can you think of an improved construction for this here?

<OhioChessFan: <I would suggest the following: <Steinitz considered his world championship tenure to have started with his win over Adolf Anderssen.2 But none of these matches had been officially for the title of world champion, and Paul Morphy (though inactive in serious play) was still alive.>>

This is wrong both grammatically and stylistically. "had been officially" just doesn't work. It demands "conducted", "staged", "contested", "held", or something else.

Nov-26-13
Premium Chessgames Member
Karpova: Perhaps: <Steinitz considered his world championship tenure to have started with his win over Adolf Anderssen.2 But none of these matches had been officially declared to be for the title of world champion, and Paul Morphy (though inactive in serious play) was still alive.> ?

Game Collection: WCC: Steinitz-Gunsberg 1890

I put your edits here into the mirror:

<During the mid-1880s, he established himself among the strongest chessplayers in the world.>

I am appealing more to the sound of the sentence than the grammar. I am not sure which (or both) are formally correct, but I strongly prefer "as one of" to "among".

<The Manhattan Chess Club served as intermediaries>

Game Collection: WCC: Steinitz-Gunsberg 1890

<<A year later, when Mikhail Chigorin got his <shot at the title> >

"shot at the title" is a bit too colloquial for my tastes.

<Steinitz took an early lead, but Gunsberg equalized and pulled ahead after game 5.>

I don't like the vagueness of "early lead". How about "an early lead with a win in game 2"? And the words "equalized and" are superflous. If he took the lead after game 5, of course he equalized first.

<Gunsberg struck in <game 12> <Gunsberg vs Steinitz, 1891> with the Evans Gambit>

Anything would be better than "struck in game 12". I'd even settle for the simple "won".

<Despite his previous good score with it, but this time he lost.>

Gunsberg had previously scored well with it, but he lost this game.>

I put your "early lead" and "Gunsberg had previously scored well" edits in the mirror.

Personally I like "shot at the title" and "struck in game 12."

Possibly from reading too many WWII books and watching too many Mohammed Ali fights.

But I think there's still something wooden or "off" about the whole sentence and context.>

"Steinitz considered his world championship tenure to have started with his win over Adolf Anderssen.2 But none of these matches had been officially declared to be for the title of world champion, and Paul Morphy (though inactive in serious play) was still alive."

"Steinitz considered his win over Adolf Anderssen to be a world championship match though it was not officially recognized as such.2 "

You can never read too many books about The Great World War II!!!

I like this as well:

Now the collections look fine!

Regarding Game Collection: WCC : Steinitz-Zukertort 1886

"Steinitz considered his win over Adolf Anderssen to be a world championship match though it was not officially recognized as such.2"

While it sounds very good, I don't think we can write it like this. Some things are implied which may not be correct or are hard to find a source for, at least.

The point is that in the conditions for Steinitz-Zukertort 1886, the "championship of the world" was at stake - see http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Now regarding Steinitz earlier matches: Steinitz considered his world championship tenure to have started with his win over Anderssen in 1866. Have a look at http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... (from 1866 onwards). He had great successes and also beat Zukertort and Blackburne (+7 -0 =0!) in matches.

We need to differentiate between the world championship title as a convention (i. e. the whole classical line (but also FIDE ones) from 1886 to our latest match), and players regarded as the strongest of their time (e. g. Greco, Philidor and so on).

Now we need to be careful not to narrow the whole discussion down to the status of the 1866 Anderssen match. Steinitz's worldchampionship tenure encompasses all of 1866 to 1894, also other matches. When he beat Anderssen and crushed Zukertort and Blackburne, he certainly established himself as the strongest, living, active chessplayer - so we need to be careful again not to imply that his 28 year-worldchampionship tenure claim was totally without foundation. Once Zukertort's results made the question of who was the strongest player of the world an urgent one, Steinitz proposed the match (in 1883).

Now, for a match to become a world championship match, it needs the recognition and the official status (take the FIDE WCs for example, where the official status was clear, yet lacked the recognition). So we need to be extremely careful with a claim that Steinitz's earlier match wins lacked recognition. It was the official status that separated them mostly from the 1886 match.

So when Steinitz believes that he established himself as the strongest player in the world in 1866 and proved it in the following years, he is entitled to it and it is in no way absurd - quite on the contrary.

So we need to be careful to introduce claims like <But his viewpoint wasn't widely held,> or <though it was not officially recognized as such> which need to be sourced again, if they can be sourced at all. Again, the point is the <official status> introduced in the match conditions for 1886. Such an official status did not exist before. Therefore, the whole worldchampionship matter prior to 1886 is a bit unclear. Steinitz had very good reasons to believe he was the strongest and he certainly wasn't the only one, yet Morphy was still alive, etc..

Perhaps:

We can delete that sentence if you say so.

What I'm interested in is when the two players first decided their match would be "official" for the world championship?

I understand the "official WCC" was put in the contract, but at what point did they decide this would be so?

If they decided it would be an "official WCC match" at the point they first agreed on the match, that's where we should say so.

On the other hand, if there is no primary source that tells us when they first decided it would be an "official" match, then there's nothing we can do because we just don't know.

So if the contract source you already have is the first mention of an official WCC match, then yes everything you say is true, and we should delete the sentence in question.

I think it's also important to mention that this was the first "official" WCC match in history. We can do that elegantly if we put in the sentence you suggest above:

<Steinitz considered his world championship tenure to have started with his win over <Adolf Anderssen>.2 But in these matches the title of world champion was not officially at stake.2>

I think this sentence is excellent and does a lot of work in a short number of words.

While it would certainly be interesting to find out when they decided to turn it into an official worldchampionship match, this may not be so easy.

See http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... the item from 1883.

It is clear that Steinitz considered himself to be the champion of the world and there were certainly many people who agreed with him (yet Morphy was still alive). With Zukertort's great triumph, it was not so clear anymore. Some considered Zukertort to be the strongest now. The problem is the transition from the <recognized> champion of the world to the <official> one.

I would say that for this statement <This match was proposed to be for the official chess championship (source).> we would need a source specifying the introduction of the official worldchampionship. A statement about settling who was the strongest would not be enough, in my opinion.

I quote Winter's C.N. 3325 <In January 1885 Steinitz had begun publication of his International Chess Magazine, which contained much documentary material about the protracted match negotiations. At first the references were merely to the ‘championship’ or ‘the champion title’, without ‘world’.>

The earliest point of time may be December 1885 (see again C.N. 3325 <The two players will soon enter on their heavy trial for the coveted championship of the world …>), i. e. shortly before the conditions were agreed upon (December 29: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... ).

No, not an absolute requirement at all as you say.

I'm curious about your statement

<considering how much time it consumes and how few additional info is gained.>

Do you mean considering how the additional information is scarce, and hard to track down?

Or do you mean that finding this additional information would be not be an important gain for chess history?

I'm pretty sure you mean the first eh?

Just in case I'll let you know- in English, if you use your original phrasing and especially the word "gained," it sounds like you mean the second meaning I posted above- that the additional information would not be important.

It would actually be a gold mine, I hope you agree. The kind of information someone could build a new chess history book on.

But if the information is not there of course we're not going to hold up your draft. We have to work with what we have at hand, and we have many intros left to write.

Game Collection: WCC : Steinitz-Zukertort 1886

You had Steinitz on the one hand who had proven again and again that he was the strongest, active player. Then Zukertort on the other hand, who had beaten him and the rest of the elite at London 1883. Now there is a dispute and Steinitz tries again to settle the matter with a match. That this is a match between the strongest players in the world at that time was pretty clear. So they play around with the formulation for the conditions, first just something about "champion" and "championship", finally they settle with "champion of the world". We do not even know who came up with the idea, it needn't have been Steinitz or Zukertort. I guess that the competitive spirit prevailed and the title hadn't yet become that metaphysical concept or even fetish it is today.

Very convincing, thank you.

I had been thinking only of the mindset of someone reading the intro, neglecting to think of how <Steinitz> himself regarded the issue.

I think the addition of your new sentence solves everything all at the same time.

From that one sentence, we know this would be the first "official" WCC match, and we also know how Steinitz regarded his status as "world champion."

I'd like to suggest a "softening" of the contradiction here -

<Steinitz considered his world championship tenure to have started with his win over Adolf Anderssen. But in these matches the title of world champion was not officially at stake>

- instead of a full stop and "But...", I think 'although', or 'even though' would be less jarring:

<Steinitz considered his world championship tenure to have started with his win over Adolf Anderssen, although in these matches the title of world champion was not officially at stake>

/

I hate having to work at this. 90% plus of the time, I see something that can be improved and have a quick solution. This time......tough. Okay. Thinking out loud for now, might spark something.

<He beat his strongest active contemporaries in matches:>

This is really vanilla.

<Steinitz considered his world championship tenure to have started with his win over Adolf Anderssen. >

I think it's crucial to have a contemperaneous source for exactly <when> Steinitz first considered that. If we don't have that source, I think the clause should be eliminated. I'll note that the timeline that had been nicely progressing...1866, 1872, 1876....is all of a sudden derailed by a reference back in time to the 1866 match. Is there some non-obtrusive way to avoid that?