World Chess Championship Matches (Anthology):Volume I

Edited by Igor Berdichevsky

Hardback:311 pages

Russian Chess House.2002

Imagine that you are on a holiday in the countryside. You are resting in a sunlit dacha that offers a lovely view of the lake and the mountain from its windows. No, you have not brought your cell phone, not even the laptop.You wish to be away from the distractions of the world. So what is here to keep you happy?Just an old-fashioned chess set and a couple of books. Perhaps that's the right setting for reading Berdichevsky's 3-volume work on world championship matches.The first begins with Steinitz-Zukertort 1886 and ends with Alekhine-Euwe 1937.Each match has a brief introduction followed by games annotated in Informator style.The notes to each game are either by one of the contestants or by a well-known authority.As for the openings, games are brought up to date by references to modern praxis.There are 17 matches in this volume alone, and it's impossible for the author or the reviewer to do justice to all of them. For this article I have taken just two games out of them. The first game is from the Steinitz-Tschigorin Match 1892.

Before we see the game, a few words on the background would not be out of place. Steinitz was the exponent of the modern scientific school and had  developed a passion for refuting gambits or at least developing a strong defence against each of them.The players of the old romantic school like Anderssen and Zukertort had already lost to him.it appeared that no one could beat the Bohemian Caesar until Tschigorin emerged out of the shadows. The young charismatic player not only challenged the supremacy of the champion, but also defied all his scientific theories.The battleground in openings was their argument over Evans Gambit and the Two Knights' Defence.Steinitz maintained that the pawn sacrifice in both openings was unsound and the player with the extra pawn should win. Tschigorin, of course, would not accept this view and beat Stenitz twice in tournaments, playing Evans Gambit. Thus the stage was set for their world championship clash. In the first match between the two great rivals (1889) Steiniz was victorious with the score of 10½-6½. But the  creative result did not satisfy either player.The dispute over Evans Gambit was  not resoved.Out of 8 games in the match White (Tschigorin) had won 4 and Black(Steinitz) 3. The only remaining encounter was a hard-fought draw (61 moves).This was the last game of the match.

Steinitz would not accept such a result lying down, and he offered Tschigorin a cable match over both Evans Gambit and Two Knights' Defence.The latter was only too ready to oblige and won both the games. So when the second match (1892) began the public was eager to see if the rivals would renew their hostilities on this front.It was not disappointed.The first game began with Evans Gambit!

http://www.chess.com/article/view/clash-of-titanspart-ii

To be continued