Life (1836-1900)
Championship years (1886 – 1894)
Studying the biography and career of Champions, involuntarily inspired respect and admiration for this gifted and strong personalities. But some of them are of deep resonance in my soul and encouraged to change for the better, to do something very important for global history…one of these persons was the first in the history of chess, the world champion – Wilhelm Steinitz!
Wilhelm Steinitz was a kind of revolutionary chess art. Exactly, during his chess rule, chess gained the status of a scientific character, leaving your romantic- combinative portrait in the strict frame of the theory of positional games, the founder of which was the Great Steinitz!
The career and achievements
Hailing from a family of tailor Joseph-Solomon Steinitz, Wolf (real name, given at birth) proved to the world that not necessarily have a genetic predisposition to chess, to achieve success in this field.
Wilhelm Steinitz became acquainted with the rules of chess at age 12. Chess greatly impressed a talented young man and became his hobby, but his professional career, as a player, he started a little later…after he was expelled from the Vienna Polytechnic Institute!
Like most of his contemporaries, at the beginning of his chess career, Steinitz preferred combinational style of play, but having an inquisitive mind, and living the chess champion came to realize that in a chess game there is more than romance combinational intricacies. So, he began to show interest in the patterns that were observed in chess. This area of his work resulted in a serious work, which is invaluable for the world chess history and is the starting point of the status of chess as a science.
If I had to compare the discoveries of Wilhelm Steinitz in the chess world with discoveries of scientists in science, it can be compared with Mendeleev who created the periodic table, which is invaluable for modern science!
Thanks to Steinitz in the chess world there are such basic concepts as the measurement position, the game plan. Of particular importance, Wilhelm Steinitz, gave the pawn structure and evaluate the situation depending on its characteristics. He closely studied this subject and often published their research in the chess literature. So, one of his chess career was journalism. William was an avid chess journalist, discussed in the press with the leading chess players of his time, among which special attention was occupied by Siegbert Tarrasch. These discussions led to various experiments at the chess Board that, at times, discouraged by the whole chess world, but does not interfere with the genius to stay among the leaders in the tournament…
The closest followers of the new school positional games were Paulsen and Emmanuel Lasker. As a psychologist and philosopher, and last in the Wilhelm Steinitz saw the bright philosophical beginning!
But his main objective was the chess throne! At the age of fifty years, Wilhelm Steinitz came to your goal! Defeating his rival of Zukertort (1886).
Delights reaction Steinitz on proposals for further matches for the title. So he dismissed opponents, who have not shown consistent results in international tournaments and, conversely, accepted calls those rivals with whom he had a bad score! Thus Wilhelm Steinitz sought to the absolute championship!
As befits the genius of his time, Wilhelm Steinitz was very ambitious and man. He had implicit faith in himself and the following phrase, which he expressed in an interview before the upcoming tournament in Vienna (1882), is testimony to that fact! When asked to name a favorite for the next tournament…he called himself! He added: “ I Have the best chance, because the opponents are weaker. I don’t have to play a match with used to argue against Steinitz, and other players – have!”
Of course, this article does not describe all of the features of this amazing personality, but I want only to add that Wilhelm Steinitz, who started, as a tactician and, in consequence, created the theory of positional games, became the owner of a new style and acquired the status of a pioneer, whose experience is highly valued by modern professionals, both for theory and for a basic understanding of chess to this day!
Author Ava Suleimanova
project partner Fenix-64