Win Over Steinitz On This Date Foretold Lasker’s Rise To World Chess Champion
Almost lost in the chess history books is a phenomenal game played on this date in 1894. It was part of the 19-game match for the world championship between Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official world champion, and the 25-year-old upstart Emanuel Lasker, 32 years his junior, who had challenged him.
Before the match, Steinitz had dominated the chess world for decades and had been undefeated in match play since 1862. He also had held the title of world champion since 1886. Although Lasker was relatively untested in match play, Steinitz accepted the challenge from him and declared that he would win without any doubt. When Lasker won the first game on March 15, 1894, it shocked the chess world, which believed that he had little chance of winning the match.
The time control was 15 moves per hour, and the first player to win 10 games would be declared champion. The initial games of the match were played in New York (games 1-8) and Philadelphia (games 9-11). When the venue changed to Montreal, Lasker already had seven wins compared to just two for Steinitz. It was there that the match ended on May 26, 1894 with the 19th game, which Lasker won. It was his 10th win with just five losses and four draws.
The ninth game, played on April 14 that year in Philadelphia, gave Lasker his fifth win and was pivotal for his capturing the world championship from Steinitz. In a Ruy Lopez, Old Steinitz Defense, he succeeded in convincing the "father of positional chess" to resign before his 49th move. This game, close to balanced through the middlegame until inaccuracies by Steinitz sealed his fate, is representative of one of Lasker’s famous quotes: “I keep on fighting as long as my opponent can make a mistake.”
I keep on fighting as long as my opponent can make a mistake.
—Emanuel Lasker
In 1896-97, Lasker and Steinitz played again for the world championship. Lasker won but by an even more lopsided score (10 wins, 2 losses, 5 draws). As world champion, Lasker defended his title successfully five times, and he reigned for 27 years.
Ray Linville’s high point as a chess player occurred when he swiped the queen of GM Hikaru Nakamura in a 60-second bullet game in 2021. This game was reported in a “My Best Move” column of the Chess Life magazine, published by the U.S. Chess Federation.
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