INTRODUCING WILHELM STEINITZ

Born in 1836 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Wilhelm Steinitz began has career as a chess professional at 26 (a very late age by today's standards!) but became recognized as the unofficial World Champion in 1866. He retained the unofficial title until 1886, when the chess world officially recognized World Champions.

So in 1886 Steinitz became the first Official World Chess Champion. He was outstanding in match play, defending his unofficial and official titles a number of times, before losing a World Championship match to Emanuel Lasker in 1894

Steinitz's most important contributions were not only his games, but his theories. In the age of Romanticism, where the way to play was a slashing style with a lot of unsound sacrifices, Steinitz stated: "One should only attack when one has an advantage," and "The player who has the advantage MUST attack, or else the advantage will disappear." [The attack does not always have to be against the king; it can be against, for example, weak pieces]. This may not sound very significant, but it laid the foundation for the chess that is played today. Because Steinitz played so many opponents who would attack just for the sake of attacking, his games showed how to play good defense.

To see more information from Steinitz on Wikipedia, click here.

To see Steinitz's games on ChessGames.com, click here.