On the final tragedy of Steinitz:

According to Chernev and Reinfeld, his life was a succession of sorrows; he was born a cripple and to a poor family.

To subsist he had to waste the best years of his life playing nonentities in coffeehouses. Continuously he suffered from not being understood and being belittled and he never knew what it was to live without problems. The crowning irony of his life was that he was he dethroned through his students, all of them young, fresh, strong, playing an old man whose spirit was broken through through the tragedies in his family.They took away the last possibility of his earning a living, they won against an old man  who dragged his broken body with canes and crutches but still retained his fierce will of his earlier years. Steintz’s students won because of his experiments and the results of his knowledge.”

Landsberger also edited The Steinitz Papers, a treasure trove of letters and documents. You would find some of the most moving passages here:

http://www.chessville.com/reviews/SteinitzPapers.htm

In his last years Steinitz was a broken man. The successive defeats in world championship matches against Lasker crushed his spirit. Dogged by gout and grinding poverty he struggled to retain his pride and dignity till the end. The man who strove to establish the reign of reason over the chessboard could not find it in the world in which he lived. No wonder, his mind was unhinged.The final drama of his life reminds one of King Lear. The same majesty and the same grief.

May his soul rest in peace.

 Dear friends,

I thought we should wait for Part II of this article before further discussion. However, such is the interest in Steinitz and Lasker that quite a few comments have already appeared.

Now about the Lasker-Steinitz Matches:

The Return Match (1896-97) saw the collapse of Steinitz.

But the first match (1894) was a closer affair than the final score (12-7) indicated. Here is an essay on the Match with commentary on the 16^th Game. It is a terrifying contest with no holds barred.(http://www.chessville.com/reviews/QCH19993.htm )

I would  also ask you all to take a look at Robert Hübner’s  recent book on this Match, Der Weltmeisterschaftskampf Lasker - Steinitz 1894.The variations offered by Hübner are incredible.Do not be intimidated by the fact that the book is in German. You can follow the analysis in pgn. format.

http://marshtowers.blogspot.com/2009/05/chess-reviews-94.html

No, this match was no cakewalk for Lasker.

Don't forget that Lasker met Steinitz in his old age @ 58 years old. He is supposed to be retired. He play the match only in the spirit of sportsmanship.

@ shiro_europa thanks, I really shouldn't look at chess games late at night... D'oh!

If there was one modern player who followed Steinitz’s principle of accumulation of small advantages, it was Bobby Fischer. His games with Ruy Lopez as White   are an expression of this principle. So are his classic games against  Smyslov, (2nd Round, Interzonal 1970), Petrosian (7^th Game, Candidates’ Match 1971) and Spassky (6^th Game,World Championship Match 1972).

Even in blitz his play was always logical, following a clear positional plan without tricks and spectacular effects. Let us remember that he won the World Blitz Championship in 1970 ahead of acknowledged masters of  lightnig play like Tal, Petrosian and Korchnoi.

Birdbrain,

True enough, accumulating small advantages in blitz play is not easy or intuitive under the circumstances, so if you don't favor the romantic style you really have to work harder. Blitz lends itself to brashness because the effect of the clock is greatly amplified. A blitz game (more so than in a long game) often comes down to making more trouble for your opponent than he makes for you, and aggressive moves create trouble.

You also highlight another tendency of the non-aggressive player, this kind of play tends get a player into a rut of always thinking defensively. Defensive play can be unimaginative and not-so-interesting to watch. So, it will be interesting to see if the examples from Steinitz later games are less interesting than the ones we saw today from his romantic days. To put it another way, did Steinitz's shift in style make him boring?

 About Morphy and Steinitz:

By the time Steinitz met Morphy, the latter had already had retired from chess and become a reclusive figure. Here is an account of their first meeting cited by Sarah Beth (The Batgirl for you) :http://sbchess.sinfree.net/Steinitz_on_Morphy.html

In their subsequent meeting they talked about general things.But Morphy could not bring himself to say much on chess. As Steinitz put it, “…for some reason he felt that chess was no blessing. And who knows, may be he was right.”

 There are two important books on Morphy:

1)Paul Morphy and the Evolution of Chess Theory by Macon Shibut

2)Paul Morphy: A Modern Perspective by Valeri Beim

Check these books for comparison of Morphy and Steinitz.You do not have to be swayed by every opinion in these books. It is good to see an independent interpretation of Steinitz’s games. This is provided by the Russian book, Steinitz byYakov Neishtadt (Ripol Classics, 2004).  

Steinitz is good, but Lasker is god

; )  Lasker destroyed Steinitz in all his games

Steinitz said;" Controll the center of board." When you do,you can win, your game. If you don't,you'll lose your game.

So many pins on the first game. It almost gives me a headache to watch.

To old to be bold is my moto

Steintz seen Morphy play and then refused to play him. . .nuff said

I'm not sure if I'm being stupid here, but the alternative 20th move for the first game is 20) QxG6?? is followed by ...KH8 which gets a "!", my question is why?

Surely white's follow up move, 21) QH7, is checkmate, no? Or I'm I missing something really easy??

I also like the idea of "attack-at-all-costs"!

It's hard to accumulate many small advantages in three minute chess, however!  Plus, we see many players that play and train this way are not subtle, like a player with more time would be.  They are trained for quick attacks, and reliable defenses.  And since people are training with computers nowadays, players have to prepare something totally unique.  I have noticed in a lot of the chess games that I have seen recently between top competition that there are a lot more aggressive attacks than I used to see, and aggressive counterattacks as well!  Much more pleasing to watch.

Attack-at-all-costs is a concise way of summing up the Romantic Era, which seems to be in resurgence today (at least amongst us sub-2000 players). Except today the neo-romantics are less brillant, more brash.

It can be unsettling (especially in blitz) to sit back and endure wave after wave of naked aggression, but if you can keep your head and keep "accumulating small advantages," you can prevail.

Curious how these two disparate styles could come from the same man. Perhaps this is why he spent his last days in an asylum. I look forward to the rest of the series, particularly an exploration of Steinitz's later work.

The man who ruled the chess world for 28 years was deservedly called the Bohemian Caesar. It is true that he played some beautiful combinations in his younger days:

http://www.chessville.com/misc/History/WilhelmSteinitzTheUnknownLegacy.htm

 But in later years he played even deeper combinations:

 http://www.chessville.com/reviews/CollectedWorksofWilhelmSteinitz.htm

 Incidentally, there is no longer any dispute on the date of his birth. It’s 14^th May, 1836 according to his biographer Kurt Landsberger  who happens to be his great-grand-nephew.

He also points out that Steinitz was one of the thirteen children, and not the last.