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 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". 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 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 had long and friendly relationships with some players and chess organizations. Most notably from 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



Early stages

Steinitz was born on May 17, 1836 in the Jewish ghetto of Prague (now capital of the Czech Republic; then Bohemia- 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. He improved rapidly in the late 1850s, progressing from third place in the 1859 Vienna championship to first in 1861 with a score of 30/31. In this period he was nicknamed "the Austrian Morphy".Steinitz was then sent to represent Austria in the London 1862 chess tournament. He placed sixth, but his win over Augustus Mongredien was awarded the tournament"s brilliancy prize. He immediately challenged the fifth-placed contestant, the Italian player Serafino Dubois, to a match, which Steinitz won (five wins, one draw, three losses). This encouraged him to turn professional and he took residence in London. In 1862-63 Steinitz scored a crushing win in a match with Joseph Henry Blackburne, who went on to be one of the world"s top ten for 20 years but had only started playing chess two years earlier. 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 1863 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. was recognized as the world"s top player until 1866, when Steinitz won a match against him.These successes established Steinitz as one of the world"s top players, 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 had won the 1851 and 1862 London International Tournaments and his one superior, Paul Morphy, had retired from competitive chess. Steinitz won with eight wins and six losses (there were no draws), but it was a hard fight; after 12 games the scores were level at 6-6, then Steinitz won the last two games. As a result of this win Steinitz was generally regarded as the world"s best player. The prize money for this match was £100 to the winner (Steinitz) and £20 for the loser (Anderssen). The winner"s prize was a large sum by the standards of the times, equivalent to about £57,500 in 2007"s money.Conversion based on average incomes, which are the most appropriate measure for a few weeks" hard work. If we use average prices for the conversion, the result is about £6,500. 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 (seven wins, five losses, five draws) and comfortably beat Johannes Zukertort in 1872 (seven wins, four draws, one loss; Zukertort had proved himself one of the elite by beating Anderssen convincingly in 1871). But it took longer for him to reach the top in tournament play. In the next few years he took: third place at Paris 1867 behind Ignatz Kolisch and Simon Winawer; and second places at Dundee (1868; Gustav Neumann won), and Baden-Baden 1870 chess tournament; behind Anderssen but ahead of Blackburne, Louis Paulsen and other strong players). His first victory in a strong tournament was London 1872, ahead of Blackburne and Zukertort; and the first tournament in which Steinitz finished ahead of Anderssen was Vienna 1873, when Anderssen was 55 years old.


























Dominance and controversies

All of Steinitz" successes up to 1872 inclusive were achieved in the attack-at-all-costs "Romantic" style exemplified by Anderssen. But in the Vienna 1873 chess tournament Steinitz unveiled a new "positional" style of play which was to become the basis of modern chess. He tied for first place with Blackburne, ahead of Anderssen, Samuel Rosenthal, Paulsen and Henry Bird, and won the play-off against Blackburne. Steinitz made a shaky start but won his last 14 games in the main tournament (including 2-0 results over Paulsen, Anderssen, and Blackburne) plus the 2 play-off games - this was the start of a 24-game winning streak in serious competition.Between 1873 and 1882 Steinitz played no tournaments and only one match (a 7-0 win against Blackburne in 1876). His other games during this period were in simultaneous and blindfold exhibitions, which contributed an important part of a professional chess-player"s income in those days (for example in 1887 Blackburne was paid 9 guineas for two simultaneous exhibitions and a blindfold exhibition hosted by the Teesside Chess Association; this was equivalent to about £4,800 at 2007 valuesConversion based on average incomes: ).Instead Steinitz concentrated on his work as a chess journalist, notably for The Field, which was Britain"s leading sports magazine.From 1873 to 1882, Steinitz was a regular chess columnist for The Field, see For example he wrote commentaries on the in collaboration with his opponent and on the Some of Steinitz" commentaries aroused heated debates, notably from Zukertort and Leopold Hoffer in The Chess Monthly (which they 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 comments 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 2007"s moneyUsing average incomes for the conversion: ), 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 ..." lost matches to him in 1872 and 1886. The second match made Steinitz the undisputed world champion.