Summary of world chess championships

1886: Steinitz/Zukertort. 20 games, 10-5-5. Ended by 10 wins, would have drawn at 9-9 with no champion

1889: Steinitz/Chigorin. 17 games, 10-6-1. Ended by 10,5 points, would have drawn at 10-10 points with incumbent keeping

1891: Steinitz/Gunsberg,. 19 games, 6-4-9.

1892: Steinitz/Chigorin. 23 games, 10-8-5. Ended by 10 wins, would have drawn at 9-9 wins with incumbent keeping

1894: Steinitz/Lasker. 19 games, 5-10-4. Ended by 10 wins.

1897: Lasker/Steinitz. 17 games, 10-2-5. Ended by 10 wins.

1907: Lasker/Marshall. 15 games, 8-0-7. Ended by 8 wins.

1908: Lasker/Tarrasch. 16 games, 8-3-5. Ended by 8 wins.

1910: Lasker/Schlechter. 10 games, 1-1-8. Not clear what the end condition was; drawn incumbent kept title.

1910: Lasker/Janowski. 11 games, 8-0-3. Ended by 8 wins.

1921: Lasker/Capablanca. 14 games, 4-0-10. Ended by resignation. Would have ended by 8 wins or 12,5 points, or drawn at 12-12 points with Lasker resigning.

1927: Capablanca/Alekhine. 34 games, 6-3-25. Ended by 6 wins, draw condition unknown.

1929: Alekhine/Bogoljubov. 25 games, 11-5-9. Ended by 15,5 points

1934: Alekhine/Bogoljubov. 26 games, 8-3-15. Ended by 15,5 points

1935: Alekhine/Euwe. 30 games, 8-9-13. Ended by 15,5 points

ok, keep going

Found that much like it has already been compiled:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Chess_Championships

So continuing:

1937: Euwe/Alekhine. 25 games, 10-4-11. Ended by 15,5 points

Possibly of interest:

The Big Book of World Chess Championships by Andre Schulz

http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/john-watson-book-review-115-kings-of-chess

Before 1998, the only chess championships of 12 or less matches were the two 1910 ones.

If I remember correctly, the Janowski match was played until one of the players had eight victories, and Lasker had his 8th victory by game 11.

Yes - so the overwhelming superiority of Lasker justified the brevity of the match.

Now, the only world chess championship with express tiebreaks before 1998 was Chigorin´s challenge to Steinitz in 1892. And the tiebreaks were, in the end, 3 matches of slow chess in addition to the original 20.

There have been a number of World Chess Championships which were tied and the incumbent kept the title by right of incumbent - tying a World Chess Champion at a championship challenge confers no status on the tied challenger. So Schlechter in 1910, Bronstein in 1951, Smyslov in 1954, Kasparov in 1984, Karpov in 1987, Leko in 2004.