The professional game of chess has always been the prerogative of intellectuals with analytical and strategic thinking. There are a huge number of talented chess players in the world, but the very first world champion to receive official status was the Austrian chess player Wilhelm Steinitz.
Biography of Wilhelm Steinitz
Wilhelm Steinitz was born in 1836 in Prague, the son of a poor Jewish tailor. After reaching adulthood, Wilhelm moved to Vienna, dreaming of becoming a mathematician, but he did not have enough money for education at the University of Vienna and Steinitz began to earn money by playing chess with the regulars of local cafes.
Thanks to her unusual part-time job, the future chess tournament star was able to hone her playing skills to a brilliant level.
For the first time, Wilhelm begins to participate in professional games since 1859, after moving to England. In addition to chess tournaments, Steinitz worked in the field of chess journalism, but a number of brilliant victories at the world "monsters" of chess brought him fame and real success. In addition to winning blitzkriegs, Wilhelm introduced many innovative strategies and ideas into chess. Wilhelm Steinitz held the title of the first world chess champion for eight years, but in 1894 he was defeated by Emmanuel Lasker.
Steinitz Championship
Steinitz gained the status of the first world champion after a crushing victory over Johann Zukertort, with whom Wilhelm played in 1886 in the first match in the history of chess for the title of world champion. Then Steinitz won ten games, receiving five defeats and ending another five rounds in a draw. In his later career, Steinitz defended his champion title three more times in the tournaments of 1889 and 1992 with Mikhail Chigorin and Isidor Gunsberg - in 1890-1891.
Wilhelm Steinitz also owns the victory over the world leading player Adolf Andersen.
Thanks to his impeccable strategy and logical thinking, Wilhelm won chess tournaments against all the then stars of world fights. For the first time he lost the game to Harry Nelson Pillsberry, and two years later his world title passed to Emmanuel Lasker, who became the second world chess champion. After leaving the "big chess" Steinitz founded a positional school of chess games, and also began to publish with the help of one New York publishing house "International Journal of Chess". In addition, Wilhelm became the author of two volumes of The Modern School of Chess.
The first world chess champion, whose favorite position was the "closed" move, characterized by two fixed pawns on both sides, died on August 12, 1900. Steinitz spent his last years in New York.
