Taylor Kingston wrote:


Correction: in the above passage, "November 1897" s/b November 1896.

Interesting, Taylor.

Steinitz' assertion about regaining the title by defaults seems not
dissimilar to those made by a certain Mr. Fischer about his 1992
rematch with Spassky.

I'm nothing if not controversial.

"So, you're nothing, then..." I hear you cry.

I read in the same Winter book which I quoted earlier that a remark
which Steinitz made in the Glasgow Weekly Herald, was quoted on p123 of
the American Chess Magazine 9/1899:

'No great player blundered oftener than I have done. I was champion of
the world for twenty-eight years because I was twenty years ahead of my
time. I played on certain principles, which neither Zukertort nor
anyone else of his time understood. The players of today, such as
Lasker, Tarrasch, Pillsbury, Schlechter and others have adopted my
principles, and as is only natural, they have improved upon what I
began, and that is the whole secret of the matter.'

Hmmm.

On Dec 14, 12:16 pm, "Mark Houlsby"
wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
Correction: in the above passage, "November 1897" s/b November 1896.Interesting, Taylor.

Steinitz' assertion about regaining the title by defaults seems not
dissimilar to those made by a certain Mr. Fischer about his 1992
rematch with Spassky.

Checking Landsberger, I see that Steinitz was even more impatient
than I recalled. Lasker, in a letter to Steinitz written in October
1894, promised a rematch to begin as early as October 1895, but
Steinitz's reply said this wasn't good enough, and claimed that Lasker
had earlier promised a rematch no later than December 1894. Steinitz
went on to say that, in his view, Lasker had forfeited the title as
early as 22 June 1894, i.e. less than a month after winning it!
Steinitz signed the letter "W. Steinitz, Chess Champion of the World."

I read in the same Winter book which I quoted earlier that a remark
which Steinitz made in the Glasgow Weekly Herald, was quoted on p123 of
the American Chess Magazine 9/1899:

'No great player blundered oftener than I have done.'

I've never seen any comparative analysis that might show the relative
incidence of blunders among Steinitz and his contemporaries. If indeed
he did blunder more often than, say, Chigorin, Zukertort, Winawer and
other top players of his time, I'd suspect it was due to his rather
nervous disposition. Chess got Steinitz rather worked up, causing
insomnia and other problems.
Among more modern champions, Euwe was the nervous type, and he had a
relatively high frequency of blunders.

'I was champion of
the world for twenty-eight years because I was twenty years ahead of my
time. I played on certain principles, which neither Zukertort nor
anyone else of his time understood. The players of today, such as
Lasker, Tarrasch, Pillsbury, Schlechter and others have adopted my
principles, and as is only natural, they have improved upon what I
began, and that is the whole secret of the matter.'

Essentially true. It's odd how in his writings, Steinitz could
alternate between combativeness and egotism on the one hand, and
modesty, even humility, on the other.

On 13 Dec 2006 06:54:01 -0800, "Taylor Kingston"
wrote:



On Dec 13, 9:22 am, "zdrakec" wrote:
"Some major tournaments have had controversies, e.g. the matter of the
clock at New York 1924"

Details, please?

See these articles at ChessCafe.com:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/lasker1.asc
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/lasker2.txt

I notice that these articles, consist, with the exception of an
introductory paragraph, of Emanuel Lasker's letters. Yet they all
assert copyright by Hanon W. Russell. Does he get copyright because
he translated the letters, or did he otherwise acquire the rights to
the original documents ?

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/lasker3.txt
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/lasker4.txt

On Dec 14, 3:40 pm, Mike Murray wrote:
On 13 Dec 2006 06:54:01 -0800, "Taylor Kingston"

wrote:

On Dec 13, 9:22 am, "zdrakec" wrote:
"Some major tournaments have had controversies, e.g. the matter of the
clock at New York 1924"

Details, please?

See these articles at ChessCafe.com:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/lasker1.asc
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/lasker2.txt

I notice that these articles, consist, with the exception of an
introductory paragraph, of Emanuel Lasker's letters. Yet they all
assert copyright by Hanon W. Russell. Does he get copyright because
he translated the letters, or did he otherwise acquire the rights to
the original documents ?

At the time these articles were first posted online, Hanon Russell
owned the actual letters. They were part of the Russell Collection,
which included scoresheets, telegrams, photos, letters going back as
far as Paulsen and even Philidor (I actually got to hold those in my
hands!), and other bits of chess memorabilia. Another interesting item
I saw was Fischer's own scoresheet from the "Game of the Century."
2,634 items all told, which Russell collected over several decades.
The collection has been very useful to historians. For example some
letters in it debunked the myth that New York 1927 was a sort of
candidates tournament.
The Lasker letters were written in English, I believe, so no
translation was involved. I'm not sure what the copyright assertion
covered -- the whole article, including the letters themselves, or just
Russell's own remarks. You'd have to ask him yourself.

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/lasker3.txt
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/lasker4.txt

Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Dec 12, 12:52 pm, "
wrote:
I have read about so many major chess events which had great
controversies that I thought it might be interesting to look at things
from a different perspective. What are some of the most important
events in chess history which did not have controversies associated
with them?

I don't think any major controversy surrounded various other WCh
matches, such as Lasker vs. Marshall or Janowski, the two Alekhine-Euwe
or Alekhine-Bogolyubov tilts, or Steinitz's vs. Chigorin or Gunsberg.

Actually, there was an interesting controversy regarding Steinitz vs
Gunsberg (the 1st of these which I have looked at), which may have had
far reaching implications.

At Gunsberg's insistence, reporters were completely barred from
attending the match, and admission was severely restricted. The idea,
of course, was that the players would profit from having all rights to
the game.

I would hardly call the results a success; there was far less coverage
of the match in the papers than any of the other major matches of the
time period. In fact, there was much less coverage even than the
Tschigorin vs Gunsberg match, where a title was not at stake. I am
guessing that this is why we do not know of any controversies between
the two principals.

Note that in the (heavily covered) Lasker Steinitz match, even
non-controversies exploded thanks to media exaggeration into
earth-shaking events; perhaps most spectacularly an offhand remark by
Lasker was misrepresented as an accusation that there were attempts to
poison him!

The possible big effect of the banning of reporters was that Steinitz
may have thought it actually was an effective way to get more money,
whereas such schemes almost never brought in the big bucks chess
players dreamed of. In the St Petersburg quadrangular tournament,
Steinitz persuaded Pillsbury to put up about $600 towards owning the
rights to all the games; this was a huge sum of money for the young
Pillsbury. According to some reports at the time, Pillsbury's collapse
in the tournament came when he found that all the English-speaking
papers were priniting the scores to the games; he became (according to
these reports; he would not use it as an excuse himself) depressed and
distracted, and slipped from 1st to 3d in the tournament. This probably
led to Lasker accepting a rematch with Steinitz instead of a challenge
from Pillsbury, changing in an important way the course of chess
history.

There was a silly tiny controversy regarding the match; Mason was upset
regarding what Gunsberg should be called, given that he had not
accepted a challenge from Mason.

It may also not be known that Gunsberg was often called a world
champion in press reports of the time. The notion that the championship
came entirely from matches was not at all settled. In fact, the NY
1889 tournament was openly advertised as being for the world
championship, even though Steinitz played a big part in organizing the
tournament.

I am not claiming these constitute a "major controversy", but I find
these issues fairly interesting in any event. Both Gunsberg and
Steinitz had their share of controversies; you would think that
together they would give us some good ones! Perhaps the lack of
reporters denied us some juicy stories.

Jerry Spinrad

Hullo Jerry:

"There was a silly tiny controversy regarding the match; Mason was
upset
regarding what Gunsberg should be called, given that he had not
accepted a challenge from Mason."

Ah, can you flesh this out a bit?

Warm regards,

zdrakec

wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Dec 12, 12:52 pm, "
wrote:
I have read about so many major chess events which had great
controversies that I thought it might be interesting to look at things
from a different perspective. What are some of the most important
events in chess history which did not have controversies associated
with them?

I don't think any major controversy surrounded various other WCh
matches, such as Lasker vs. Marshall or Janowski, the two Alekhine-Euwe
or Alekhine-Bogolyubov tilts, or Steinitz's vs. Chigorin or Gunsberg.

Actually, there was an interesting controversy regarding Steinitz vs
Gunsberg (the 1st of these which I have looked at), which may have had
far reaching implications.

At Gunsberg's insistence, reporters were completely barred from
attending the match, and admission was severely restricted. The idea,
of course, was that the players would profit from having all rights to
the game.

I would hardly call the results a success; there was far less coverage
of the match in the papers than any of the other major matches of the
time period. In fact, there was much less coverage even than the
Tschigorin vs Gunsberg match, where a title was not at stake. I am
guessing that this is why we do not know of any controversies between
the two principals.

Note that in the (heavily covered) Lasker Steinitz match, even
non-controversies exploded thanks to media exaggeration into
earth-shaking events; perhaps most spectacularly an offhand remark by
Lasker was misrepresented as an accusation that there were attempts to
poison him!

The possible big effect of the banning of reporters was that Steinitz
may have thought it actually was an effective way to get more money,
whereas such schemes almost never brought in the big bucks chess
players dreamed of. In the St Petersburg quadrangular tournament,
Steinitz persuaded Pillsbury to put up about $600 towards owning the
rights to all the games; this was a huge sum of money for the young
Pillsbury. According to some reports at the time, Pillsbury's collapse
in the tournament came when he found that all the English-speaking
papers were priniting the scores to the games; he became (according to
these reports; he would not use it as an excuse himself) depressed and
distracted, and slipped from 1st to 3d in the tournament. This probably
led to Lasker accepting a rematch with Steinitz instead of a challenge
from Pillsbury, changing in an important way the course of chess
history.

There was a silly tiny controversy regarding the match; Mason was upset
regarding what Gunsberg should be called, given that he had not
accepted a challenge from Mason.

It may also not be known that Gunsberg was often called a world
champion in press reports of the time. The notion that the championship
came entirely from matches was not at all settled. In fact, the NY
1889 tournament was openly advertised as being for the world
championship, even though Steinitz played a big part in organizing the
tournament.

I am not claiming these constitute a "major controversy", but I find
these issues fairly interesting in any event. Both Gunsberg and
Steinitz had their share of controversies; you would think that
together they would give us some good ones! Perhaps the lack of
reporters denied us some juicy stories.

Jerry Spinrad

wrote:
I have read about so many major chess events which had great
controversies that I thought it might be interesting to look at things
from a different perspective. What are some of the most important
events in chess history which did not have controversies associated
with them?

Jerry Spinrad

rgc- grudge match?

Brooklyn Eagle, July 13, 1890 (available online): "James Mason, the
famous Irish American chess player, protests vigorously against the
title of English champion being brought into the proposed
Steinitz-Gunsberg match until the latter gentleman has accepted his
defi to play for L50 or more a side."

Jerry Spinrad

zdrakec wrote:
Hullo Jerry:

"There was a silly tiny controversy regarding the match; Mason was
upset
regarding what Gunsberg should be called, given that he had not
accepted a challenge from Mason."

Ah, can you flesh this out a bit?

Warm regards,

zdrakec

wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Dec 12, 12:52 pm, "
wrote:
I have read about so many major chess events which had great
controversies that I thought it might be interesting to look at things
from a different perspective. What are some of the most important
events in chess history which did not have controversies associated
with them?

I don't think any major controversy surrounded various other WCh
matches, such as Lasker vs. Marshall or Janowski, the two Alekhine-Euwe
or Alekhine-Bogolyubov tilts, or Steinitz's vs. Chigorin or Gunsberg.

Actually, there was an interesting controversy regarding Steinitz vs
Gunsberg (the 1st of these which I have looked at), which may have had
far reaching implications.

At Gunsberg's insistence, reporters were completely barred from
attending the match, and admission was severely restricted. The idea,
of course, was that the players would profit from having all rights to
the game.

I would hardly call the results a success; there was far less coverage
of the match in the papers than any of the other major matches of the
time period. In fact, there was much less coverage even than the
Tschigorin vs Gunsberg match, where a title was not at stake. I am
guessing that this is why we do not know of any controversies between
the two principals.

Note that in the (heavily covered) Lasker Steinitz match, even
non-controversies exploded thanks to media exaggeration into
earth-shaking events; perhaps most spectacularly an offhand remark by
Lasker was misrepresented as an accusation that there were attempts to
poison him!

The possible big effect of the banning of reporters was that Steinitz
may have thought it actually was an effective way to get more money,
whereas such schemes almost never brought in the big bucks chess
players dreamed of. In the St Petersburg quadrangular tournament,
Steinitz persuaded Pillsbury to put up about $600 towards owning the
rights to all the games; this was a huge sum of money for the young
Pillsbury. According to some reports at the time, Pillsbury's collapse
in the tournament came when he found that all the English-speaking
papers were priniting the scores to the games; he became (according to
these reports; he would not use it as an excuse himself) depressed and
distracted, and slipped from 1st to 3d in the tournament. This probably
led to Lasker accepting a rematch with Steinitz instead of a challenge
from Pillsbury, changing in an important way the course of chess
history.

There was a silly tiny controversy regarding the match; Mason was upset
regarding what Gunsberg should be called, given that he had not
accepted a challenge from Mason.

It may also not be known that Gunsberg was often called a world
champion in press reports of the time. The notion that the championship
came entirely from matches was not at all settled. In fact, the NY
1889 tournament was openly advertised as being for the world
championship, even though Steinitz played a big part in organizing the
tournament.

I am not claiming these constitute a "major controversy", but I find
these issues fairly interesting in any event. Both Gunsberg and
Steinitz had their share of controversies; you would think that
together they would give us some good ones! Perhaps the lack of
reporters denied us some juicy stories.

Jerry Spinrad

Thanks!

wrote:
Brooklyn Eagle, July 13, 1890 (available online): "James Mason, the
famous Irish American chess player, protests vigorously against the
title of English champion being brought into the proposed
Steinitz-Gunsberg match until the latter gentleman has accepted his
defi to play for L50 or more a side."

Jerry Spinrad

zdrakec wrote:
Hullo Jerry:

"There was a silly tiny controversy regarding the match; Mason was
upset
regarding what Gunsberg should be called, given that he had not
accepted a challenge from Mason."

Ah, can you flesh this out a bit?

Warm regards,

zdrakec

wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Dec 12, 12:52 pm, "
wrote:
I have read about so many major chess events which had great
controversies that I thought it might be interesting to look at things
from a different perspective. What are some of the most important
events in chess history which did not have controversies associated
with them?

I don't think any major controversy surrounded various other WCh
matches, such as Lasker vs. Marshall or Janowski, the two Alekhine-Euwe
or Alekhine-Bogolyubov tilts, or Steinitz's vs. Chigorin or Gunsberg.

Actually, there was an interesting controversy regarding Steinitz vs
Gunsberg (the 1st of these which I have looked at), which may have had
far reaching implications.

At Gunsberg's insistence, reporters were completely barred from
attending the match, and admission was severely restricted. The idea,
of course, was that the players would profit from having all rights to
the game.

I would hardly call the results a success; there was far less coverage
of the match in the papers than any of the other major matches of the
time period. In fact, there was much less coverage even than the
Tschigorin vs Gunsberg match, where a title was not at stake. I am
guessing that this is why we do not know of any controversies between
the two principals.

Note that in the (heavily covered) Lasker Steinitz match, even
non-controversies exploded thanks to media exaggeration into
earth-shaking events; perhaps most spectacularly an offhand remark by
Lasker was misrepresented as an accusation that there were attempts to
poison him!

The possible big effect of the banning of reporters was that Steinitz
may have thought it actually was an effective way to get more money,
whereas such schemes almost never brought in the big bucks chess
players dreamed of. In the St Petersburg quadrangular tournament,
Steinitz persuaded Pillsbury to put up about $600 towards owning the
rights to all the games; this was a huge sum of money for the young
Pillsbury. According to some reports at the time, Pillsbury's collapse
in the tournament came when he found that all the English-speaking
papers were priniting the scores to the games; he became (according to
these reports; he would not use it as an excuse himself) depressed and
distracted, and slipped from 1st to 3d in the tournament. This probably
led to Lasker accepting a rematch with Steinitz instead of a challenge
from Pillsbury, changing in an important way the course of chess
history.

There was a silly tiny controversy regarding the match; Mason was upset
regarding what Gunsberg should be called, given that he had not
accepted a challenge from Mason.

It may also not be known that Gunsberg was often called a world
champion in press reports of the time. The notion that the championship
came entirely from matches was not at all settled. In fact, the NY
1889 tournament was openly advertised as being for the world
championship, even though Steinitz played a big part in organizing the
tournament.

I am not claiming these constitute a "major controversy", but I find
these issues fairly interesting in any event. Both Gunsberg and
Steinitz had their share of controversies; you would think that
together they would give us some good ones! Perhaps the lack of
reporters denied us some juicy stories.

Jerry Spinrad