<1 The Yearbook of Chess, edited by Fred Wilson>

Anyone have it or heard of it?

No date or page number given for the reference. Plus, I'm sure we don't need it.

I wouldn't be surprised if we find that the original intro, or parts of it, have simply been copypasted from somewhere else.

<The Year-book of Chess> was issued by E. A. Michell from 1907-1915. Wilson used selections from the Year-book to compile two books, issued by Dover in 1975 and 1976:

<Classical chess matches, 1907-1913>

<Lesser-known chess masterpieces, 1906-1915>.

I don't think Wilson added anything either. The <Year-books> had more games and better descriptions of tournaments and matches.

I added your latest COMMENT/EDIT/YOU PICK 'EM to the mirror Game Collection: WCC: Lasker vs Marshall 1907

I think you have just made the first EDIT that includes a smiley emoticon?

If I'm not mistaken, you win a bun for this.

##########

<Phony Benoni>, <TheFocus>

Game Collection: WCC: Lasker vs Janowski 1910

Edited version: <Janowski's relative success in the first exhibition match, combined with his financial backing, was enough impetus for Lasker to put his title on the line.>

You know I've been pondering this further, and I find myself doubting that Janowski's "relative success" in the first exhibition match had much to do with any impetus for Lasker to "put his title on the line."

Particularly since Lasker pounded Janowski in the second exhibition match.

I have a strong feeling that Janowski meeting Lasker's financial stipulations may have supplied around 100% of the impetus to "put his title on the line."

The 1909 'Wiener Schachzeitung' reports on pages 235-236 that the sponsor of the three matches, Leonardus Nardus, tried to arrange a WC match between Dr. Lasker and Janowski right after their drawn exhibition match. Dr. Lasker had agreed in principle (<Lasker hat im Prinzip seine Zustimmung gegeben>) but he had to leave Paris for New York before he could arrive at a decision (<bevor der Weltmeister zu einem Entschluß gelangen konnte.>). It should be noted, that the wording is rather ambiguous - Nardus wanted a WC match but that Dr. Lasker agreed in principle could mean that he merely considered a second match and not necessarily that he would be willing to put his title at stake.

Later that year, Nardus finally managed to make them play another match (page 410) but as far as I know there's no contemporary source proving that it was a WC match.

The actual WC match in 1910 received the least public attention (pages 32-33 of the 1911 'Wiener Schachzeitung') and the report on it was everything but nice for the following reasons:

1) Janowski not only hadn't faired too well against Dr. Lasker in the II. exhibition match, he had lost earlier in 1910 a match against Dr. Esser.

2) For sure, the dramatic WC match against Schlechter overshadowed such a one-sided affair.

I've added your last post to the EDIT mirror: Game Collection: WCC: Lasker vs Janowski 1910

In the light of your revelation of the subtleties of this affair, attendant with fine primary sources, I'm thinking this current edit sentence is still insufficient to our purpose:

<Janowski's relative success in the first exhibition match, combined with his financial backing, was enough impetus for Lasker to put his title on the line.>

The edit does get rid of the gross factual error in the original sentence, but in view of the resources you've posted, I think we should come up with something that does a much better job of explaining exactly how the <Lasker-Janowski> World Championship match came about.

We can still do that concisely, but it should be done as accurately as possible.

Also- I don't think anyone has come up with a contemporary source suggesting the second match was "for the official title."

Winter's feature article on why the 1909 matches were not for the WC title reproduces the 1910 WC match agreement from pages 60-61 of the February 1910 'La Strategie' (as it is reiterated there, that no 1909 match was for the title): http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Apart from that, I can't offer much at the moment. I did not find anything on the match in the 1910 'Wiener Schachzeitung' except for Janowski refusing a rematch against Dr. Esser because he had to prepare for his revenge against Dr. Lasker. The scant 1911 report mentioned above, notes on page 33 sardonically that only the 5000 Francs (4690 K) prize awarded to the winner by Nardus was "Grandmasterly" (<"Großmeisterhaft" war an diesem Wettkampfe nur der grandiose Siegespreis [...]>) and that Nardus had to be called the champion of patrons. The description of the games themselves is short and most of the article is dedicated to Dr. Lasker's property law for the game scores. This may have been the ultimate death blow as now the chess public did not even get to see the games.

In 1912, the centre of attention shifted to WC matches against Rubinstein and Capablanca.

Already the first sentence of the report (page 32 of the 1911 'Wiener Schachzeitung') is pretty explicit: <Vom 8. November bis zum 8. Dezember 1910 ist wieder ein sogenannter Wettkampf "um die Weltmeisterschaft" ausgetragen worden.> (...another so-called match "for the Worldchampionship"...).

<Especially the remarks about the prize fund make me think that at least the 'Wiener Schachzeitung' considered only money to be the reason for the match to take place, apart from Janowski's optimism.>

Well as you know I had been suspecting this as well.

That said, I do not fault <Lasker> during this period.

This is strictly just my opinion, but why shouldn't the world champion get paid properly for a title defence?

It's not like <Lasker> was ducking anyone in the pre-war era. The post-war era may be a different matter, but to paraphrase you that's a "delicate" subject. I have read all the correspondence between Lasker and Capablanca that <Edward Winter> published in his very fine <Capablanca> biography, and I find myself empathizing with both players.

But it's a crying shame that we never got to see a <Lasker-Rubinstein> title match. I don't think <Rubinstein> had the kind of personality to advertise himself and go out drumming up backers for a prize fund.

Typo alert

Game Collection: WCC: Steinitz-Gunsberg 1890

4th line of GUNSBERG WINS AGAIN article:

Game Collection: WCC: Steinitz-Chigorin Rematch 1892

First line:

Game Collection: WCC: Lasker-Steinitz 1894

From the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.

Game Collection: WCC: Lasker-Steinitz Rematch 1896

In 1st paragraph:

Do you realize you have just corrected an editing error in a 123 year old newspaper article?

Game Collection: WCC : Steinitz-Zukertort 1886

I don't think appending "Jewish" here is appropriate.

<From time to time, the reigning champion is obligated to defend his title against the strongest challengers.>

<In 1904, Marshall won the very strong Cambridge Springs tournament by 1.5 points>

Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov Rematch 1934

Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov Rematch 1934

###########################

<crawfb5> "2 points" YIKES I just went ahead and fixed that, thank you.

Game Collection: WCC: Lasker-Marshall 1907

########################

<crawfb5> Your EDIT suggestion now added to: