Wilhelm Steinitz

This article is an extract from the chess website bestofchess.com.... you can read the full article by clicking on the link below.“Place the contents of the chess box in a hat, shake them up vigorously, pour them on the board from a height of two feet and you get the style of Steinitz” these were the very words of Henry Bird as he described the chess masterWilhelm Steinitz. Wilhelm, who was later to be renamed to William, was a grand Austrian chess player who was famous for unpredictable moves on the checkered board. He reigned undisputed for 8 years (1886-1894) until he lost the title to Emanuel Lasker.

Before he ventured out to create his own chess moves, the Austrian Chess master played by the book for quite a while and used famous moves like the All Out Attack which was famous around the 1850-60’s.It was this particular move that made him win a tournament in 1860. But how did the Austrian chess player rise to such a prestigious position as a chess player? Where did he spark the interest of pursuing chess as a professional career?

The story dates to 1848 when he played his first chess game and actually developed an interest. He continued playing and only when he joined a college in Vienna to study mathematics did he start taking the game seriously. By this time he was in his twenties and he quickly became a force to reckon with while at the college. By 1850 he had already risen to position three in the Vienna Chess Championship, and this motivated him to move to first position by 1860. This is when the All Out Attack worked wonders for him.

Noticing his prowess and ingenuity on the chess board, Wilhelm Steinitz was selected to represent Vienna at the London Chess Tournament in 1862. Though he came sixth in the contest, he received the brilliancy prize for an extraordinary win against Augustus Mongredien. But he was not done yet, he went on to challenge Serafino Dubois to a chess board which he won with less effort. It is at this point that he decided chess playing should become a profession for him.

To challenge someone who had taken a position above you in the London Tournament is definitely new, and perhaps so many people thought he was acting out of ego. However, the Austrian Chess player was in nature a relentless person, in one of his famous quotes he writes “Chess is not for the faint-hearted; it absorbs a person entirely. To get to the bottom of this game, he has to give himself up into slavery, chess is difficult, it demands work, serious reflection and zealous research. Only honest, impartial criticism leads to the goal. Unfortunately many regard the critic as an enemy, instead of seeing in him a guide to the truth”.

It is such spirits in him that made him challenge the unbeatable to a match and to prove them wrong.  As he took chess professional, he then embarked on challenging most of the UK best chess players to a match. He summoned the likes of Frederic Deacon and Joseph Henry Blackburne to a match; which he won automatically.

Wilhelm Steinitz was soon known as one of the top chess players in London, such fame that brought him the chance to duel with Adolf Anderssen; a top chess player also in London who had won first place twice at the London International Tournament for chess. This very match with Adolf was recorded in history as one of the toughest he had ever faced. However after gruesome hours of strategy and wit, he came out with an eight win six loss score that saw him scoop the £100. From this point on he was unbeatable in most matches; between the years of 1862-1892, the chess player from Austria always walked away a victor in any match he was in, sometimes with a very big margin at that.

Henry Bird was one of the men who accurately described the true nature of this Austrian chess champion. In his prime years between the 1860’s and the 1870s, the Romantic move which was an all attack move is what won him most matches. However at the peak of 1973, he decided to try out new moves to conquer his opponents. This new position was heavily critiqued at that time and most of the chess players of that time considered it a coward move. But there was one truth about the positional move; it was an aggressive attack strategy that gave him so many advantages in a game.

It was not until 1890 that this self invented move by Wilhelm Steinitz was accepted by chess players of that time. It even became a standard move that was perfected by most of the top players of that time and even the chess players in the present. In fact, the Austrian Chess Champion was once quoted saying “….the players of today, such as Lasker, Tarrasch, Pillsbury, Schlechter and others have adopted my principles, and as is only natural, they have improved upon what I began, and that is the whole secret of the matter.

As much as he was a brilliant player in chess, this self realization at times landed him in trouble. The Austrian chess player most times came out as a proud person and always wanted to prove he was the best. This was not only seen in how he aggressively pushed to challenge the best of the best especially in England. He was always on the move to challenge new chess gurus that he forgot about the financial part of it at some point.

He got into a nasty debt at some point when he lost his old players, who contributed largely to his income, to pursue new arrivals. On the side, he used to write a lot and document the new moves he invented along the way. In his nature, he believed he was the best around and often times he defended his written works against those who tried to critique him. Several times it caused heated debates which at times involved insults that it was later to be named as the Ink War.

Besides playing chess professionally, winning most times, and writing about it, Wilhelm Steinitz also seemed to have a soft spot for America. He was later to change his name to William to fit his new American environment. As to prove his obsession with America, here is a quote from him.