World Chess Champions

History of chess champions started with William Steinitz, who won against Zukertort in 1886 and then held the highest title in chess until 1894. Steinitz enjoyed (and still enjoys) the reputation as the founder of the general positional school, the basic principles of which have not lost their unrestricted validity until today. Applying them, Steinitz was far superior to his contemporaries in practical play.

Steinitz was world champion from 1886 to 1894, retaining the title in four matches against Zukertort, Chigorin (two times) and Gunsberg. He lost two matches against his successor, Lasker.

He died a pauper in New York, a fact noted by Emanuel Lasker, who was determined to not suffer the same financial ruin as poor Steinitz.

Here's a #game of his.

In 1894 Lasker became the second World Chess Champion by beating Steinitz with 10 wins, 4 draws and 5 losses. He maintained his title for 27 years, the longest of all World Champions. His great tournament wins include London (1899), St Petersburg (1896 and 1914), New York (1924).

In 1921, he lost his title to Capablanca. He had already offered to resign to him a year before, but Capablanca wanted to beat Lasker in a match.

Lasker is noted for his "psychological" method of play, sometimes choosing a theoretically inferior move if he knew it would make his opponent uncomfortable. In one famous game against Capablanca (St. Petersburg 1914) he needed to win at all costs, so chose a drawish opening which induced his opponent to drop his guard. Lasker won the game.

One of Lasker's most famous games is Lasker - Bauer, Amsterdam 1889 #game, in which he sacrificed both bishops for a forced mate in a maneuver later repeated in a number of games.  

The world chess champion from 1921 to 1927 and one of the greatest natural chess players who ever lived.

His legend began when, at age four, he giggled at his father's poor move in a chess match. In 1900, at age 11, he became the Cuban chess champion. From then on, he won nearly all his games (531 of 567). From 1916 to 1924, he never lost a game.

When he died in March 1942, he was buried with full honors in Havana and President Fulgencio Batista took personal charge of the funeral arrangements. Capablanca was posthumously inducted as a charter member of the World Chess Hall of Fame when it opened in 2001.

Here's a short #game by Capa.

Alexander Alexanderovich Alekhine was a Russian, and later French, chess player. Alekhine (or Aljechin) was a world chess champion known for his tactical combinations.

Alekhine was born into a rich family in Moscow, Russia: his father was a landowner and a member of the Duma, his mother, who along with his brother taught him chess in 1903, was the daughter of a rich industrialist. In 1914, after playing a tournament in Saint Petersburg, he was among the first chess players to gain the title of grandmaster.

In 1927 he won the title of World chess champion from Capablanca. In 1935 he lost the title to Max Euwe, a loss that is often attributed to Alekhine's alcohol abuse. He gave up alcohol and regained the title from Euwe in 1937. He held the title until his death.

Some openings and variations are named after him. The Alekhine Defence (1. e4 Nf6 in algebraic notation) is the most important.  

Check out these games of Alekhine: #game, #game.

Max (Machgielis) Euwe was born in Watergrafsmeer, The Netherlands in 1901. Both of Euwe's parents played chess and he grew up with the game. He was a professor of mathematics, perhaps that helped Euwe to develop a professional approach to chess; he always had good preparation in the opening.

He held the World Championship title between 1935 and 1937 after defeating Alekhine. After his academic retirement he was elected president of FIDE in 1970 and held the post for 8 years. He traveled to over 100 countries at his own expense during that time promoting chess. Over 30 new member countries joined FIDE due to his efforts. He arbitrated over the turbulent Fischer - Spassky World Championship match in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1972.

Here's one of the games he played with Alekhine: #game.

Can you answer this trivia question about Euwe?

When Alekhine died in 1946, the championship was left vacant, and FIDE organized a title match with six of the top players. Botvinnik won by an astounding three-point margin over his closest rival Smyslov. While Botvinnik lost the title twice during his reign (to Smyslov in 1957, and Mikhail Tal in 1960), he studied his opponents intensely and in the year after following each overthrow, he regained his kingdom.

After the loss of his realm in 1963 to Petrosian, however, Botvinnik was unable to get back to his throne. He spent the remainder of his days creating new World Champions in the famous Botvinnik School of Chess in Russia. His most famous student is Garry Kasparov. Botvinnik was the first tournament player to add exercise to his preparation regimen.

Botvinnik was a profound technician in chess, a scientist, one might say. He did not play against people's fears. He sought to play the objectively best move. His positional play was extremely solid. He worked very hard in his chess studies and thus was proficient in all areas of the game.

This is his most famous #game.

Vasily Vasilievich Smyslov was born in Moscow, Russia in 1921. He learned to play chess at the age of 6. He learned much about chess from his father and studied the chess books in his father's library. Smyslov was an opera singer but made chess his career after narrowly failing an audition for the Bolshoi Opera in 1950. He once said, "I have always lived between chess and music." and brought music to his games. He once sang operatic extracts on Swiss radio and during the interval of a serious living chess game against Botvinnik he sang to an audience of thousands. He defeated Botvinnik in 1957 World Championship match but lost the title to Botvinnik in the 1958 rematch.

Smyslov's games are famous for their originality in the opening, imagination in the middlegame, and virtually in the endgame. His book "My Best Games" is considered to be among the most importance collections of games written by a grandmaster.

Check out this #game.

Tal is considered by many to be the greatest attacking genius of modern chess. Born in Riga, Latvia, in 1936, he became a Soviet master at 17. His style early on developed into one of sharp play, sacrifice, and speculative maneuvers. At age 21 he became the youngest ever Soviet champion, finishing first against a field of eight grandmasters, earning him the title of international master in the process.

Tal was an attacking genius at the board. His attacks often looked like sheer madness but later analysis would show that his intuition had been correct. Botvinnik is quoted as having said, " I was surprised by his ability to figure out complex variations. Then the way he sets out the game; he was not interested in the objectivity of the position, whether it's better or worse, he only needed room for his pieces. All you do then is figure out variations which are extremely difficult. He was tactically outplaying me and I made mistakes."

Tal held the world championship title for one year, beating Botvinnik by four points to win the honor. When he lost the title, ill health seems to have been a factor.

These games show off his style:  #game, #game

The 9th world champion (1963-69), Petrosian ended the Botvinnik era, which had lasted 15 years. Petrosian defended his title successfully in 1966 (against Spassky) becoming the first titleholder since 1934 to do so. After losing the title to the same opponent, Petrosian continued playing in candidates’ cycles. On Soviet Olympiad teams, he lost only once, compiling an amazing record of +79 –1 =50. Petrosian seldom attacked directly, preferring slow, subtle maneuvering.

Being a chess player of brilliant talent, T. Petrosian possessed the originality and chess thought profundity as well as fundamental erudition, and combined original strategic plans with meticulous technique skill. The ingenuity of his positional play and defence technique are rightly thought to be classical. What he valued in chess above all, was logic: "I'm absolutely convinced that in chess - although it remains a game - there is nothing accidental. And this is my credo. I like only those chess games, in which I have played in accordance with the position requirements... I believe only in logical and right game." (T. Petrosian).

Some of his games:  #game , #game, #game.

Spassky learned chess at age five, and was a chess prodigy by age 11. His style of play was inventive and artistic, even then. His teachers taught him the importance of combinational play. His game progressed at a swift, steady pace. In 1955, while still a teenager, he tied for the Soviet chess title, and qualified for the Candidate matches to the world title.

In 1968 he fought through an incredibly tough contingent of players(Geller, Larsen, and Korchnoi) for the right to play Petrosian, the world champion, who he met over the board a year later. He won their match by a two-point margin.

For awhile, Spassky seemed to be a champion in good form. After his loss to Bobby Fischer in Reykjavik, however, he seemed to lose heart, and his play became spotty at best. Spassky's later years showed a reluctance to totally devote himself to chess. He relied on a superb natural talent for the game, and sometimes would rather play a game of tennis, rather than work hard at the board.

This is a brilliant #game he won against Larsen in 1970 USSR vs. The World Match. Are you a James Bond fan? Check out this #game then.

Robert James Fischer is considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time. He was born in Chicago, USA in 1943 and brought up in Brooklyn where his mother moved after she was divorced in 1945. He learned to play chess at the age of 6 and soon became deeply absorbed in the game saying "All I want to do, ever, is play chess." At the age of 13 he became the youngest national junior chess champion in the USA and at the age of 14 he became the youngest senior US Champion. In 1958, at the age of 15, he became the youngest Grandmaster in the history of chess.

He broke the Soviet domination of the World Championship when he became the first American to win the title by defeating Boris Spassky of the USSR in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1972. In 1975 FIDE refused to meet Fischer's conditions for a World Championship match with the Soviet Anatoly Karpov and Fischer refused to play. Consequently FIDE awarded the title of World Champion to Karpov. After this dispute Fischer vanished from public eye for twenty years and moved to Europe.

In 1996 Fischer launched a new game called "Fischer random Chess" in which the major pieces on the back rank are randomly shuffled behind their pawns. Fischer maintained that this form of chess was a better test of a player's skill and got away from opening theory homework.

This #game is one of his best.

Anatoly Evgenievich Karpov was born in Zlatoust, Russia in 1951. He was taught the moves of chess when he was 4. At the age of 15 he became one of the youngest Soviet players ever to gain the title of National Master. In April 1975, a few days before his 24th birthday FIDE declared him the World Champion after Bobby Fischer, the current World Champion, refused to defend his title. Karpov was embarrassed that he had acquired the title in this manner and subsequently played in many strong tournaments to prove that he deserved to be World Champion. He performed impressively and accumulated the finest tournament record in  history. He once said, "To be champion requires more than simply being a strong player; one has to be a strong human being as well." He retained his title until losing to Garry Kasparov in a controversial match in 1985.

His style of play is positional. He describes his game philosophy as follows: "Let us say the game may be continued in two ways: one of them is a beautiful tactical blow that gives rise to variations that don't yield to precise calculation; the other is clear positional pressure that leads to an endgame with microscopic chances of victory.... I would choose the latter without thinking twice. If the opponent offers keen play I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic."

Here's a #game played by Karpov.

Garry Kasparov, Armenian chess player, was born in 1963 in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan (then in the USSR) as Garri Kimovich Wainshtein.

He became the world junior champion at the age of 16 and was International Chess Federation (FIDE) champion from 1985 to 1993. His first title match (Sept., 1984 - Feb., 1985) against Anatoly Karpov was the longest in chess history. After 48 games, FIDE controversially terminated the match due to concern over players health, even though both players wanted to continue the match. Kasparov won a rematch six months later, becoming the youngest world champion ever. He defended his title against Karpov in 1986, 1987, and 1990.

In 1993 Kasparov broke with FIDE and formed the rival Professional Chess Association, becoming its champion. In 1996 he became the first world champion to lose to a computer in a game played with time controls, but subsequently won the match. In 1997, however, the computer, IBM's "Deep Blue", defeated him in a rematch. In 2000, Kasparov lost a match and his widely recognized status as the world's best chess master to his onetime protégé, the 25-year-old Russian Vladimir Kramnik. Kasparov retired from professional chess in 2005.

This #game is maybe his best.

Vladimir Kramnik, Russian chess player, was born in 1975 in Tuapse. Kramnik started to play chess at the age of four, and at eleven began studying with both Mikhail Botvinnik and Gary Kasparov. Deeply versed in theory, he has been influenced by the styles of such masters as Capablanca, Fischer, Karpov, and Kasparov.

He became the world's junior champion in 1991 and the following year, despite his youth, played in the prestigious Chess Olympiad, where he won a gold medal.

In 2000 Kramnik became World Champion by defeating Kasparov, who had been world champion for the previous 15 years, with 2-0 score in decisive games.

In late 2004 Kramnik defended his title against Hungarian Peter Leko, the match was very close, only the victory in the last game allowed Kramnik to tie the match, the score was 7-7 (2-2 decisive games).

Kramnik defended his classical title and won the FIDE title, after beating FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov in unification match. Kramnik won 6-5 in over the board games; however, one game (5th game) was forfeited to Topalov under very controversial circumstances making the score 6-6. For this reason a tiebreak, consisting of 4 rapid games, had to be played. Kramnik won 2.5 to 1.5.

Here's a #game played by Kramnik.

Anand's rise in the Indian chess world was meteoric. National level success came early for him when he won the National Sub-Junior Chess Championship with a great score of 9/9 in 1983 at the age of fourteen.

In 1987 he became the First Asian to win the World Junior Championship at Baguio City in the Philippines. The same year he became the first Indian to earn the coveted Grandmaster title.

Anand qualified for the Professional Chess Association World Chess Championship final by winning the candidates matches against Michael Adams and Gata Kamsky. In 1995, he played a title match against Kasparov in New York City's World Trade Center. After an opening run of eight draws (a record for the opening of a world championship match), Anand won game nine using a splendid sacrifice on the queen side, but then lost four of the next five. He lost the match 10.5 - 7.5.

‘Vishy’- as he popularly known among friends and fans, is now one of four chess grandmasters in the history to go ahead the 2800 mark on the FIDE rating list. Anand dominated the rating list from April 2007 to July 2008.

Anand enjoys playing different varieties of chess. He especially enjoys the advanced chess, wherein computers are at hand for calculations and database searches. Anand has won three editions of the Leon Advanced Chess tournament in Spain (1999,2000 and 2001).

Here's a #game of Anand's.