One of my favorite chess players of all time is the fiery, handsome, manly gamiteer, Mikhail Chigorin.
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His serious chess career started in 1874, the year he played this daring double Muzio against Davydow in Petersburg.
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In his 1879 match with his former teacher, Emanuel Schiffers, Chigorin doesn't compromise nor back down in the Exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez.
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Chigorin plays a Scotch Gambit in the Italian Game against his old nemesis Semyon Alapin in 1885. In 1879, the Lithuanian Alapin and Chigorin tied for 1st in the St. Petersburg tournament.
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Chigorin plays "that most beautiful of openings," the Evans Gambit, against Steinitz and picks the World Champion apart almost effortlessly. Steinitz never solved blacks problems with the Evans Gambit. Lasker solved it in his first important game playing against it, proving Morphy's prediction that white is essentially lost, despite white's apparent advantage (before Lasker). Kasparov later rejuvenated the opening for a short time.
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Like Morphy, Chigorin played fearless chess, supremely confident in his abilities, always playing to win. As both an artist and a theorist, he was first rejected by the Soviets who valued only the scientific approach as promoting the Soviet ideals. Later, he was rather perversely adopted as the "Father of Soviet Chess."
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