The Games of Wilhelm Steinitz, First World Chess Champion

It is well known that the surest way to improve one's skill at chess is to carefully play over the games of the great Masters. The greatest Masters, of course, are the World Champions, and the student is well-advised to select one from this handful of the best to model his play after. All the better if the chosen World Champion has provided deep and careful annotations for his best games to increase our understanding!

Here then are the collected games of Wilhelm Steinitz, whose teachings about chess transformed the "royal pastime" into a modem science. For the first time anywhere all of Steinitz's surviving games have been gathered into one volume, and in English algebraic notation for the modem player. Also for the first time Steinitz's own annotations have been assembled and translated, notes in which the World Champion guides us through a chess course never to be forgotten. Here the reader will find 1022 games of chess as it was meant to be played, and 227 of them (nearly twenty-five per cent!) beautifully annotated by Steinitz himself. A player's index, career crosstable, and 243 diagrams complete the book.

Chess players of every level would benefit from a familiarity with the games of Steinitz, and The Games of Wilhelm Steinitz, First World Chess Champion is the perfect tool for doing so. More importantly, however, this book contains a lifetime of chess enjoyment, provided by the greatest figure in the history of the game -Wilhelm Steinitz

Most chess players know Wilhelm Steinitz as an Austrian player who became the first official world champion. But few chess players know that Steinitz was an American (and proud of it!) during his championship years and his last years, and that he accordingly came to call himself William rather than Wilhelm.

Wilhelm Steinitz was one of the most influential chess players in the history of the game. He established the modern world championship by winning the first formal match ever held for that title against Zukertort in 1886; he held the world title until losing it in 1894 to Lasker. He helped develop the science of chess strategy, and he did far more to popularize chess through his tireless journalism than most people realize.

But Steinitz would be disappointed indeed if he came back to the US nowadays and found that he is remembered as a foreign champion from Austria. In fact, Steinitz spent the last seventeen years of his life as a proud resident and citizen of the United States, and he was a major factor in the development of chess in this country.

Steinitz was born in Austria but moved for a number of years to England. He visited the United States in late 1882 and took an immediate liking to this country. Soon, he was a permanent resident of the New York- New Jersey area. As early as February 1886, as he prepared for his world championship match, he said in his International Chess Magazine: " I would rather die in America than live in England." He added, " I would rather lose a match in America than win one in England." (He then humorously added: " I have come to the conclusion that I neither mean to die soon or to lose the match!")

Steinitz made it clear from the moment he became the first official world champion that he considered himself to be an American champion. Shortly after defeating Zukertort in the world title match, Steinitz addressed these remarks to the New York Chess Club: " Mr. Steinitz concluded by stating that altogether he was so much indebted to America and felt himself so much at home in the new country, that he intended to apply for the American citizenship at the earliest opportunity."

In an editorial in his International Chess Magazine ( May 1886 issue), the newly-crowned official champion had this to say: " At the earliest opportunity after the issue of the present double number I shall accord to myself the honor of inscribing myself as an applicant for the American citizenship which according to law I can obtain only after five years residence in this country. And I shall yield to no one of my future countrymen in patriotism... I consider America now my real home."

Steinitz' desire to become an American finally was realized on November 23, 1888. This simple notice appeared in the December 1888 issue of The International Chess Magazine: " On the 23d ult. Mr. Steinitz was sworn in as a citizen of the United States. The Veteran Mr. Perrin was his sponsor to testify to Mr. Steinitz's having resided for five years in the State of New York."

Thus, no longer should we Americans regard Steinitz as a foreign champion. He joins Bobby Fischer as a world champion from the United States. -R. John McCrary