On Apr 21, 11:51*am, RookHouse wrote:
On Apr 21, 9:30*am, wrote:

"[A]fter his second meeting with Lasker, at Moscow, Russia, in 1897,
where he again met defeat, his decline was rapid. *After this second
defeat he almost entirely discarded all thoughts of the games and
devoted himself to other matters. *He became an enthusiastic believer
in the Kneipp cure."

* This gives the impression that Steinitz gave up up chess after
losing to Lasker in January 1897. That's not at all true. He played in
four tournaments 1897-1899, all of them involving top-level masters,
and overall he did very well, failing to win a prize only in his very
last event, London 1899. His combined score in these four events was
+35 -24 =23.

Yeah, I thought that was very odd as well. *I even took a quick look
at the remainder of the obituary (Part 2 of which I will post
tomorrow) and it even repeats that he never played competitive chess
again after his 1897 defeat at the hands of Lasker.

If we count only the 1897-98 tournaments, Steinitz scored +28 -12
=16. He finished =1st of 3 at New York, 4th of 19 at Vienna, and 5th
of 16 at Cologne. The latter two events were particularly impressive.
At Vienna he placed behind only Pillsbury, Tarrasch and Janowski,
ahead of Schlechter, Burn, Chigorin, Lipke, Maroczy, Alapin,
Blackburne, Schiffers, Marco, Showalter, Walbrodt, Halprin, Caro,
Baird and Trenchard. At Cologne he was behind Burn, Charousek,
Chigorin and W. Cohn, but ahead of Schlechter, Showalter, Berger,
Janowski, Popiel, Schiffers, von Gottschall, Albin, Heinrichsen, Fritz
and Schallop. Not bad for an old man!

It was always my understanding that his poor performance in the 1899
London tournament was "the straw that broke the camel's back".

Yes, his minus score (+8 -12 =7) must have told him the jig was up,
though in mitigation the guys above him in the standings were prettty
good: Lasker, Janowski, Maroczy, Pillsbury, Schlechter, Blackburne,
Chigorin, Showalter and Mason. He went downhill pretty fast after
that. A sad end to a difficult life full of triumphs and tragedies.