Robert Burnt, New Yonkers Times–Game Of The Week: Spankin’ Some Ass With Stinkin’ Bill Steinitz
4 Comments Published by Robert Burnt December 23rd, 2006 in Chess, Robert Burnt, Whole Chess GamesWilliam “Stinkin’ Bill” Steinitz (1836–1900) was the self-proclaimed first World Chess Champion. He announced himself thus after a match with Anderssen in 1866, and nobody argued with him. He held the crown for twenty eight years, successfully defending the title against the likes of Blackburne, Zuckertort and Tchigorin. All accounts indicate that Stinkin’ Bill was a thoroughly unpleasant, irascible, narcissistic individual, who took especial pleasure in denigrating his opponents verbally and in print. His obnoxious behavior resulted in his expulsion from the leading chess clubs in England. Among other incidents, he is said to have spat upon an opponent–possibly Blackburne–who promptly knocked his head through a window. Steinitz lost the title in 1894 to Emanuel Lasker, the latter successfully defended against Steinitz in a rematch two years later. Steinitz died in New York in 1900, impoverished and, like Morphy and Rubinstein, quite insane. Near the end, he believed he could move chess pieces with electric currents from his brain. Steinitz is today regarded as a founder of modern chess strategy. His sole weakness as a player, according to Lasker: “He was pig-headed.”
The game below finds Stinkin’ Bill taking on Pilhal in Vienna, 1862. It’s a rout from the get-go.
[Click HERE for floating game board.]
Steinitz/Pilhal: Evan’s Gambit. Vienna 1862. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 (Captain Evan’s gambit. White sacs a pawn to deflect the bishop, gaining time to prepare d4)…Bb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.0-0 Nf6 7.d4 (White gets the jumbo center)…ed 8.Ba3 d6 9.e5 de (if 9….Ne5 10.Ne5 de 11.Qb3 Qd7 12.Re1 etc.) 10.Qb3 Qd7 11.Re1 Qf5 12.Bb5 Nd7 (Black’s already lost. The pressure on e5 is too much.) 13.Qd5 Bc3 14.Nc3 dc 15.Ne5 Ne7 16.Nd7! Qd5 (There is no defense for Black, if 16….c6 17.Re7+ Kd8 18.Qf5…) 17.Nf6+ Kf8 18.Be7#
James Schroeder says that there is a factual error in this article: that Steinitz did not declare himself to be world champion after defeating Anderssen in 1866, that he never declared himself to be world champion while Morphy was alive, and that it was not until his match with Zuckertort in 1886 that he used the term “World Champion”.
Regarding Steinitz’s character, Schroeder says, “It should not be forgotten that after William Steinitz lost game 19 of the 1894 World Championship he stood up and called for three cheers for the new World Champion.”
As for me, I think that calling the chess hero “Stinkin’ Bill” is disrespectful. But it seems Robert Burnt does not let such a consideration get in the way of a snappy headline. It does not surprise me that the New Yonkers Times – a paper for which a google search does not find one serious news story – would pick him up.
The origins of the “World Champion” title are somewhat murky. Harold C. Schonberg in Grandmasters of Chess (Norton, 1981) writes the following:
“Steinitz remained in London as a chess professional. Then came his match with Anderssen in 1866. This encounter was played under a set of rules designed to cope with the interminable play of previous matches. A time limit of 20/2 was established, the time measured by sand glasses. All games were to be completed at one sitting, without any adjournments except for a 115 minute interval after four hours of play. The first player to take 8 games would be the winner. Steinitz won, 8-6.
When Morphy previously had defeated Anderssen it was a chess match, no more. But when Steinitz won, he trumpeted the fact everywhere and announced that he was the world’s champion. There was no dispute about the claim; no magazines, newspapers, or, indeed the chess world rose to object.”
In The Oxford Companion to Chess, ed. Hooper & Whyld (Oxford Press, 1984) the entry on Steinitz states the following: “…in Sept. 1872 he decisively beat Zukertort in match play (+7=4-1). At this time Lowenthal wrote: ‘Mr. Steinitz may be fairly regarded as the present occupant of the exceptional position formerly held by Mr. Morphy’, and Burn wrote that Steinitz was ‘now probably the strongest living player.’ …Zukertort’s success in the London tournament of 1883 caused some to claim he was the world’s best player, notwithstanding his crushing defeat at the hands of Steinitz in 1872; and a second match was played in 1886, in the cities of New York, St. Louis, and New Orleans. They agreed that the first to win 10 games should be declared world champion, but that if each won 9 the title would not be awarded.” World Champion Steinitz is welcome to seek litigation against Robert Burnt if he thinks he has been libeled.
We notice that Robert Burnt’s source for the claim that Steinitz declared himself “world champion” before winning the 1886 match with Zuckertort is Harold C. Schonberg in Grandmasters of Chess, a book that James Schroeder found “has no historical value and is 90% fiction”. (See Book Mention: Grandmasters of Chess by Harold Schonberg.) By chance, we posted Schroeder’s short review of that book shortly after Burnt’s comment above, though Schroeder wrote it last year. We would like to post Schroeder’s material more quickly, but the rat race seems to delay us.
Also, I would like to thank Robert Burnt for taking time out from his job at the New Yonkers Times to comment here.
“Steinitz never claimed to be world champion while Morphy was alive.” Schroeder says that is well-known and has been published in many books and magazines.