The Ink War: Romanticism versus Modernity in Chess

By Willy Hendriks

The rivalry between William Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort, the world's strongest chess players in the late nineteenth century, became so fierce that it was eventually named The Ink War. They fought their battle on the chessboard and in various chess magazines and columns. It was not only about who was the strongest player but also about who had the best ideas on how to play the game.

In 1872, Johannes Zukertort moved from Berlin to London to continue his chess career. Ten years earlier, William Steinitz had moved from Vienna to London for the same purpose; meanwhile, he had become the uncrowned champion of the chess world. Their verbal war culminated in the first match for the World Championship in 1886.

Zukertort is certainly the tragic protagonist of this book, but is he also a romantic hero? He has often been depicted as a representative of romantic chess, solely focusing on attacking the king. Steinitz is said to have put an end to this lopsided chess style with his modern scientific school. This compelling story shakes up the traditional version of chess history and answers the question which of them can claim to be the captain of the modern school.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New in Chess
• Release date: Nov 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9789493257658

Book preview

Prologue

‘Shortly before the opening of the tournament of the British Chess Association in 1872, four conspirators met one evening in the Strand at a restaurant which was at that time the hebdomadal rendezvous of certain well-known chess-players.

Well, said one of them, I think I have found a man who can beat Steinitz.

Who is he? asked Löwenthal.

Zukertort, said the discoverer. He has just won a match against Anderssen.

The matter was talked over, and the conspirators – all committee-men of the British Chess Association – resolved to invite Zukertort to this country, and offer him twenty guineas towards his expenses.’¹

Our conspirators could not have suspected that with this invitation, which was accepted by Zukertort, they gave the green light for a rivalry that would become increasingly fierce over the years. Fourteen years later, it would culminate in the first match for the World Chess Championship. This book tells the story of this struggle, which was fought on the chessboard but also, to a significant extent, in chess magazines and in columns in newspapers. First and foremost, this battle was about who was the strongest, and who could eventually call himself the first World Champion. But there was more at stake. Chess and chess theory were in full development and the ideas about how the game should be played were quite divergent. Steinitz had a very outspoken position and saw himself as the foreman of a scientific modern school. For our story it would be nice if Zukertort represented the other pole, the romantic attacking school, but things are not that simple. The larger public, however, understood the rivalry between the two for the greater part along these lines. Thus, the struggle on and around the chessboard was closely linked to the societal developments of the time, such as the rise of science and technology and the romantic resistance to them.

The somewhat tragic protagonist of our story – although it should be added that his opponent’s life was not exactly rosy either – is Johannes Zukertort. He was born in Lublin, Poland, in 1842 and learned to play (good) chess in Breslau under the mentorship of Adolf Anderssen, who is often portrayed as the great man of romantic chess. Zukertort exchanged Breslau for Berlin, became one of the strongest German chess players, and left for London, the centre of the chess world at that time, in 1872. That is when our story picks up speed, for it was there that Zukertort met his great opponent, William Steinitz, who was born in Prague in 1836 and had come to London ten years earlier to make a living as a professional chess player, just like Zukertort.

Steinitz was the (not quite undisputed) number one in the chess world and at first Zukertort could not match him. But he slowly came closer, and when in 1883 he achieved a great success by winning the London top tournament by three points, the call for a match against Steinitz became louder and louder and it finally took place in 1886: the first official match for the World Championship.

That match was the culmination of a series of paper hostilities that had begun much earlier, around 1881, but in fact the whole thing started with Zukertort’s arrival in London. The battle on paper at times became so fierce that it was later given the name ‘The Ink War’. That such an enormous rivalry could develop between these two players (and many others around them) is difficult to understand for the contemporary observer, so this requires some explanation. Character certainly played a role and that will be discussed, but that is something of all times. At least as important, however, is the fact that the players of those days had to fight much harder for their reputations, and this is a recurring theme in this story. Life for a professional player was difficult; there were few tournaments and matches, the Elo-rating did not yet exist and there were few people who could judge performance and playing strength, let alone the wider public. So for your place in the rankings and for the appreciation of your games and ideas, you had to stand up for yourself.

It is difficult to predict what are the things that will most impress a time traveller moving from the mid-19th century to the present, but the ubiquity of sports could be one of them. Both Steinitz and Zukertort came to London to make a living as professional chess players, which was not an obvious career choice at the time. It was hard to make ends meet and this further stimulated the competition between them. In addition, there was a lot of resistance to chess as a profession, and Steinitz and Zukertort, as immigrants of Jewish origin, had an even harder time.

Serious competitive chess as we know it was still in its infancy. The transition ‘from the coffee-house to the tournament arena’ is a story in itself, and this modernisation was also the source of many discussions. There was still a lot to learn in this field and much of what is taken for granted by today’s competitive players was discovered in this period.

The battle on the board was often continued in the analyses in chess journals and magazines. The art of analysis was still in full development – an art, incidentally, that in our time, with the rise of the chess engines, is already disappearing. For the contemporary chess player, it is hard to imagine what it means to analyse entirely on one’s own, without the possibility of consulting the electronic oracle sooner or later. Analytical differences of opinion could, in the absence of electronic adjudicators, develop into controversies of enormous proportions, and we can only look back with melancholy on this fascinating part of chess culture. Of course, in retrospect, we can use the engine and that gives us the possibility (as a small consolation) to come to final judgements, but also to add a lot of beauty to what people in those days already managed to conjure up.

The setting for the greater part of this book is London. It was a centre of progress in the fields of science, technology, trade and industry, and it was certainly the absolute centre as far as the chess world was concerned. There was a thriving chess community, and the various chess sections in newspapers and magazines provided a good opportunity to report on chess life and on the latest theoretical developments, but also to do battle with competitors, both over ideas and over the issue of who were the best players.

Whether there has been any progress (with or without a capital letter) in history is an open question for some, but if you look into the world of chess at that time, it certainly applies in the field of health. Many talented players disappeared from the scene at an early stage and our main players also had to contend with health problems. Zukertort’s fragile constitution had a great influence on his career, and the ‘medication’ he took probably also had its effect on his play, for better or worse.

Autobiographies of chess players sometimes bear titles like ‘chess was my life’ and that certainly applies to our protagonists. We know a bit more about Steinitz’s life outside the chessboard than about Zukertort’s, but for both of them chess came before everything else. In this introduction, the word ‘romantic’ has appeared several times, but not in the ‘amorous’ sense of the word, and it is good to warn the reader who expects a lot from the coming story in this respect: the adventures of our main characters are compelling, but not in the field of love.

With that, the main ingredients of this book have been introduced. We will meet many other chess players (and chess writers), top players as well as lesser gods, and the diversity in level will provide instructive and beautiful but also cheerful moments. A nice aspect of 19th-century chess is that it is somewhat more in touch with the experience of most players than the almost perfect chess of today’s elite.

The 19th century is sometimes called ‘the century of progress’ and this is certainly true as far as chess is concerned. That progress took place against a background of constant polemics. I hope that the reader, whether he or she is attracted more to the romantic camp or more to the modern camp, will be able to benefit from that progress.

Exercises Chapters 1 and 2

Nothing brings a chess position to life like thinking for yourself, without further instructions, about what move to play. In my previous two books, I used a set-up with exercises at the start of each chapter. Those positions then returned in the actual chapter. This set-up is used again in this book.

The exercises range from very easy to very difficult. They are a mix of strategy and tactics. Mostly, but not always, there is a clearly best move. The exercises follow the line of the story, which means that simple ones can be followed by difficult ones, and vice versa, without any warning.

Readers who want an easier time are, of course, welcome to skip the exercises and just enjoy the story.

Exercise 1.1

Exercise 1.2

Exercise 2.1

Exercise 2.2

Exercise 2.3

Exercise 2.4

1

The master defeated

At the invitation of the four ‘conspirators’, Zukertort exchanged Berlin for the vibrant chess life of London in 1872, but before we pick him up there, let’s take a look at his life and chess career up to that point and the events that gave rise to this invitation.

Johannes Hermann Zukertort was born on 7 September 1842 in Lublin, Poland, to his father’s second marriage. In the meantime his father, as well as his second wife, had exchanged the Jewish faith for the Christian faith. However, the missionary activities he developed for his new Lutheran denomination did not please the authorities and the family was forced to move to Breslau (today’s Wroclaw), at that time part of Prussia.

The family was probably not very wealthy there, but Zukertort managed to complete his grammar school successfully, after which he enrolled as a medical student at the university. It is certain, however, that he did not finish his studies and probably did not advance much beyond the first phase. These things happen, but after he settled in London, he went on with his life as Dr. Zukertort. In other respects too, Zukertort is suspected of having embellished his biography ‘somewhat’, and this will play a role later on in our story.

It has been suggested that Zukertort gave up his studies out of heartbreak. At their beginning, he fell in love with a young lady and the studies were very important to build a successful career and have a future together. However, when his loved one suddenly died, Zukertort lost the motivation to study and devoted himself exclusively to his other love, chess.

Zukertort only started playing chess towards the end of his grammar school years, which is rather late by modern standards. In 1861, he joined the academic chess club and fortune smiled on him. What a young, ambitious chess player normally can only dream of, happened to Zukertort: Adolf Anderssen, one of the strongest if not the strongest player of the world, was not only an active member of that club, but he also needed serious opponents who could challenge him, even if only slightly. Under Anderssen’s guidance, Zukertort quickly became stronger and he became one of the stronger players in Germany within a few years.

Adolf Anderssen

Of the hundreds, if not thousands, of games that Zukertort and Anderssen played together, some have been preserved because Zukertort published them later in his magazine. The question whether there has been such a thing as romantic chess will be discussed in detail in this book, but if ‘von ersten Zug an auf Matt’ is one of the characteristics of the romantic mode of play, the following miniature can already serve as a foretaste.

Johannes Zukertort – Adolf Anderssen Breslau 1865

1.e4 e5 2.♘f3 ♘c6 3.♗b5 ♘ge7 4.c3 d6 5.d4 ♗d7 6.0-0 ♘g6 7.♘g5!? h6

8.♘xf7!? ♔xf7 9.♗c4+ ♔e7?

After 9...♔e8, White still has a lot to prove, the idea was probably to give the attack a new impulse after 10.♕h5 ♕f6 with 11.f4.

10.♕h5 ♕e8

(Exercise 1.1)

White can now give mate in two ways, but of course only one is good:

11.♕g5+! hxg5 12.♗xg5 mate

In 1867, Zukertort’s university career ended definitively; he was de-registered from the medical faculty, probably because he had hardly attended for some time. He moved to Berlin, and chess was his profession from then on.

Chess life in Berlin was somewhat livelier than in Breslau, but it was still a poor breeding ground for a professional chess player. Zukertort became the editor of the Neue Berliner Schachzeitung, and although Anderssen’s name appeared on the front page as chief editor, the actual work was done by Zukertort. There was generally little news because there were few events in those days, and many of his first issues were filled with games that Zukertort had played against Anderssen in the past years. Still, Zukertort managed to make a nice magazine, although he was apparently in constant struggle to meet the deadlines for publication. However, there existed also another magazine, Johannes Minckwitz’s Schachzeitung, and whether German chess life was big enough for two magazines is doubtful.

From time to time, the columns of the one magazine launched attacks on the other, with the initiative usually coming from Minckwitz. The first book of Zukertort, Sammlung der auserlesensten Schachaufgaben, Studien und Partiestellungen, was demolished in the Schachzeitung. The skirmishes with Minckwitz were good preparation for Zukertort when, years later in London, he was again in charge of a magazine. But like everything else in London’s chess world, the struggle on paper was a size larger there. Incidentally, Zukertort had quite a (sales) success with his next work – a handbook he wrote together with Jean Dufresne, Leitfaden des Schachspiels.

In his Berlin years, Zukertort had his first successes with blindfold simultaneous chess. He had a very good memory and, without much training, blindfold chess came easily to him. Before him, others had made quite a splash with blindfold simuls, such as Paul Morphy on his European tour, and the attractive thing about it was that it built a bridge to the wider public, as a kind of an intellectual wonder of the world. This public interest offered Zukertort some opportunities for financial support. The possibilities of gaining an income as a competitive chess player were minimal. There were only a few tournaments and, moreover, in Berlin, unlike in London, it was not usual at the time to play for small stakes in the coffee house.

In the three tournaments in which Zukertort participated in his time in Berlin, he did reasonably well but not outstanding. Those were small tournaments, with five or six participants, and they were all won by Anderssen, while Zukertort scored around fifty percent.

His game against Anderssen in Aachen gives a good picture of the positional level of both players at that time. In addition, Anderssen missed a hidden opportunity of rare beauty in this game.

Adolf Anderssen

Johannes Zukertort

Aachen 1868 (4)

White had already played his g-pawn to g4 early in the opening, which they were rather fond of doing in the 19th century, but partly due to this weakening Black’s position is excellent. His next move is a serious positional error and Zukertort realised this afterwards as well. In his analysis, he notes that this move greatly improves White’s position. A good possibility would have been 15...d5.

15...♗xc4? 16.dxc4 ♕c6 17.♕d3 ♖fd8 18.♗g5 ♕b6 19.♗xf6 ♗xf6 20.♖fb1 ♖ab8 21.♘e2 a6 22.♘c3 ♕c6 23.♘d5 ♗g5

(Exercise 1.2)

Anderssen has managed to create a strategic dream scenario: good knight on a strong square versus bad bishop. Of course, there are many worse versions of the bad bishop, and with his last move Black managed to activate it quite well. However, that move brought a beautiful possibility into the position – a very hidden one, so it is not surprising that Anderssen did not see it. Often we see a move like ♕d2-d3 in reaction to a black ♗g5, but here the opposite was possible: with 24.♕d2!!, White wins the exchange. Moves that do not depend on many or complicated variations but are nevertheless almost impossible to find, are the most beautiful! White continued with the somewhat wild move 24.b4. If Black had taken that pawn, he would have had some counterplay, but after 24...♖dc8 25.b5!, White’s advantage was decisive.

A lot of things happened in this game before Anderssen finally clinched victory, and that may be because both played rather quickly by nature. It may also be because it was already their second game of the day; the first one was a draw and therefore had to be replayed.

Zukertort’s report of this tournament gives a good idea of the state of serious tournament chess in Germany at that time. The prizes were in kind and Anderssen, as the tournament winner, went home with a silver cup. For those who wanted to make a living out of chess, these tournaments had very little to offer.

At the start of the tournament, it was agreed that the players should make at least 20 moves within two hours. That is already very generous but ‘unfortunately, the last provision remained illusory for lack of hourglasses’, as Zukertort had to note. In the analysis of his game with Wilfried Paulsen we read at move 32: ‘White [Paulsen] reflected here for 1 hour 10 minutes, from move 22 to 34 the game lasted 7.5 hours!’ The game in its entirety lasted 12 hours, the vast majority of that time undoubtedly having been consumed by Paulsen. His brother Louis, one of the strongest players at the time, was also notorious for thinking extremely long. In the era before the introduction of the chess clock (or hourglass), he regularly drove Morphy, among others, to despair.

In the Barmen tournament, in the play-off for the second prize, something remarkable happened to Zukertort – a strange kind of blunder, and this precisely against his enemy from the Schachzeitung. No matter how long you look at it, it remains inexplicable, and this phenomenon of the incomprehensible blunder was to accompany Zukertort for the rest of his life.

Johannes Minckwitz

Johannes Zukertort

Barmen 1869

Earlier in the game, Black had good winning chances, but now, after White’s last move 54. ♖d1-b1, he should have settled for a draw with 54...♔d8. White goes back with 55.♖d1+ and if Black then, instead of going back to e8, goes to c8, it is also a draw after (55...♔c8) 56.♖h1 because against the threat of 57.♔e7 followed by f7, Black has no better option than to go back with 56...♔d8.

Instead, Black played 54...♖xf6+?? and resigned after 55.♔xf6.

‘A deception of the eye! Black thought the enemy rook was on b7 instead of b1’, wrote Minckwitz in the Schachzeitung, so we have to believe that Zukertort told him this immediately after the game. This ‘explanation’ doesn’t really make it much more understandable.

Until 1871, Zukertort had not achieved anything very special, but in that year things changed when he won a match against his old teacher Anderssen with an impressive 5-2 score. However, it is not entirely clear what the status of that match was. Unlike friendly matches, which took place regularly and where nothing was at stake, a serious match was about prestige, about who was the best player, and there was usually also a monetary stake. The play was therefore more serious and although the chess clock had only just been introduced and was not yet in standard use, something was usually regulated about the time allowed for thinking.

Johannes Minckwitz

Whether this was such a serious match is questionable. Zukertort certainly took it seriously, but Anderssen seemed to do so much less. And if we may believe the eyewitness accounts, we can even speak of a cunning plan by Zukertort, which worked out very well for him and gave his chess career a tremendous push in the desired direction.

Every year, Anderssen came to Berlin during the holidays at the invitation of the Berliner Schachgesellschaft and then played for a few days against the (stronger) Berlin chess players and discussed the latest developments in chess. So around Easter 1871 and on the first evening of his visit, Zukertort asked whether Anderssen had brought anything ‘new’ with him. At that time, there was no question of a match so Anderssen freely shared his latest insights with the attendees. The following position from the Evans Gambit was presented, from a variation of the so-called Compromised Defence. Nowadays, the Evans Gambit has almost completely disappeared from practice, together with its nomenclature, but in those days this opening was the centre of attention and the theory was very advanced.

1.e4 e5 2.♘f3 ♘c6 3.♗c4 ♗c5 4.b4 ♗xb4 5.c3 ♗a5 6.d4 exd4 7.0-0 dxc3 8.♕b3 ♕f6 9.e5 ♕g6 10.♘xc3 ♘ge7 11.♘e2 b5

In exchange for much activity and chances against the black king, White has sacrificed two pawns. Black’s last move, trying to give back a pawn for the benefit of his own development and to disrupt White’s coordination, had become very popular recently. It was generally regarded as a serious attack on the viability of the whole Evans Gambit.

Anderssen, however, as he told his listeners, had developed a new strategy for White: he did not accept the sacrifice but continued with 12.♗d3, with the intention of avoiding the exchange of queens after 12...♕e6 with 13.♕b2.

That evening Anderssen won a couple more games against Zukertort with this idea, so the future of the Evans Gambit looked bright again.

On the way home after that evening, Zukertort told another Berlin chess player that he planned to challenge Anderssen to a match. And if that worked out well, he was bound to win! With Black, he didn’t see too many problems because that move 13.♕b2 didn’t seem that dangerous to him after all, and with White he would certainly score well because Anderssen’s favourite line of play against the Vienna Game was no good according to Zukertort and, knowing Anderssen, he would stubbornly stick to it.

The next day Zukertort made his proposal, but Anderssen would not hear of it. To the question ‘What are we playing for?’, the poverty-stricken Zukertort could only answer with a heroic ‘For nothing!’. It is not known why Anderssen agreed to the match after all – perhaps out of compassion for his former pupil or simply because of his good-natured character. The seven games were played in six days, and it is quite likely that Anderssen also played games against others in that period. Twice, two games were played in one day. Both were by nature very fast players, and although at the start it was agreed to play at least 20 moves per hour, it turned out that such an agreement was not necessary at all and the hourglass was soon put aside.

And it went exactly as Zukertort had predicted. With Black against the Evans Gambit, he was able to hold his own, and with White he won three times with the Vienna Game.

Johannes Zukertort

Adolf Anderssen

Match Berlin 1871 (2)

This is a position from the first of those three games, and Zukertort’s optimism about this opening is understandable. White has a splendid knight on f5 and a half-open f-file plus many pieces that can engage in the attack on the kingside. Also, the bishop on b3 is shining beautifully in the right direction. It is not easy to see what kind of counterplay Black can offer in return.

It takes a lot of nerve to look at such a knight on f5 for a long time, so, not surprisingly, Anderssen continued with 13...g6?, but that already proved to be the decisive weakening. After 14.♘h6+ ♔g7, White struck with 15.♘g5!.

The f-pawn cannot be defended any more and with its loss, Black’s position collapses (although Anderssen later came back into the game – in those days, the play went up and down more often than in contemporary top-class chess).

Had Anderssen agreed to the match because he did not see the danger and thought he could win easily? Afterwards, he felt he had been fooled, and he angrily declared that a match without stakes was not a serious match, but of course by then it was too late.

Naturally, Zukertort published the games from this match in his magazine, and by doing so gave himself an excellent reputation. This was not entirely out of the blue – of course, he was already counted among the stronger German chess players. But winning a match against Anderssen was of a different order. Anderssen had indeed lost a match against Steinitz in 1866, by a small margin, but he had made up for that in the top tournament at Baden-Baden in 1870, where he had won first place just ahead of Steinitz. And since Morphy had, more than ten years earlier, withdrawn from the world of chess (and by now almost from the world itself), it was clear that Steinitz and Anderssen both had a claim to be the best player of the moment.

Zukertort had been living the life of a chess professional for some time, but it was a difficult existence in Berlin. The centre of the chess world was London, and Zukertort hoped to make a living there. The victory over Anderssen opened doors for him because in London, at that time, they just happened to be waiting for a player like Zukertort. After all, someone who could beat Anderssen would surely stand a good chance against the not very popular ‘monarch’ of the London chess world.

The fact that there was not much future for Zukertort in Berlin was also shown in the December issue of the Neue Berliner Schachzeitung, which only appeared in February, 1872. In a statement, the publisher announced that this would be the last issue. Despite many promises, Zukertort did not manage to deliver his work in time and the publisher had lost all hope of improvement.

2

Steinitz’s rise to the top

When Zukertort arrived in London in 1872, Steinitz had been living there for almost ten years. He had come to London from Vienna in 1862 to take part in the international tournament, but also with the hope, like Zukertort, of building up a professional chess career. Steinitz’s life history and chess career up to that time were very similar to Zukertort’s before he came to London.

Steinitz was born on 14 May 1836 in Prague as one of the middle children in a large Jewish family. Thus, he was more than six years older than Zukertort. He later changed his first name Wolf to Wilhelm and after leaving Vienna to William. Probably, the circumstances in which he grew up were somewhat poorer than those of Zukertort. Anti-Semitism was prevalent throughout Europe at the time and Jews were second-class citizens in many countries. Nevertheless, Steinitz was given the opportunity to go to Vienna to study at the Polytechnic Institute. Steinitz dropped out even sooner than Zukertort and the rest of his life was devoted to his chess career.

Steinitz had already started playing chess in Prague and was probably one of the strongest chess players there at the time he left, but chess life in Prague was quite limited and little is known about it. Vienna had a much richer chess life; they played in various coffee houses and there was a reasonably strong club with a serious competition. In his Viennese years, from 1858 to 1862, Steinitz became the strongest player in the city and chess became his main source of income.

Just as the match against Anderssen became a springboard to London for Zukertort, the magnificent 30 out of 34 score with which Steinitz won the Vienna club championship in 1862 came at just the right time for him. For the big tournament that was to be played in London that year, he became the Austrian representative. However, he ended up going on his own because the Vienna club ‘took offense at Steinitz’s not very charming appearance, considered him unsuitable to represent the Vienna Chess Club appropriately, and thus they forbore to send anyone to the London congress.’²

His fame had already preceded him somewhat, for he had by now acquired the nickname ‘the Austrian Morphy’. And indeed, Steinitz played attacking chess at the time and was tactically very strong. That Steinitz’s arrival in London was surrounded by controversy was a telling omen.

London 1862

After London 1851, this was only the second international tournament. That earlier edition had a knock-out formula; this time, an all-play-all format was chosen. In 1851, they still played without a time limit, which of course led to huge problems, so that was also changed. As in 1851, Anderssen won the tournament, with 11 out of 12 (draws were replayed), ahead of Louis Paulsen with 9 out of 11. The tournament was somewhat marred by a number of premature withdrawals and it was a rather messy affair with no fixed pairings per round.

With 6 out of 11 and sixth place, Steinitz won only a small prize, but he impressed with a fine attacking victory over Mongredien. Whether he was disappointed by his result is not known, but Steinitz never lacked self-confidence and he must have sensed that the difference with the top players was small and that there were great opportunities for him.

Against Anderssen, the tournament winner, he did not survive the opening, but after he miraculously saved himself from all problems he finally lost the endgame. Against Paulsen, he had every chance of a better result.

William Steinitz

Louis Paulsen

London 1862

Black has lost a pawn in the opening and has no real compensation for it. White can now calmly try to improve his position; the knight on f5 is in a nice position, but not really threatening, so White can leave it there for now. Chasing away the knight as Steinitz does is not bad either, but his follow-up move is remarkable.

18.g4 ♘e7 19.g5? ♘f5

Steinitz would later strongly position himself as the leader of the ‘modern school’, the transition to a more positional style. One aspect of positional chess, which had already found its way into the practice of the stronger players, but which he claimed to be the first to have put into words, was the theory of ‘holes’ (what today are called ‘weak squares’). In a nutshell: be careful in advancing your pawns as this can create holes that the enemy pieces can take advantage of. The younger Steinitz gives a splendid example of something the elder Steinitz would never do: from now on, the f5-square will be a hole in White’s structure forever, and Black already has a splendid knight standing there. It remains to be seen whether Black has enough compensation, but after many complications Paulsen managed to win the game.

Steinitz also allowed himself to be outsmarted by MacDonnell and that game was interesting for several reasons. In terms of style, this game already gives a glimpse of one of the most typical characteristics of the later Steinitz: never being afraid to take material. Moreover, this was the first game against an opponent with whom Steinitz would later have the greatest problems off the board.

George MacDonnell

William Steinitz

London 1862

(Exercise 2.1)

An interesting position to think about. The pawn on f2 is under attack; would you take it?

William Steinitz in his younger years

It is often said that Steinitz had a style break in his career, around 1870, when he exchanged a romantic style (‘attack at all costs’) for the positional style that he himself had developed. A closer look, however, shows that in many respects the early Steinitz already strongly resembled the later one. The somewhat materialistic attitude that he later pithily expressed with ‘a pawn is worth a little trouble’ can also be found in many early games. This is one example, because he indeed captured the f-pawn.

That is not a bad move, but most players would probably leave the pawn on the board – not (only) out of fear, but mainly because Black is in great shape even without the pawn, and has a very attractive alternative with 13...♘f6 – just developing further. Because of the damage to his pawn structure, White’s dark squares are very weak and ...♘h5 (with an eye on ...♘f4) is a good follow-up move. Maybe Steinitz did not play that because of 14.♗e3, since he did not want White to improve his control over the dark squares after 14...♗xe3 15.fxe3. Instead, very strong is 14...♘h5. If White then exchanges on b6 (15.♗xb6 cxb6), Black’s pawn structure will also suffer, but this is nothing compared to his beautiful dark squares:

analysis diagram

Controlling the two blockading squares e5 and f4 was a dream situation for Aron Nimzowitsch more than half a century later. However, the game continued with:

13...♗xf2 14.♖a2 ♗b6 15.♖g2 ♘f6 16.♗e2 h6 17.f4 ♘g6?

This gave MacDonnell the opportunity for a surprising queen trap with 18.f5! ♘e5 19.♖f4 ♕h3 20.♖g3 and White won a few moves later.

International exhibition London 1862

After this tournament, Steinitz’s career quickly took a turn for the better. It would take some time before he won his first major tournament, but in the meantime he was very successful in matches. It is not surprising that he made it to the top so quickly, as he was not only very talented but also one of the few professional players at that time. For example, the top four players in the London tournament were all amateurs. Anderssen was a maths teacher, Paulsen worked in the family farm, and Owen and MacDonnell were members of the clergy. Chess players who not only played (professionally) but also studied chess were even rarer.

One of the few fellow professionals was Joseph Henry Blackburne. He was more than five years younger than Steinitz and started his professional career with the tournament of 1862. His career lasted more than fifty years and he was one of Steinitz’s greatest competitors throughout his entire life. Blackburne was above all a player and he earned most of his income from the (blindfold) simultaneous exhibitions he gave for the various English clubs. He was probably a somewhat less diligent chess student than Steinitz. Blackburne was one of the players defeated by Steinitz in a match after the London tournament, with a large margin.

After Steinitz had become the strongest player in England in just a few years, the question arose as to how good he was in relation to the world’s best. In 1866, a match was organised between him and Anderssen. To the surprise of many, Steinitz won 8-6. The King’s Gambit and Evans Gambit dominated this match, with tactically very complicated games. The title of World Champion did not yet exist, and it was certainly not explicitly at stake in this match, but Steinitz began to lay claim to being the strongest player in the world from that moment on.

The grand old man of English chess was Howard Staunton. He was no longer active as a player, but in his chess columns he provided (vicious) commentary on all events in chess life. Staunton disliked Steinitz enormously. He considered the fact that Steinitz dared to challenge Anderssen already a scandalous form of self-aggrandisement. That he also won was a bitter pill for Staunton which only served to strengthen his hostile attitude.

Match against Bird

After his win over Anderssen, Steinitz then beat Henry Bird in a long match. Together with Blackburne, Bird was to become one of the iconic English chess players of the second half of the 19th century. Bird was not a professional, at least not for most of his life, although there were periods when chess was his main activity.

In a number of ways, Bird nicely matched the caricature of the romantic chess player and was therefore the perfect opposite of Steinitz. Bird was a true player and was known to be willing to play against anyone at any time. He played quickly and the chess clock did not have to be invented for him. In Bird’s eyes, Steinitz was ‘merely’ the champion of the slow chess players. Bird was a dangerous attacker and at times resembled the proverbial ‘dangerous madman’. To his fans, including MacDonnell, he personified exactly what was in danger of being lost with Steinitz: chess as a game rather than a science; adventure and beauty rather than correctness and playing to win only.

To the surprise of many, it turned out to be an exciting match and a really entertaining one at that. Bird liked to experiment in the opening and that was a relief in the days when the open games were dominant. These experiments often turned out badly in this match; Bird was totally lost within 10 moves several times and he lost his queen at move 8 in the ninth game. Perhaps Steinitz got a bit carried away now and then, because a couple of times he got terribly swindled in winning positions.

Henry Bird – William Steinitz London 1866 (16)

1.e4 e5 2.♘f3 ♘c6 3.♗b5 ♘f6 4.d4 exd4 5.e5 ♘e4 6.0-0 a6 7.♗a4 ♗e7 8.c3 dxc3 9.bxc3 0-0 10.♕d5 ♘c5 11.♗c2 b6 12.♗e3 ♗b7 13.♗xc5 ♗xc5 14.e6

When asked if Black can still defend himself, many people think, as soon as they catch sight of the standard sacrifice ♗xh7+, that White is already winning here. In reality, 14.e6 is more of a desperation move, although we don’t know if Bird saw it that way. However, White certainly wouldn’t have compensation for the sacrificed pawn after other moves.

The funny thing about this position is that all three of Black’s obvious defences are sufficient for victory. Apart from the move played, 14...fxe6 is also sufficient, although it is still a bit messy after 15.♗xh7+ ♔xh7 16.♕h5+ ♔g8 17.♘g5 ♖xf2! 18.♖xf2 ♕f6.

A very nice rebuttal is 14...♘d4. After 15.♗xh7+ ♔xh7 16.♕h5 ♔g8 17.♘g5, White’s attack looks very threatening:

analysis diagram

However, with 17...♘e2+ 18.♔h1 ♗xg2+! followed by 19...♘f4+, Black wins the queen.

14...dxe6 15.♗xh7+ ♔xh7 16.♕h5+ ♔g8 17.♘g5

(Exercise 2.2)

It is very likely that Steinitz got carried away by Bird’s pace of play or bluff. If he had thought for a moment, he would surely have noticed 17...♕d3!.

17...♖e8? 18.♕xf7+ ♔h8 19.♕h5+ ♔g8 20.♕h7+ ♔f8 21.♕h8+ ♔e7 22.♕xg7+ 1-0

The match was played for 11 victories, but at 7-5 for Steinitz (with 5 draws) it ended abruptly because Bird had to go to America on urgent business. Steinitz claimed the stakes and the match was never played out, nor was there a rematch, even though Bird proposed several times to have one. The relationship between Bird and Steinitz would only deteriorate from this point on.

MacDonnell praised Bird for ‘making a gallant fight [...] and very nearly succeeding in plucking from the Austrian’s brow the laurel wreath with which his recent victory over Anderssen had crowned him. This was truly a fine performance, considering that all through the match Bird had to labour hard at his professional work, while Steinitz was perfectly free the livelong day to concoct new openings, and enjoy long walks and Roman baths.’

Henry Bird

For Staunton, the end of the match was yet another sign of the pernicious influence of money on the game: ‘On more than one occasion we have deprecated the spirit of professionalism which of late years has crept into and debased our favourite game. Nowadays the cause of chess is nothing, courtesy is nothing, justice and honour are nothing, victory is everything.’

At this time, Steinitz had no platform on which to respond to his critics and had to swallow everything patiently.

Paris 1867

In the international tournaments that followed, Steinitz did not manage to prove a clear gap with the rest. The Paris tournament of 1867 was the next international event after London 1862, and it took place in the shadow of a World Exhibition as well. The prize fund was good, but otherwise the tournament was organised with the ‘French touch’. There was no set round schedule and