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Zukertort vs Steinitz 1886
New York / St. Louis / New Orleans

Born in Prague, Wilhelm Steinitz was regarded the best player in the world ever since his victory over Adolf Anderssen in their 1866 match.1

 Steinitz and Zukertort, 1886
 Zukertort (left) and Steinitz.
The Polish-Jewish master Johannes Zukertort gained worldwide recognition when he won the international tournament in Paris, 1878. In 1883, he won the international tournament in London, defeating nearly every leading player in the world. Steinitz, who placed second, trailed Zukertort by three full points. After such a commanding performance, Zukertort was considered by many to be the unofficial World Champion.2

In 1886 these two great chess minds sat down to play what is now regarded by most chess historians as the first official World Chess Championship. The conditions were that the first player to achieve 10 wins (draws not counting) would be crowned champion. (This method, "first to 10 wins", was to become the center of a controversy almost a hundred years later, when Fischer and FIDE came to an impasse over the World Championship format.)

Steinitz suffered a series of defeats at the beginning of the match, but soon overcame his deficit. In the 20th game, Steinitz played a combination right out of the opening which netted Zukertort's queen, forcing him to resign, ending the match with a score of 10 to 5.

click on a game number to replay game 1234567891011121314151617181920
Zukertort0111100½0½001½½0½000
Steinitz1000011½1½110½½1½111

FINAL SCORE:  Steinitz 10;  Zukertort 5 (5 draws)
Reference: game collection WCC Index [Zukertort-Steinitz 1886]

NOTABLE GAMES   [what is this?]
    · Game #19     Zukertort vs Steinitz, 1886     0-1
    · Game #9     Zukertort vs Steinitz, 1886     0-1
    · Game #1     Zukertort vs Steinitz, 1886     0-1

1 William Steinitz article at Wikipedia.com
2 Johannes Zukertort article at Wikipedia.com

Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship Match (1886)

 page 1 of 1; 20 games  PGN Download 
Game  ResultMoves Year Event/LocaleOpening
1. Zukertort vs Steinitz 0-146 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchD10 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
2. Steinitz vs Zukertort 0-146 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC47 Four Knights
3. Zukertort vs Steinitz 1-047 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchD10 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
4. Steinitz vs Zukertort 0-139 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC67 Ruy Lopez
5. Zukertort vs Steinitz 1-032 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchD10 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
6. Steinitz vs Zukertort 1-061 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC67 Ruy Lopez
7. Zukertort vs Steinitz 0-135 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchD35 Queen's Gambit Declined
8. Steinitz vs Zukertort ½-½22 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC67 Ruy Lopez
9. Zukertort vs Steinitz 0-138 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchD37 Queen's Gambit Declined
10. Steinitz vs Zukertort ½-½21 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC67 Ruy Lopez
11. Zukertort vs Steinitz 0-142 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC49 Four Knights
12. Steinitz vs Zukertort 1-044 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC67 Ruy Lopez
13. Zukertort vs Steinitz 1-086 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchD35 Queen's Gambit Declined
14. Steinitz vs Zukertort ½-½48 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC67 Ruy Lopez
15. Zukertort vs Steinitz ½-½49 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchD50 Queen's Gambit Declined
16. Steinitz vs Zukertort 1-049 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense
17. Zukertort vs Steinitz ½-½52 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchD55 Queen's Gambit Declined
18. Steinitz vs Zukertort 1-040 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense
19. Zukertort vs Steinitz 0-129 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchD53 Queen's Gambit Declined
20. Steinitz vs Zukertort 1-019 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort World Championship MatchC25 Vienna
 page 1 of 1; 20 games  PGN Download 
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2)  
 

Behind the Scenes of the WCC

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 4 OF 4 ·  Later Kibitzing >
Sep-23-07   gauer: Just noticed that Game Collection: 1st World Championship Match has this listed as a 24 game match, when the claim is that games 10, & 2 of the final four scores were missing. Is this the case, or was the match really only 20 rounds.

Also of note is that colour alternation may or may not have been preserved, until possibly the final couple of games, where the Challenger / Trailer was forced to play for a win, earlier, in the match, to stay alive. Just speculation, though, & it would be interesting to hear more of how the pre-match conditions were arranged.

Sep-23-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Gypsy: <gauer> Match was first to 10 wins. Exactly 20 games were played. There also was a 9:9 clause for declaring the match drawn. Later this was lowered to 8:8.
Feb-22-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: Zukertort winning 4 games in the row at the beginning of the match did NOTHING to hurt Steinitz's confidence, huh. After that, Steinitz pretty much wiped Zukertort off the board!

Personally, I prefer Zukertort over Steinitz (that is, if I was alive in 1886)

Apr-18-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Knight13: I bet after the 5th game of this match people started betting bunch of money on Zukertort that he's gonna win, thus losing lots and lots of money at the end.
Apr-18-08   Petrosianic: You bet that they bet? That's just too weird!
Jul-20-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  talisman: who played a match for the world championship and couldn't make the drop down list?

next question.

who deserves to be on the drop down list more?
A.Leonid Stein
B.J. Zukertort
C.Both

Jul-21-08   Petrosianic: <talisman> <who played a match for the world championship and couldn't make the drop down list?>

Gunsberg?

I don't think the drop down list is meant to be a Hall of Fame, it's supposed to be a quicker way to access the players whose games are viewed most often. That's probably why Zukertort isn't there. People talk about this match a lot, but few actually play over the games.

Do you use the drop down list, BTW? I rarely bother with it, I usually find it quicker to just type in a name manually.

Jul-21-08   RookFile: It's amazing that Zukertort won 4 games in a row, and then crashed like he did. Drugs will do that to you, I guess.
Jul-21-08   sneaky pete: <... to access the players whose games are viewed most often>

Not true. Kibitzers who look up games by certain players or certain games by players tend to leave a scent mark, like <Good game> or <White should have played 25.Bxf7+ .. with a winning attack> or <Alekhine was drunk>. Nobodies like Zukertort or Stein have kibitzes on 50% or more of their games. The DD however lists dozens of players (yes, they are GM's, yes, they are rated over 2600) in whose games no one here seems really interested, with 10% or less kibitzed on. When you find a kibitz, it's usually something like: <Why is this game (a 15 move draw against Kramnik from 1992) one of his notable games?>

(I know why that is, I'm responsible for it).

Jul-21-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  talisman: Nobodies like Stein...(long thoughtful pause). "I'm not going to say anything because i always admired your work with THE FLYING BURRITO BROS.".
Jul-21-08   Petrosianic: <Not true. Kibitzers who look up games by certain players or certain games by players tend to leave a scent mark,>

You're saying the Pulldown list is automated? I never knew that.

<The DD however lists dozens of players (yes, they are GM's, yes, they are rated over 2600) in whose games no one here seems really interested, with 10% or less kibitzed on.>

How do you access this list? I haven't seen it yet.

Jul-21-08   sneaky pete: <talisman> That <nobodies> was irony (you know, like goldie or brownie, but then made of iron), because the cg.com administrators don't think them worthy of a spot on the dd list.

<Petrosianic> Did you ever learn to read?

Jul-21-08   Petrosianic: <Petrosianic> <Did you ever learn to read?>

Did you ever learn to think? What would be the point of asking a question in print of someone who didn't know how to read? Engage brain before putting mouth in motion (or fingers in this case).

To add insult to injury, I'm afraid the error was yours. I wasn't asking how to access the Drop Down Menu, I was asking if there was an easy way to see what percent of players games had been commented on (something that you did <not> in fact explain).

I assumed you had enough of a life not to have gone through every single game of every single player on the DD list, and counted manually what percent of each of their games had been kibitzed. I see now that I was probably wrong about that. Carry on.

Jul-22-08   Lutwidge: The Lloyd puzzle is really clever on a lot of levels.
Jul-23-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  talisman: <sneaky pete> irony is not knowing your namesake.
Jul-23-08   sneaky pete: <talisman> I do know him, I even cherish some Gram Parsons records on which he played, but I'm named after the original sneaky pete from the prohibition era.

<Petrosianic> You don't know what a rhetorical question is, do you?

Jul-31-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  nimh: Is it true that they used the historical board which Morphy did his feats on?
Jul-31-08   Petrosianic: I don't think there's any one historical board that Morphy always played on, though I think it's true that the New Orleans leg of the match used a board that Morphy had used. I don't know what feats, if any, he'd done on that particular board. (it sounds rather messy when we describe it this way, actually).

Jul-31-08   RookFile: I think he did a headstand on that board.
Aug-02-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  nimh: I mean the board he used in 1857 at the 1st American Chess Congress. Did he use the single board for all the games? If yes, then it may be true; they even waited for Morphy's death before the first WC match was started. Playing on the Board would truly be a good way to commemorate the greatest genius up to then.
Sep-29-08   ravel5184: aeiou!
Dec-02-08   kader hussain: move
Dec-16-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  amadeus: Bird's almost non-biased thoughts on the match
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext...

<Take the time limit alone for two players of equal reputation, who may not be disturbed or distracted by the clocks, a difference in the time limit of ten or even five moves an hour would in some cases turn the scale between them. (...) a very notable example: Steinitz and Zukertort.

After the Criterion Great Tournament of 1883 opinions differed much as to which of these was the stronger player, but after the match at 15 moves an hour, in the United States, won by Steinitz with a score of 10 to 5, the palm has been generally awarded to Steinitz, and without any qualification whatever the term of champion of the chess world has been universally accorded to him and still continues to be so, notwithstanding the superior claims of Dr. Tarrasch based upon victory in three successive International Chess Tournaments, Breslan 1889, Manchester 1890, and Dresden in 1892, in the two first named not losing a single game, and in the last, one only, feats never accomplished by Steinitz.

Zukertort was undoubtedly a far more ready, and we have long thought a finer player than Steinitz, but skill was so nicely balanced between them that a very slight variation or acceleration in rate would have been in Zukertort's favour. At 25 moves an hour or at any faster rate it would have been odds on Zukertort, at 15 moves an hour or less it would have been safer to back Steinitz. Staunton, Kolisch, and Paulsen seem to have been the slowest of the players, 10 moves an hour would suit them better than 15, a 10 or 12 hour game with them was not uncommon...>

Apr-18-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  talisman: Zukertort displays for the photographer his new invention, which never really caught on, "The pointy toe sandal for men".
Jun-30-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  talisman: steinitz falls asleep and zukertort looks perplexed.
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