Wilhelm Steinitz Totally Explained

Everything about Wilhelm Steinitz totally explained

Wilhelm (later William) Steinitz (May 17, 1836 – August 12, 1900) was an Austrian-American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894; some contemporaries and later writers described him as world champion since 1866, when he won a match against Adolf Anderssen. Steinitz lost his title to Emanuel Lasker in 1894 and also lost a re-match in 1897.
   Statistical rating systems give Steinitz a rather low ranking among world champions, mainly because he took several long breaks from competitive play. However an analysis based on one of these rating systems shows that he was one of the three most dominant players in the history of the game.
   Although Steinitz became "world number one" by winning in the all-out attacking style that was common in the 1860s, he unveiled in 1873 a new positional style of play and demonstrated that it was superior to the old style. His new style was controversial and some even branded it as "cowardly", but many of Steinitz's games showed that it could also provide a platform for attacks as ferocious as those of the old school. Steinitz was also a prolific writer on chess, and defended his new ideas vigorously. The debate was so bitter and sometimes abusive that it became known as the "Ink War". But by the early 1890s Steinitz' approach was widely accepted and the next generation of top players acknowledged their debt to him, most notably his successor as world champion, Emanuel Lasker. As as result of his play and writings Steinitz, along with Paul Morphy, is considered by many chess commentators to be the founder of modern chess.
   As a result of the "Ink War", traditional accounts of Steinitz' character depict him as ill-tempered and aggressive; but more recent research shows that he'd long and friendly relationships with many players and chess organizations. Most notably in 1888 to 1889 he co-operated with the American Chess Congress in a project to define rules for the future conduct of contests for the world championship title that he held.
   Steinitz was unskilled at managing money and lived in poverty all his life.

Life and chess career

Steinitz was born on May 14, 1836 in the Jewish ghetto of Prague (now capital of the Czech Republic; then part of the Austrian Empire), the last of a hardware retailer's thirteen sons. He learned to play chess at age 12.
   He began playing serious chess in his twenties, after leaving Prague to study mathematics in Vienna. Steinitz then convincingly beat most of the leading UK-resident players in matches: Frederic Deacon, Augustus Mongredien, Green, and Robey. This charge up the rankings had a price: in March 1963 Steinitz apologized in a letter to Ignác Kolisch for not repaying a loan, because while Steinitz had been beating Blackburne Daniel Harrwitz had "taken over" all of Steinitz' clients at the London chess club, who had been Steinitz' main source of income. and he was able to arrange a match in 1866 in London against Adolf Anderssen, who was regarded as the world's strongest active player because he'd won the 1851 and 1862 London International Tournaments and his one superior, Paul Morphy, had retired from competitive chess.
   Steinitz had married a lady named Caroline (born 1846) earlier in the 1860s, and their daughter Flora was born in 1867. The couple had no other children.
   Steinitz won every serious match he played from 1862 until 1892 inclusive, sometimes by wide margins. In the years following his victory over Anderssen he beat Henry Bird in 1866 (7 wins, 5 losses, 5 draws) and comfortably beat Johannes Zukertort in 1872 (7 wins, 4 draws, 1 loss; Zukertort had proved himself one of the elite by beating Anderssen convincingly in 1871). His first victory in a strong tournament was London 1872, ahead of Blackburne and Zukertort; this was equivalent to about £4,600 at 2006 values).
   Instead Steinitz concentrated on his work as a chess journalist, notably for The Field, which was Britain's leading sports magazine. Some of Steinitz' commentaries aroused heated debates, notably from Zukertort and Leopold Hoffer in The Chess Monthly (which they'd founded in 1879). This "Ink War" escalated sharply in 1881, when Steinitz mercilessly criticized Hoffer's annotations of games in the 1881 Berlin Congress (won by Blackburne ahead of Zukertort). Steinitz was eager to settle the analytical debates by a second match against Zukertort, whose unwillingness to play provoked scornful coments from Steinitz. In mid-1882 James Mason, a consistently strong player, challenged Steinitz to a match, and accused Steinitz of cowardice when Steinitz insisted the issue with Zukertort should be settled first; Steinitz responded by inviting Mason to name a sufficiently high stake for a match (at least £150 per player; equivalent to about £73,000 in 2006 money), but Mason was unwilling to stake more than £100. Mason later agreed to play a match with Zukertort for a stake of £100 per player, but soon "postponed" that match, "circumstances having arisen that make it highly inconvenient for me to proceed ..." Steinitz' long lay-off caused some commentators to suggest that Zukertort, who had scored some notable tournament victories, should be regarded as the world chess champion. While Steinitz was playing in Vienna and sending weekly reports on the tournament to The Field, there was a plot against him back in England. Just after the end of the tournament The Field published a xenophobic article that praised the efforts of the English players and those of English origin in Vienna but disparaged the victory of Steinitz and Winawer. Steinitz stopped working for The Field and was replaced by Hoffer, a close friend of Zukertort and a bitter enemy of Steinitz.
   Steinitz visited the USA, mainly the Philadelphia area, from December 1882 to May 1883. He was given an enthusiastic reception, played several exhibitions, many casual games, a match for stakes of £50 with a wealthy amateur, and slightly more serious matches with 2 New World professionals, Sellman and the Cuban champion Celso Golmayo Zúpide - the match with Golmayo was abandoned when Steinitz was leading (8 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss). His hosts even arranged a visit to New Orleans, where Paul Morphy lived. Steinitz finished 2½ points ahead of the 3rd-placed competitor, Blackburne. Zukertort's victory again led some commentators to suggest that Zukertort should be regarded as the world chess champion, while others said the issue could only be resolved by a match between Steinitz and Zukertort. After the five games played in New York, Zukertort led by 4-1, but in the end Steinitz won decisively by 12½–7½ (10 wins, 5 draws, 5 losses). Though not yet officially an American citizen, Steinitz wanted the U.S. flag to be placed next to him during the match. He became a U.S. citizen on November 23 1888, having resided for five years in New York, and changed his first name from Wilhelm to William.
   In 1888 Havana Chess Club offered to sponsor a match between Steinitz and whomever he'd select as a worthy opponent. Steinitz nominated the Russian Mikhail Chigorin, Whatever the status of the match, it was played in Havana in January to February 1889 and won by Steinitz (10 wins, 1 draw, 6 losses).
   Meanwhile the American Chess Congress' world championship project had evolved into a tournament to select a challenger, rather like the more recent Candidates Tournament. The tournament was played in March to May 1889. Chigorin and Max Weiss tied for first place; their play-off resulted in four draws; and neither wanted to play a match against Steinitz - Chigorin had just lost to him and Weiss wanted to get back to his work for the Rothschild Bank. The third prize-winner Isidore Gunsberg was prepared to play Steinitz for the title in New York, and Steinitz won their match in 1891 (6 wins, 9 draws, 4 losses). Around this time Steinitz publicly spoke of retiring, but changed his mind when Emanuel Lasker challenged him. Initially Lasker wanted to play for $5,000 a side and a match was agreed at stakes of $,3000 a side, but Steinitz agreed to a series of reductions when Lasker found it difficult to raise the money, and the final figure was $2,250, which was less than for some of Steinitz' earlier matches. Although this was publicly praised as an act of sportsmanship on Steinitz' part, Some commentators thought Steinitz' habit of playing "experimental" moves in serious competition was a major factor in his downfall.
   Some authors claim that he contracted syphilis, so that this may have been a cause of the mental breakdowns he suffered in his last years. His chess activities hadn't yielded any great financial rewards, and he died a pauper in the Manhattan State Hospital (Ward island) of a heart attack on August 12 1900. Steinitz is buried in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, New York. His second wife and their two young children were still alive at his death. However there's no evidence that he claimed the title for himself at the time, although in the 1880s he claimed to have been the champion since his win over Anderssen. It has been suggested that Steinitz couldn't make such a claim while Paul Morphy was alive. (Morphy had defeated Anderssen by a far wider margin, 8–3, in 1858, but retired from chess competition soon after he returned to the USA in 1859, and died in 1884). The 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort match was the first that was explicitly described as being for the World Championship, but Howard Staunton and Paul Morphy had been unofficially described as "World Chess Champion" around the middle of the 19th century. In fact one of the organizers of the 1851 London International tournament had said the contest was for "the baton of the World’s Chess Champion", and in mid-1840s Ludwig Bledow wrote a letter to Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa suggesting they should organize a world championship tournament in Germany. Some commentators described Steinitz as "the champion" in the years following his 1872 match victory against Zukertort. In the late 1870s and early 1880s some regarded Steinitz as the champion and others supported Johannes Zukertort; and the 1886 match wasn't regarded as creating the title of World Champion but as resolving conflicting claims to the title.

Writings

Steinitz was a prolific writer:

He was the main chess correspondent of the The Field (in London) from 1872 to 1882, and used this to present his ideas about chess strategy.
The Modern Chess Instructor (1889)
- Extract online at

Assessment

Influence on the game

Steinitz' play up to and including 1872 was similar that of his contemporaries: sharp, aggressive, and full of sacrificial play. This was the style in which he became "world number one" by beating Adolf Anderssen in 1866 and confirmed his position by convincingly beating Zukertort in 1872 and winning the 1872 London International tournament (Zukertort had claimed the rank of number 2 by beating Anderssen in 1871).
   In 1873, however, his play suddenly changed, giving priority to what we now call the positional elements in chess: pawn structure, space, outposts for knights, the advantage of the two bishops, etc. Although Steinitz often accepted unnecessarily difficult defensive positions in order to demonstrate the superiority of his theories, he also showed that his methods could provide a platform for crushing attacks. Steinitz' successor as world champion, Emanuel Lasker, summed up the new style as: "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 Steinitz' play changed abruptly, he said had been thinking along such lines for some years: "Some of the games which I saw Paulsen play during the London Congress of 1862 gave a still stronger start to the modification of my own opinions, which has since developed, and I began to recognize that Chess genius isn't confined to the more or less deep and brilliant finishing strokes after the original balance of power and position has been overthrown, but that it also requires the exercise of still more extraordinary powers, though perhaps of a different kind to maintain that balance or respectively to disturb it at the proper time in one’s own favor." and in 1889 he edited the book of the great New York 1889 tournament (won by Mikhail Chigorin and Max Weiss), in which he didn't compete as the tournament was designed to select a challenger for his title. Many other writers found his new approach incomprehensible, boring or even cowardly; for example Adolf Anderssen said, "Kolisch is a highwayman and points the pistol at your breast. Steinitz is a pick-pocket, he steals a pawn and wins a game with it."
   But when he fought for the first World Championship in 1886 against Johannes Zukertort, it became evident that Steinitz was playing on another level. Although Zukertort was at least Steinitz' equal in spectacular attacking play, Steinitz often out-maneuvered him fairly simply by the use of positional principles.
   By the time of his match against Gunsberg (1890-91) some commentators showed some understanding of and appreciation for Steintitz' theories. Shortly before the 1894 match with Emanuel Lasker even the New York Times, which had earlier published attacks on his play and character, Vladmir Kramnik emphasizes Steinitz' importance as a pioneer in the field of chess theory: "Steinitz was the first to realise that chess, despite being a complicated game, obeys some common principles. ... I can't say he was the founder of a chess theory. He was an experimenter and pointed out that chess obeys laws that should be considered."

Playing strength and style

Statistical rating systems are unkind to Steinitz. "Warriors of the Mind" gives him a surprisingly low ranking of 47th, below several obscure Soviet grandmasters; Chessmetrics places him only 15th on its all-time list. But Chessmetrics penalizes players who play infrequently; opportunities for competitive chess were infrequent in Steinitz' best years, Sonas' 2005 article is more consistent with Steinitz' record between his victory over Anderssen (1866) and his loss to Emanuel Lasker (1894): he won all his "normal" matches, sometimes by wide margins; and his worst tournament performance in that 28-year period was 3rd place in Paris (1867).)
Initially Steinitz played in the all-out attacking style of players like Anderssen, and then changed to the positional style with which he dominated competitive chess in the 1870s and 1880s. But he retained his capacity for brilliant attacks right to the end of his career; for example in the 1895 Hastings tournament (when he was 59) he beat von Bardeleben in a spectacular game

in which in the closing stages Steinitz deliberately exposed all his pieces to attack simultaneously (except his king, of course). He was aware of his own tendencies and said early in his career, "Nothing would induce me to take charge of a chess column ...Because I should be so fair in dispensing blame as well as praise that I should be sure to give offence and make enemies." When he embarked on chess journalism, his brutally frank review of Wormald’s "The Chess Openings" in 1875 proved him right on both counts.
   But his personal correspondence, his own articles and some third-party articles show that he'd long and friendly relationships with many people and groups in the chess world, including Ignác Kolisch (one of his earliest sponsors), Mikhail Chigorin, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, and the Cuban and Russian chess communities.
   He could poke fun at some of his own rhetoric, for example "I remarked that I'd rather die in America than live in England. ... I added that I'd rather lose a match in America than win one in England. But after having carefully considered the subject in all its bearings, I've come to the conclusion that I neither mean to die yet nor to lose the match."
   Although he'd a strong sense of honour about repaying debts, � :Mr. Steinitz stands high as a theoretician and as a writer; he's a powerful pen, and when he chooses can use expressive English. He evidently strives to be fair to friends and foes alike, but appears sometimes to fail to see that after all he's much like many others in this respect. Possessed of a fine intellect, and extremely fond of the game, he's apt to lose sight of all other considerations, people and business alike. Chess is his very life and soul, the one thing for which he lives.

Notable games

Wilhelm Steinitz vs Augustus Mongredien, London 1862

was awarded the brilliancy prize at the 1862 London International Tournament.

Wilhelm Steinitz vs Adolf Anderssen; 4th match game, London 1866

An old-style slug-out from the match that raised Steinitz to world number one.

Johannes Zukertort vs Wilhelm Steinitz, Ch World (9th game of the match) 1886, Queen's Gambit Declined: Vienna. Quiet Variation (D37), 0-1

A good demonstration of Steinitz' positional principles. Black exchanges his powerful centre to create two weak hanging Pawns on White's Queen-side and creates strong pressure against them. Zukertort eventually tries to slug his way out of trouble, but Steinitz wins with a sharp counter-attack.

Wilhelm Steinitz vs Mikhail Chigorin, Havana WCH 1892 (4th game of the match), Spanish Game: General (C65), 1-0

Positional preparation creates the opportunity for a swift, devastating attack leading to checkmate on the 29th move.

Date	Location	Place	Score	Notes
1859	Vienna championship	3	???	Won by Carl Hamppe
1860	Vienna championship	2	???	Won by Carl Hamppe
1861	Vienna championship	1	30/31
1862	London International Tournament	6	8/13	Behind Adolf Anderssen, Louis Paulsen, Rev. Owen, George Alcock MacDonnell and Serafino Dubois. Draws were not scored in this tournament. Steinitz was awarded the brilliancy prize for his win over Augustus Mongredien.
1862	London championship	1	7/7
1865	Dublin	1	???
1867	Paris	2=	19½/24	Tied 2= with Szymon Winawer; behind Ignác Kolisch (21/24); ahead of Gustav Neumann, Cecil Valentine De Vere, Jules Arnous de Rivière, Hieronim Czarnowski, Celso Golmayo Zúpide, Samuel Rosenthal, Sam Loyd, D'Andre, From and Rouseau.
1867	Dundee	2	7/9	Behind Neumann (7½/9); ahead of MacDonnell, De Vere, Joseph Henry Blackburne Robertson, J. Fraser, G. Fraser, Hamel and Spens.
1870	Baden-Baden	2	12½/18	Behind Anderssen (13/18); ahead of Blackburne, Louis Paulsen, De Vere, Szymon Winawer, Rosenthal and Johannes von Minckwitz.
1872	London	1	7½/8	Ahead of Blackburne (5/8), Johannes Zukertort, MacDonnell and De Vere.
1873	Vienna	1=	10/11: 21½/25	Tied with Blackburne (10:11 22½/30) and won the play-off 2-0; ahead of Anderssen (8½/11: 19/30), Rosenthal (7½/11: 17/28), Louis Paulsen, Henry Edward Bird, Fleissig, Heral, Meitner, Gelbfuss, Schwarz and Pitschel This tournament had a very unusual scoring system: each player played a 3-game mini-match with each of the others and scored 1 for a won mini-match and ½ for a drawn mini-match. Steinitz won his last 14 games and therefore completed his mini-matches playing fewer games than anyone else. The numbers before the colons (:) are the points awarded; the other 2 numbers are the usual "games won / games played" scoring.
1882	Vienna	1=	24/34	Tied with Winawer and drew the play-off; ahead of Mason (23/34), Zukertort (22½/34), Mackenzie, Blackburne, Berthold Englisch, Paulsen and others including Mikhail Chigorin and Bird.
1883	London	2	19/26	Behind Zukertort (22/26); ahead of Blackburne (16½/24), Chigorin 16/24, Englisch (15½/24), Mackenzie (15½/24), Mason (15½/24), Rosenthal, Winawer, Bird and 4 others.
1894	New York championship	1	8½/10	After losing the world title to Emanuel Lasker.
1895	Hastings	5	13/21	Behind Harry Nelson Pillsbury (16½/24), Chigorin (16/21), Emanuel Lasker (15½/21), Siegbert Tarrasch (14/21); ahead of Emanuel Schiffers (12/21), Curt von Bardeleben (11½/21), Richard Teichmann (11½/21), Carl Schlechter (11/21), Blackburne (10½/21), Carl August Walbrodt, Amos Burn, Dawid Janowski, Mason, Bird, Isidore Gunsberg, Adolf Albin, Georg Marco, William Pollock, Jacques Mieses, Samuel Tinsley and Beniamino Vergani
1895-96	Saint Petersburg	2	9½/18	Behind Emanuel Lasker (11½/18); ahead of Pillsbury (8/18) and Chigorin (7/18). The world's top 4 players played 6 games against each of the others.
1896	Nuremberg	6	7/18	Behind Emanuel Lasker 13½/18, Geza Maroczy (12½/18), Pillsbury (12/18), Tarrasch (12/18), Janowski (??/18); ahead of Walbrodt, Schiffers, Chigorin, Blackburne, Rudolf Charousek, Marco, Albin, Winawer, Jackson Showalter, Moritz Porges, Schallopp and Teichmann.
1897	New York State championship	1	???
1898	Cologne	5	???	Behind Burn, Charousek, Chigorin and W.Cohn; ahead of Schlechter, Showalter, Berger, Janowski and Schiffers.
1898	Vienna	4	23½/36	Behind Tarrasch (27½/36), Pillsbury (27½/36), Janowski (25½/36); ahead of Schlechter, Chigorin, Burn, Lipke, Maroczy, Simon Alapin, Blackburne, Schiffers, Marco, Showalter, Walbrodt, Halprin, Horatio Caro, Baird and Trenchard.
1899	London	10=	11½/27	Behind Emanuel Lasker (22½/27), Janowsky (18/27), Maroczy (18/27), Pillsbury (18/27), Schlechter (17/27), Blackburne (15½/27), Chigorin (??/27), Showalter (12½/27), Mason (12/27). This was the first time he hadn't won any prize money since 1859.

Match results

Sources:

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