51 Facts About Wilhelm Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz was a highly influential writer and chess theoretician.

When discussing chess history from the 1850s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz could be effectively considered the champion from an earlier time, perhaps as early as 1866.

Wilhelm Steinitz was unbeaten in match play for 32 years, from 1862 to 1894.

Wilhelm Steinitz was a prolific writer on chess, and defended his new ideas vigorously.

Traditional accounts of Wilhelm Steinitz's 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.

Wilhelm Steinitz was unskilled at managing money, and lived in poverty all his life.

Wilhelm Steinitz was born on May 14,1836, in the Jewish ghetto of Prague.

Wilhelm Steinitz was then sent to represent Austria in the London 1862 chess tournament.

Wilhelm Steinitz immediately challenged the fifth-placed contestant, the strong veteran Italian Master Serafino Dubois, to a match, which Steinitz won.

Wilhelm Steinitz then beat some leading UK players in matches: Frederick Deacon and the aforementioned Mongredien in 1863 followed by Valentine Green in 1864.

Wilhelm Steinitz comfortably beat Johannes Zukertort in 1872.

Wilhelm Steinitz tied for first place with Blackburne, ahead of Anderssen, Samuel Rosenthal, Paulsen and Henry Bird, and won the play-off against Blackburne.

Between 1873 and 1882 Wilhelm Steinitz played no tournaments and only one match.

Some of Wilhelm Steinitz's commentaries aroused heated debates, notably from Zukertort and Leopold Hoffer in The Chess Monthly.

Wilhelm Steinitz was eager to settle the analytical debates by a second match against Zukertort, whose unwillingness to play provoked scornful comments from Wilhelm Steinitz.

Wilhelm Steinitz has just taken an inferior place to Zukertort, in a tournament, and for the time being Zukertort, in the opinion of some, becomes champion'.

Zukertort, the son of Jewish converts to Protestantism who missionized among Polish Jews, told Wilhelm Steinitz: "You are not a chessplayer, but a Jew".

Wilhelm Steinitz returned to serious competitive chess in the Vienna 1882 chess tournament, which has been described as the strongest chess tournament of all time at that point.

Wilhelm Steinitz visited the United States, mainly the Philadelphia area, from December 1882 to May 1883.

Later in 1883, Wilhelm Steinitz took second place in the extremely strong London 1883 chess tournament behind Zukertort, who made a brilliant start, faded at the end but finished three points ahead.

In 1883, shortly after the London tournament, Wilhelm Steinitz decided to leave England and moved to New York City, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Wilhelm Steinitz managed to find supporters in other sections of the American press including Turf, Field and Farm and the St Louis Globe-Democrat, both of which reported Steinitz's offer to forgo all fees, expenses or share in the stake and make the match "a benefit performance, solely for Mr Zukertort's pecuniary profit".

Wilhelm Steinitz became a US citizen on November 23,1888, having resided for five years in New York, and changed his first name from Wilhelm to William.

Wilhelm Steinitz nominated the Russian Mikhail Chigorin, on the condition that the invitation should not be presented as a challenge from him.

The proposed match was to have a maximum of 20 games, and Wilhelm Steinitz had said that fixed-length matches were unsuitable for world championship contests because the first player to take the lead could then play for draws; and Wilhelm Steinitz was at the same time supporting the American Chess Congress's world championship project.

Wilhelm Steinitz wrote that he would not play in the tournament and would not challenge the winner unless the second and third placed competitors failed to do so.

Wilhelm Steinitz played against Chigorin in Havana in 1892, and won narrowly.

Around this time Wilhelm Steinitz publicly spoke of retiring, but changed his mind when Emanuel Lasker, 32 years younger and comparatively untested at the top level, challenged him.

Wilhelm Steinitz had previously declared he would win without doubt, so it came as a shock when Lasker won the first game.

Wilhelm Steinitz responded by winning the second, and was able to maintain the balance until the sixth.

However, Lasker won all the games from the seventh to the 11th, and Wilhelm Steinitz asked for a one-week rest.

Lasker struck back in the 15th and 16th, and Wilhelm Steinitz was unable to compensate for his losses in the middle of the match.

Some commentators thought Wilhelm Steinitz's habit of playing "experimental" moves in serious competition was a major factor in his downfall.

Wilhelm Steinitz won at New York City 1894, and was fifth at Hastings 1895.

In early 1896, Wilhelm Steinitz defeated the Russian Emanuel Schiffers in a match.

In November, 1896 to January, 1897 Wilhelm Steinitz played a return match with Lasker in Moscow, but won only 2 games, drawing 5, and losing 10.

Shortly after the match, Wilhelm Steinitz had a mental breakdown and was confined for 40 days in a Moscow sanatorium, where he played chess with the inmates.

Wilhelm Steinitz lived with Caroline Golder was born on 1846 and in the 1860s, and their only daughter Flora was born in 1866.

Wilhelm Steinitz married his second wife a few years later, and had two children by her.

Wilhelm Steinitz is buried in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, New York.

Mr Wilhelm Steinitz stands high as a theoretician and as a writer; he has a powerful pen, and when he chooses can use expressive English.

Wilhelm Steinitz evidently strives to be fair to friends and foes alike, but appears sometimes to fail to see that after all he is much like many others in this respect.

Wilhelm Steinitz is a pick-pocket, he steals a pawn and wins a game with it.

Wilhelm Steinitz was an experimenter and pointed out that chess obeys laws that should be considered.

Wilhelm Steinitz was the main chess correspondent of The Field from 1873 to 1882, and used this to present his ideas about chess strategy.

Wilhelm Steinitz wrote the book of the 1889 New York tournament, in which he annotated all 432 of the games, and in 1889 he published a textbook, The Modern Chess Instructor.

Wilhelm Steinitz allegedly wrote a pamphlet entitled Capital, Labor, and Charity while confined at River Crest Sanitarium in New York during the final months of his life.

Between his victory over Anderssen and his loss to Emanuel Lasker, Wilhelm Steinitz won all his "normal" matches, sometimes by wide margins; and his worst tournament performance in that 28-year period was third place in Paris.

Wilhelm Steinitz admitted that "Like the Duke of Parma, I always hold the sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other", and under severe provocation he could become abusive in published articles.

Wilhelm Steinitz even co-operated with the American Chess Congress in its project to regulate future contests for the world title that he had earned.

Wilhelm Steinitz strove to be objective in his writings about chess competitions and games; for example, he attributed to sheer bad luck a poor tournament score by Henry Edward Bird, whom he considered no friend of his, and was generous in his praise of great play by even his bitter enemies.