Steinitz Against The French Defence. Part One.

Good afternoon everyone. WARNING! This is one of my stupidly large blogs - lots in the game notes - so just pop in and out when you have time. Cheers!

O.K. I have been back to what I really do - most of my blogs are 'throwaways' these days. I am not conceited enough to describe myself as either a 'historian' or a 'writer'. I leave such self applied titles to my self-determined 'betters'!

What I have done for 50 years + now is to examine chess players across history in an objective way. Study everything, try to understand them, and put them into the context of their era. It's my thing.

So, 'Let's start at the very beginning' as the song goes. ( No, no oldie points for knowing what I am talking about!) 

I have just got round to getting my head into the book I bought myself for Christmas.

I first studied Steinitz because the wonderful Bernhard Cafferty suggested that I should. Thanks Bernhard! A journey filled with joy. I already had a collection of all his games in my library, but I just love the Weltgeschichte books. The best browsing books ever produced.

This one is unusual in that it has a large introductory section full of great stuff, including pictures like the header one here - 

and observations on Steinitz written by someone who had studied him like I have. 

I remembered a project that I never got round to - studying all Steinitz's games against the French Defence. 

Historical context. Back in the 19th century most games started with 1.e4 e5. The main alternative was the French Defence - the 'King's Pawn One Sneak' as someone called it back then.

Here's a thing. I have never seen anyone call Steinitz a 'creative player'. In my opinion he was one of the most creative players ever! A fountain of chess ideas beyond what was known at the time. The book mentioned quotes him as saying 'Anderssen and Paulsen were my teachers', which indeed they were. He studied everything his contemporaries were doing. But he also came up with LOTS of new ideas.

He played very little between two Vienna tournaments - 1873 and 1882. But he worked a lot on chess in that period - studying what was being done and coming up with new ideas.

At the 1882 tournament he unloaded a bagful of ideas.

Before I forget, you can look at all that stuff in my friend Steakanator's excellent blogs on the tournament ( I am flowing here, so apologies for not posting the links!)

He played some unusual - and debateable ideas as Black, and as White played wild King's Gambits, Queen's Gambits in a pretty new way, even the English opening in one game iirc. And then there was his new system against the French Defence.

1.e4 e6; 2.e5!?

What was the idea? A whole new system. Some will tell you that the 'The Hypermoderns' re-wrote chess thinking. Well, Steinitz beat them to some of their ideas by decades, as you will see here. Compare Niemzowitsch's comments on his famous  game with Salwe in the French Defence ( the whole opening line had been analysed much earlier btw,) with Steinitz's comments to one of the last games he played with 2.e5, at the London 1883 tournament.

The Niemzowitsch - Salwe game, with a fraction of Niemzowitsch's comments. I am sure you all have his books to refer to.

''which I originated'' that always makes me smile!

The first player to find himself up against the idea was Bernhard Fleissig.

I first saw this game many years ago in one of Euwe's books as I mention in the notes.

I am going to throw in this game next, even though it is not a French Defence! The point is to show that Steinitz hadn't come up with a new opening variation - he had come up with a new system. An opening concept linked to a middle game plan.

Louis Paulsen

was a chess revolutionary in his own right. In his obituary of him Steinitz says that Paulsen was as much responsible for the 'Modern School' as he himself was. Well, Lasker wrote of his defeating Steinitz as 'the player defeating the thinker'. Steinitz was not only a thinker, he was a very strong practical player - more so than the thinker Paulsen. As a side note, both were noted as very slow players. Some 'hypermodern chess' before any of the hypermoderns were born. No kidding. 

Let's put this one here, Steinitz's win against Adolf Schwartz - a player with the same reputation for 'solid chess' as Noa, and a diehard Frenchie. This game is rather different to his loss to Blackburne the previous year!

Steinitz and Winawer

finished equal first in the tournament, and Steinitz's new system featured strongly.

In the two game play off for first prize Winawer repeated the French, and Steinitz again met it with 2.e5. Well, that game took quite a different course! A wide open slugfest. Steinitz met Winawer's attempt to sharpen things by going all in. It's a famous game. @Steakanator has annotated it in his blog.

Anyone who describes Steinitz as a dull player, or the antithesis of 'romantic chess' has clearly never studied his games in their entirety. The game.

There is a sequel to that game. It was, of course, much published and analysed at the time. It seems that two well known amateurs on different sides of the Atlantic independently found an improvement on White's play. The Nottingham chess club legend Sigmund, or Sigismund Hamel, who seems to have been a fascinating character :-

https://mannchess.org.uk/People/Hamel,%20Sigismund.htm  

And the New Orleans lawyer friend of Morphy, James McConnell.

In 1886 Steinitz famously visited New Orleans, and met Morphy in person - the stipulation being that they didn't talk about chess! Whilst he was there he played an analytical debate game against McConnell - who may be distantly related to my wife, would you believe!!

Chessgames.com gives Steinitz's - unsourced, and I can't be bothered to go through the books to find the original ( presumably I.C.M) notes. The idea Hamel and McConnell discovered was this wonderful move 16.h4!! Well, modern engines point it out instantly, but for us humans it is a really wonderful move - no wonder Steinitz didn't find it in the Winawer game.

I will let you put the analysis there onto a board for yourselves! It all seems correct to me. So Steinitz's judgement at the board seems to have been sound - he just didn't find the one move to prove it was. Such is chess!

Lets throw in this picture from the Weltgeschichte book. A wonderful copy of a famous one - a much better one than the versions you will find via google images!!

I am sure that modern image enhancement technology would improve it even more, so if you are tech minded - I am not - feel free to do that stuff and post it in the comments. That would be good!

Well, after the Vienna tournament Steinitz repeated his 2.e5 idea a few times ( mixed in with a couple of other experiments) in his matches and the London 1883 tournament, before going on to some new ideas which I will get to in other blogs. A couple of nice games.

Dion/Dionismus Martinez 

was a significant figure in American chess. A game from a match of his with Steinitz. I have no idea what 2...a6 is all about! And yes, Steinitz could play endgames too.

This next one is particularly interesting to me for historical reasons. At the end of 1882 Steinitz played a match with Alexander Sellman - he was quite a story in his own right, but this is a long enough blog as it is!

The first game of the match will be in a future blog. For some reason Steinitz then went back to the 2.e5 line in his next game with White. And this game is interesting in itself 

So, onto 'The Feature Game'. Max Weiss

was a player I really enjoy looking at - I even did a small blog on him. He had clearly looked at the Fleissig game and came armed with the 2...c5 ides which you have seen earlier in all this.

What happened next was one of the absolutely most remarkable games in chess history on a number of levels. With reference to the Niemzowitsch stuff above, he claimed the concept of 'overprotection' as his invention iirc. Many years later Yasser Sierawan questioned the whole idea, saying that nobody had actually won a game with it ( on memory here, so feel free to correct me!)

I first came across this game in R.N.Coles' book 'Dynamic Chess'. A great spot on his part! Steinitz's new system in all it's glory. Something unique in chess up to that point, and it would take many years until it could be properly appreciated. I once wrote that studying Rubinstein's games with an engine is like studying the universe with a microscope. Studying this game in the light of later understanding is like studying a modern day flat track bully T20 cricket batsman, armed with a modern bat, all the protective equipment, and under 16 game boundaries, with Gilbert Jessop. 

Put into historical context, this is a very, very special game, by a very, very special player.

Indeed - far too much here. I hope you came back a few times to get through it all. Some more Steinitz against the French Defence to come. Thanks for indulging me. Take care.