Wilhelm Steinitz

William Steinitz (born Wilhelm Steinitz; May 14, 1836 – August 12, 1900) was a Bohemian-Austrian, and later American, chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first World Chess Champion. He was also a highly influential writer and chess theoretician.

When discussing chess history from the 1850s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz could be effectively considered the champion from an earlier time, perhaps as early as 1866. Steinitz lost his title to Emanuel Lasker in 1894, and lost a rematch in 1896–97.

Statistical rating systems give Steinitz a rather low ranking among world champions, mainly because he took several long breaks from competitive play. However, an analysis based on one of these rating systems shows that he was one of the most dominant players in the history of the game. Steinitz was unbeaten in match play for 32 years, from 1862 to 1894.

Although Steinitz became "world number one" by winning in the all-out attacking style that was common in the 1860s, he unveiled in 1873 a new style of play, and demonstrated that it was superior to the previous style. His new style was controversial and some even branded it as "cowardly", but many of Steinitz's games showed that it could also set up attacks as ferocious as those of the old school.

Steinitz was also a prolific writer on chess, and defended his new ideas vigorously. The debate was so bitter and sometimes abusive that it became known as the "Ink War". By the early 1890s, Steinitz's approach was widely accepted, and the next generation of top players acknowledged their debt to him, most notably his successor as world champion, Emanuel Lasker.

Traditional accounts of Steinitz's character depict him as ill-tempered and aggressive, but more recent research shows that he had long and friendly relationships with some players and chess organizations. Most notably from 1888 to 1889 he co-operated with the American Chess Congress in a project to define rules governing the conduct of future world championships. Steinitz was unskilled at managing money and lived in poverty all his life.

Early life

Steinitz was born on May 14, 1836, in the Jewish ghetto of Prague (now capital of the Czech Republic; then in Bohemia, a part of the Austrian Empire). The youngest of tailor Josef-Salomon Steinitz's thirteen sons by his first wife, he learned to play chess at age 12. After studying Talmud in his youth, he began playing serious chess in his twenties, after leaving Prague in 1857 to study mathematics Steinitz spent two years at the university.

Chess career (through 1881)

Steinitz improved rapidly in chess during the late 1850s, progressing from third place in the 1859 Vienna City championship to first in 1861, with a score of 30/31. This achievement meant that he had become the strongest player in Austria.

International debut

thumb|left|upright=0.90|Steinitz in 1866

Steinitz was then sent to represent Austria in the London 1862 chess tournament. He placed sixth, but his win over Augustus Mongredien was awarded the tournament's brilliancy prize. He immediately challenged the fifth-placed contestant, the strong veteran Italian Master Serafino Dubois, to a match, which Steinitz won (five wins, one draw, three losses). Steinitz then beat some leading UK players in matches: Frederick Deacon and the aforementioned Mongredien in 1863 followed by Valentine Green in 1864. This charge up the rankings had a price: in March 1863 Steinitz apologized in a letter to Ignác Kolisch for not repaying a loan, because while Steinitz had been beating Blackburne, Daniel Harrwitz had "taken over" all of Steinitz's clients at the London Chess Club, who had provided Steinitz's main source of income.

As a result of this match victory, Steinitz was generally regarded as the world's best player.

Continued match play success

In the years following his victory over Anderssen, Steinitz beat Henry Bird in 1866 (seven wins, five losses, five draws). He also comfortably beat Johannes Zukertort in 1872 (seven wins, four draws, one loss; Zukertort had proved himself one of the elite by beating Anderssen by a large margin in 1871). His first victory in a strong tournament was London 1872, ahead of Blackburne and Zukertort; this was equivalent to about £4,800 at 2007 values).

Chess journalist

Instead, Steinitz concentrated on his work as a chess journalist, notably for The Field, which was Britain's leading sports magazine. Some of Steinitz's commentaries aroused heated debates, notably from Zukertort and Leopold Hoffer in The Chess Monthly (which they founded in 1879). This "Ink War" escalated sharply in 1881, when Steinitz mercilessly criticized Hoffer's annotations of games in the 1881 Berlin Congress (won by Blackburne ahead of Zukertort). Steinitz was eager to settle the analytical debates by a second match against Zukertort, whose unwillingness to play provoked scornful comments from Steinitz. In mid-1882 James Mason, a consistently strong player, challenged Steinitz to a match, and accused Steinitz of cowardice when Steinitz insisted the issue with Zukertort should be settled first. Steinitz responded by inviting Mason to name a sufficiently high stake for a match, at least £150 per player (), but Mason was unwilling to stake more than £100. Mason later agreed to play a match with Zukertort for a stake of £100 per player, but soon "postponed" that match, writing that "circumstances having arisen that make it highly inconvenient for me to proceed ..."

Rivalry with Zukertort

thumb|right|upright=0.85|Steinitz's rival and bitter enemy [[Johannes Zukertort lost matches to him in 1872 and 1886. The second match made Steinitz the undisputed world champion.]]

Steinitz's long lay-off caused some commentators to suggest that Zukertort, who had scored some notable tournament victories, should be regarded as the world chess champion. told Steinitz: "You are not a chessplayer, but a Jew".

Comeback success

Steinitz returned to serious competitive chess in the Vienna 1882 chess tournament, which has been described as the strongest chess tournament of all time at that point. Despite a shaky start he took equal first place with Szymon Winawer, ahead of James Mason, Zukertort, George Henry Mackenzie, Blackburne, Berthold Englisch, Paulsen and Mikhail Chigorin, and drew the play-off match.

Visits the United States

Steinitz visited the United States, mainly the Philadelphia area, from December 1882 to May 1883. He was given an enthusiastic reception. Steinitz played several exhibitions, many casual games, and a match for stakes of £50 with a wealthy amateur. He also won three more serious matches with two New World professionals, Alexander Sellman (Steinitz won both) and the Cuban champion Celso Golmayo Zúpide. The match with Golmayo was abandoned when Steinitz was leading (eight wins, one draw, one loss). His hosts even arranged a visit to New Orleans, where Paul Morphy lived. Steinitz finished 2½ points ahead of the third-placed competitor, Blackburne. Zukertort's victory again led some commentators to suggest that Zukertort should be regarded as the world chess champion, while others said the issue could only be resolved by a match between Steinitz and Zukertort. After the five games played in New York, Zukertort led by 4–1, but in the end Steinitz won decisively by 12½–7½ (ten wins, five draws, five losses), becoming the first official world champion on March 29. The collapse by Zukertort, who won only one of the last 15 games, has been described as "perhaps the most thoroughgoing reversal of fortune in the history of world championship play."

Though not yet officially an American citizen, Steinitz wanted the United States flag to be placed next to him during the match. He became a US citizen on November 23, 1888, having resided for five years in New York, and changed his first name from Wilhelm to William. Whatever the status of the match, it was played in Havana in January to February 1889, and won by Steinitz (ten wins, one draw, six losses).

New York 1889 tournament

The American Chess Congress's final proposal was that the winner of a tournament to be held in New York in 1889 should be regarded as world champion for the time being, but must be prepared to face a challenge from the second or third placed competitor within a month. The tournament was duly played, but the outcome was not quite as planned: Mikhail Chigorin and Max Weiss tied for first place; their play-off resulted in four draws, and Weiss then wanted to get back to his work for the Rothschild Bank, conceding the title to Chigorin. However, the third prize-winner Isidor Gunsberg was prepared to play for the title.

A Steinitz–Gunsberg match was played in New York in 1890 and ended in a 10½–8½ victory for Steinitz. The American Chess Congress's experiment was not repeated, and Steinitz's last three matches were private arrangements between the players.

Initially, Lasker wanted to play for $5,000 a side, and a match was agreed at stakes of $3,000 a side, but Steinitz agreed to a series of reductions when Lasker found it difficult to raise the money, and the final figure was $2,000 each, which was less than for some of Steinitz's earlier matches (the final combined stake of $4,000 would be worth about $114,000 at 2016 values). Although this was publicly praised as an act of sportsmanship on Steinitz's part, Steinitz had previously declared he would win without doubt, so it came as a shock when Lasker won the first game. Steinitz responded by winning the second, and was able to maintain the balance until the sixth. However, Lasker won all the games from the seventh to the 11th, and Steinitz asked for a one-week rest. When the match resumed, Steinitz looked in better shape and won the 13th and 14th games. Lasker struck back in the 15th and 16th, and Steinitz was unable to compensate for his losses in the middle of the match. Hence Lasker won with ten wins, five losses and four draws. Some commentators thought Steinitz's habit of playing "experimental" moves in serious competition was a major factor in his downfall. This was the last world chess championship match for eleven years. Shortly after the match, Steinitz had a mental breakdown and was confined for 40 days in a Moscow sanatorium, where he played chess with the inmates. In April 1894 the British Chess Magazine described Steinitz as holding "the chess championship of the world for 28 years". However, there is no evidence that he claimed the title for himself in 1866, although in the 1880s he claimed to have been the champion since his win over Anderssen. It has been suggested that Steinitz could not make such a claim while Paul Morphy was alive. Morphy had defeated Anderssen by a far wider margin, 8–3, in 1858, but retired from chess competition soon after he returned to the US in 1859, and died in 1884. The 1886 Steinitz vs. Zukertort match was the first that was explicitly described as being for the World Championship, but Howard Staunton and Paul Morphy had been unofficially described as "World Chess Champion" around the middle of the 19th century. In fact one of the organizers of the 1851 London International tournament had said the contest was for "the baton of the World's Chess Champion", and in mid-1840s Ludwig Bledow wrote a letter to Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa suggesting they should organize a world championship tournament in Germany. Some commentators described Steinitz as "the champion" in the years following his 1872 match victory against Zukertort. In the late 1870s and early 1880s some regarded Steinitz as the champion and others supported Johannes Zukertort, and the 1886 match was not regarded as creating the title of World Champion, but as resolving conflicting claims to the title. On the other hand George Alcock MacDonnell hailed Joseph Blackburne as "World Champion" for his win in the 1881 Berlin Tournament, George Henry Mackenzie as having "won the Chess Championship of the World" in 1887, and Isidore Gunsberg as "among the champions of the world" following his win at "Bradford Place" in 1888. However, Steinitz regarded G.A. MacDonnell as "one of my bitterest and most untruthful persecutors".

Personal life

Steinitz lived with Caroline Golder (born 1846) in the 1860s, and their only daughter Flora was born in 1866. Flora died in 1888 at the age of 21, and Caroline died in 1892.

In February 1897, The New York Times prematurely reported his death in a New York mental asylum. Some authors claim that he contracted syphilis, which may have been a cause of the mental breakdowns he suffered in his last years. In the months prior to his death, he spent some time in institutions as a result of his failing mental health. Before his confinement, Steinitz had been attempting to publish an essay calling for the emancipation of Austrian Jews, and Steinitz himself attributed his symptoms entirely to mental fatigue. His chess activities had not yielded any great financial rewards, and he died a pauper in the Manhattan State Hospital (Wards Island) on August 12, 1900, of a heart attack. Steinitz is buried in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, New York. His second wife and their two young children were still alive at the time of his death.

<blockquote>Mr. Steinitz stands high as a theoretician and as a writer; he has a powerful pen, and when he chooses can use expressive English. He evidently strives to be fair to friends and foes alike, but appears sometimes to fail to see that after all he is much like many others in this respect. Possessed of a fine intellect, and extremely fond of the game, he is apt to lose sight of all other considerations, people and business alike. Chess is his very life and soul, the one thing for which he lives.</blockquote>

Influence on the game

Steinitz's play up to and including 1872 was similar to that of his contemporaries: sharp, aggressive, and full of sacrificial play. This was the style in which he became "world number one" by beating Adolf Anderssen in 1866 and confirmed his position by beating Zukertort in 1872 and winning the 1872 London International tournament (Zukertort had claimed the rank of number two by beating Anderssen in 1871). Steinitz's successor as world champion, Emanuel Lasker, summed up the new style as: "In the beginning of the game ignore the search for combinations, abstain from violent moves, aim for small advantages, accumulate them, and only after having attained these ends search for the combination – and then with all the power of will and intellect, because then the combination must exist, however deeply hidden."

Although Steinitz's play changed abruptly, he said he had been thinking along such lines for some years: <blockquote>Some of the games which I saw Paulsen play during the London Congress of 1862 gave a still stronger start to the modification of my own opinions, which has since developed, and I began to recognize that Chess genius is not confined to the more or less deep and brilliant finishing strokes after the original balance of power and position has been overthrown, but that it also requires the exercise of still more extraordinary powers, though perhaps of a different kind to maintain that balance or respectively to disturb it at the proper time in one's own favor. and in 1889 he edited the book of the great New York 1889 tournament (won by Mikhail Chigorin and Max Weiss), in which he did not compete as the tournament was designed to produce his successor as World Champion.

But when he contested the first World Championship match in 1886 against Johannes Zukertort, it became evident that Steinitz was playing on another level. Although Zukertort was at least Steinitz's equal in spectacular attacking play, Steinitz often outmaneuvered him fairly simply by the use of positional principles.

By the time of his match in 1890–91 against Gunsberg, some commentators showed an understanding of and appreciation for Steinitz's theories. Shortly before the 1894 match with Emanuel Lasker, even the New York Times, which had earlier published attacks on his play and character, paid tribute to his playing record, the importance of his theories, and his sportsmanship in agreeing to the most difficult match of his career despite his previous intention of retiring.

By the end of his career, Steinitz was more highly esteemed as a theoretician than as a player. The comments about him in the book of the Hastings 1895 chess tournament focus on his theories and writings,

As a result of his play and writings Steinitz, along with Paul Morphy, is considered by many chess commentators to be the founder of modern chess.

Lasker, who took the championship from Steinitz, wrote, "I who vanquished him must see to it that his great achievement, his theories should find justice, and I must avenge the wrongs he suffered."

Writings

Steinitz was the main chess correspondent of The Field (in London) from 1873 to 1882, and used this to present his ideas about chess strategy. He wrote the book of the 1889 New York tournament, in which he annotated all 432 of the games,

Steinitz also allegedly wrote a pamphlet entitled Capital, Labor, and Charity while confined at River Crest Sanitarium in New York during the final months of his life.

Statistical rating systems are unkind to Steinitz. "Warriors of the Mind" gives him a ranking of 47th, below several obscure Soviet grandmasters; Chessmetrics places him only 15th on its all-time list. Chessmetrics penalizes players who play infrequently; opportunities for competitive chess were infrequent in Steinitz's best years, Between his victory over Anderssen (1866) and his loss to Emanuel Lasker (1894), Steinitz won all his "normal" matches, sometimes by wide margins; and his worst tournament performance in that 28-year period was third place in Paris (1867). The Edo rating system that covers the years from 1821 to 1937 places Steinitz 3rd in top peak rating; behind Jose Capablanca and Paul Morphy but ahead of Emanuel Lasker and Alexander Alekhine.

Initially Steinitz played in the all-out attacking style of contemporaries like Anderssen, and then changed to the positional style with which he dominated competitive chess in the 1870s and 1880s. However, he retained his capacity for brilliant attacks right to the end of his career; for example, in the 1895 Hastings tournament (when he was 59), he beat von Bardeleben in a spectacular game in which in the closing stages Steinitz deliberately exposed all his pieces to attack simultaneously (except his king, of course). He was aware of his own tendencies and said early in his career, "Nothing would induce me to take charge of a chess column ...Because I should be so fair in dispensing blame as well as praise that I should be sure to give offence and make enemies." When he embarked on chess journalism, his brutally frank review of Wormald's The Chess Openings in 1875 proved him right on both counts.

His personal correspondence, his own articles and some third-party articles, however, show that he had long and friendly relationships with many people and groups in the chess world, including Ignác Kolisch (one of his earliest sponsors), Mikhail Chigorin, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, and the Cuban and Russian chess communities. He could poke fun at some of his own rhetoric; for example: "I remarked that I would rather die in America than live in England. ... I added that I would rather lose a match in America than win one in England. But after having carefully considered the subject in all its bearings, I have come to the conclusion that I neither mean to die yet nor to lose the match."

Although he had a strong sense of honour about repaying debts,

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center; margin:1em auto 1em auto;"

! Date !! Location !! Place !! Score !! class="unsortable"|Notes

| 1859 || align=left| Vienna chess society || 3rd || ? || align=left | Behind Carl Hamppe and Eduard Jenay.

| 1860 || align=left| Vienna chess society || 2nd || ? || align=left | Hamppe won.

| 1861 || align=left| Vienna chess society || 3rd || ? || align=left | Behind Hamppe and Daniel Harrwitz.

| 1862 || align=left| Vienna chess society || 1st || 30/31 || align=left |  

| 1862 || align=left| London International Tournament || 6th || 8/13 || align=left | Behind Adolf Anderssen, Louis Paulsen, John Owen, George Alcock MacDonnell and Serafino Dubois.<br />Draws were not scored in this tournament. Steinitz was awarded the brilliancy prize for his win over Augustus Mongredien.

| 1862 || align=left| London championship || 1st || 7/7 || align=left |  

| 1865 || align=left| Dublin || 1st–2nd || 3½/4 || align=left | Won play-off after tie with G. A. MacDonnell.

| 1866 || align=left| London handicap tournament|| 1st || 8/9 || align=left | Steinitz won against Cecil Valentine De Vere (2–1), MacDonnell (2–0), Mocatta (2–0) – Steinitz gave odds of pawn and move, and in the final S. Green (2–0) – Steinitz gave odds of pawn and two moves.

| 1867 || align=left| Dundee handicap tournament|| 1st–2nd || 3/3 || align=left | Tied with J.C. Fraser. Steinitz won against MacDonnell (1–0), Keating (1–0) – Steinitz gave odds of a knight, and Scott (1–0) – Steinitz gave odds of a knight.

| 1867 || align=left| Dundee || 2nd || 7/9 || align=left | Behind Neumann (7½/9); ahead of MacDonnell, De Vere, Joseph Henry Blackburne, Robertson, J.C. Fraser, G.B. Fraser, Hamel and Spens.

| 1867 || align=left| Paris || 3rd || +18−3=3 || align=left | Draws counted as zero; third behind Ignaz von Kolisch (+20−2=2) and Szymon Winawer (+19−4=1); ahead of Gustav Neumann, De Vere, Jules Arnous de Rivière, Hieronim Czarnowski, Celso Golmayo Zúpide, Samuel Rosenthal, Sam Loyd, D'Andre, Martin Severin From, and Eugène Rousseau.

| 1870 || align=left| Baden-Baden || 2nd || 12½/18 || align=left | Behind Anderssen (13/18); ahead of Neumann, Blackburne, Louis Paulsen, De Vere, Szymon Winawer, Rosenthal and Johannes von Minckwitz.

| 1872 || align=left| London || 1st || 7½/8 || align=left | Ahead of Blackburne (5/8), Johannes Zukertort, MacDonnell and De Vere.

| 1873 || align=left| Vienna || 1st–2nd || 10/11: 20½/25 || align=left | Tied with Blackburne (10/11: 22½/30) and won the play-off 2–0; ahead of Anderssen (8½/11: 19/30), Rosenthal (7½/11: 17/28), Louis Paulsen, Henry Edward Bird, Heral, Max Fleissig, Philipp Meitner, Adolf Schwarz, Oscar Gelbfuhs and Karl Pitschel.<br />This tournament had a very unusual scoring system: each player played a 3-game mini-match with each of the others and scored 1 for a won mini-match and ½ for a drawn mini-match. Steinitz won his last 14 games and therefore completed his mini-matches by playing fewer games than anyone else. The numbers before the colons (:) are the points awarded; the other 2 numbers are the usual "games won / games played" scoring.

| 1882 || align=left| Vienna || 1st–2nd || 24/34 || align=left | Tied with Winawer and drew the play-off; ahead of Mason (23/34), Zukertort (22½/34), Mackenzie, Blackburne, Berthold Englisch, Paulsen and others including Mikhail Chigorin and Bird.

| 1883 || align=left| London || 2nd || 19/26 || align=left | Behind Zukertort (22/26); ahead of Blackburne (16½/24), Chigorin 16/24, Englisch (15½/24), Mackenzie (15½/24), Mason (15½/24), Rosenthal, Winawer, Bird and four others.

| 1894 || align=left| New York City championship || 1st || 8½/10 || align=left | After losing the world title to Emanuel Lasker.

| 1895 || align=left| Hastings || 5th || 13/21 || align=left | Behind Harry Nelson Pillsbury (16½/21), Chigorin (16/21), Emanuel Lasker (15½/21), Siegbert Tarrasch (14/21); ahead of Emanuel Schiffers (12/21), Curt von Bardeleben (11½/21), Richard Teichmann (11½/21), Carl Schlechter (11/21), Blackburne (10½/21), Carl August Walbrodt, Amos Burn, Dawid Janowski, Mason, Bird, Isidore Gunsberg, Adolf Albin, Georg Marco, William Pollock, Jacques Mieses, Samuel Tinsley and Beniamino Vergani.

| 1895–96|| align=left| Saint Petersburg || 2nd || 9½/18 || align=left | Behind Emanuel Lasker (11½/18); ahead of Pillsbury (8/18) and Chigorin (7/18). The world's top 4 players played 6 games against each of the others.

| 1896 || align=left| Nuremberg || 6th || 11/18 || align=left | Behind Emanuel Lasker 13½/18, Géza Maróczy (12½/18), Pillsbury (12/18), Tarrasch (12/18), Janowski (11½/18); ahead of Walbrodt, Schiffers, Chigorin, Blackburne, Rudolf Charousek, Marco, Albin, Winawer, Jackson Showalter, Moritz Porges, Emil Schallopp and Teichmann.

| 1897 || align=left| New York || 1st–2nd || 2½/4 || align=left | A triangular "Thousand Islands" tournament; tied with S. Lipschütz and ahead of William Ewart Napier.

| 1898 || align=left| Vienna || 4th || 23½/36 || align=left | Behind Tarrasch (27½/36), Pillsbury (27½/36), Janowski (25½/36); ahead of Schlechter, Chigorin, Burn, Paul Lipke, Maroczy, Simon Alapin, Blackburne, Schiffers, Marco, Showalter, Walbrodt, Alexander Halprin, Horatio Caro, David Graham Baird and Herbert William Trenchard.

| 1898 || align=left| Cologne || 5th || 9½/15 || align=left | Behind Burn, Charousek, Chigorin and Wilhelm Cohn; ahead of Schlechter, Showalter, Johann Berger, Janowski and Schiffers.

| 1899 || align=left| London || 10–11th || 11½/27 || align=left | Behind Emanuel Lasker (23½/27), Janowski (19/27), Maróczy (19/27), Pillsbury (19/27), Schlechter (18/27), Blackburne (16½/27), Chigorin (16/27), Showalter (13½/27), Mason (13/27). This was the first time he had not won any prize money since 1859.

Match results

Sources:

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center; margin:1em auto 1em auto;"

! Date !! Opponent !! Result !! class="unsortable" | Location !! class="unsortable" colspan="2"|Score !! class="unsortable"|Notes

| 1860 || Eduard Jenay || Drew|| Vienna || 2/4 || 2 : 2 || align=left |  

| 1860 || Lang || Won|| Vienna || 3/3 || +3−0=0 || align=left |  

| 1862 || Serafino Dubois || Won|| London || 5½/9 || +5−3=1 || align=left |  

| 1862 || Adolf Anderssen || Lost|| London || 1/3 || +1−2=0 || align=left | Offhand games

| 1862–63 || Joseph Henry Blackburne || Won|| London || 8/10 || +7−1=2 || align=left | Only 2 years after Blackburne started playing chess

| 1863 || Frederick Deacon || Won|| London || 5½/7 || +5−1=1 || align=left |  

| 1863 || Augustus Mongredien || Won|| London || 7/7 || +7−0=0 || align=left |  

| 1863–64 || Valentine Green || Won|| London || 8/9 || +7−0=2 ||  

| 1865 || James Robey || Won|| London || 4/5 || 4 : 1 ||Probably not a formal match

| 1866 || Adolf Anderssen || Won|| London || 8/14 || +8−6=0 || align=left | As a result of this win Steinitz was generally regarded as the world's best player.

| 1872 || Johannes Zukertort || Won || London || 9/12 || +7−1=4 || align=left |  

| 1873 || Blackburne || Won || Vienna || 2/2|| +2−0=0 || align=left | Play-off match

| 1876 || Blackburne || Won || London || 7/7 || +7−0=0 || align=left |  

| 1882 || Szymon Winawer || Drew || Vienna || 1/2|| 1 : 1 || align=left | Play-off match

| 1882 || Dion Martinez || Won || Philadelphia || 7/7 || +7−0=0 || align=left |  

| 1882 || Alexander Sellman || Won || Baltimore || 3½/5 || +2−0=3 || align=left |  

| 1883 || George Henry Mackenzie || Won || New York City || 4/6 || +3−1=2 || align=left |  

| 1883 || Martinez || Won || Philadelphia || 4½/7 || +3−1=3 || align=left |  

| 1883 || Celso Golmayo Zúpide || Won || Havana || 9/11 || 9 : 2 || align=left |  

| 1883 || Martinez || Won || Philadelphia || 10/11 || 10 : 1 || align=left |  

| 1885 || Alexander Sellman || Won || Baltimore || 3/3 || +3−0=0 || align=left |  

| 1886 || Zukertort || Won || New York, St. Louis and New Orleans || 12½/20 || +10−5=5 || align=left | World Chess Championship 1886; the contract for this match said it was "for the Championship of the World". Awarded the at the 1862 London International Tournament. Emanuel Lasker regarded this well-prepared attack as a precursor of the positional approach that Steinitz later advocated.

Johannes Zukertort vs. Steinitz, WCH (9th game of the match) 1886, Queen's Gambit Declined: Vienna. Quiet Variation (D37), . Steinitz exchanges his powerful centre to create two weak hanging pawns on White's queenside and creates strong pressure against them. Zukertort eventually tries to slug his way out of trouble, but Steinitz wins with a sharp counterattack. Steinitz weakens Chigorin's pawns, gains superior mobility then forces a pawn promotion with the aid of a little combination.
Steinitz vs. Mikhail Chigorin, Havana WCH 1892 (4th game of the match), Spanish Game: General (C65), 1–0. Positional preparation creates the opportunity for a swift attack leading to mate on the 29th move. A great attacking combination in the old 1860s style. After White's 22nd move, all the white pieces are but Black is lost. The game won the first brilliancy prize of the tournament.