May 17: The First Chess Champion

Wilhelm Steinitz, the first undisputed world chess champion (from 1886 to 1894) and the inventor of the positional style of play, was born in the Jewish ghetto of Prague on this date in 1836. Steinitz went professional in the 1860s and defeated most of the world’s leading players at international tournaments held in London. In 1872 he unveiled his new style of play, involving long-term maneuvering, which would become the basis of modern chess. After a nine-year layoff from tournaments, he had a 25-game winning streak in serious competition and established the dominance of his new technique. In 1886 he and Johannes Zukertort, an arch-rival, played a ten-win match in New York, St. Louis and New Orleans for the “Championship of the World.” Steinitz won the match with ten wins, five losses, and five draws, and held the title until his defeat by Emanuel Lasker in 1894. Steinitz founded International Chess Magazine and was a leading journalist and commentator on the game. He ended his life, however, in a state of mental disorder, suffering nervous breakdowns and dying a pauper in the Manhattan State Hospital on Ward Island in 1900.

“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.” —Emanuel Lasker, describing the power of “positional” play