Birth of the Sport (1850–1945)

The 1st modern chess tournament was held in London in 1851 and won by German Adolf Anderssen. This was a stunning event at the time since Anderssen was a relative unknown going into the tournament. In those days, Anderssen’s Immortal game and Evergreen game were regarded as the highest possible summit in the art of chess.

However, they would be quickly seen as shallow as deeper insight into the nature of chess tactics came via 2 young players. The 1st, American Paul Morphy, won against all important competitors except those who refused to play him, included Anderssen. Morphy’s chess career lasted from 1857 to 1863 and featured the famous Opera game. Morphy’s success was based on using a combination of attacks off of sound strategy to prepare for those attacks. The 2nd was German Wilhelm Steinitz who became the 1st officially recognized world chess champion by beating leading German master Johannes Zukertort in 1886.

Taking advantage of a scientific approach paired with positional understanding, Steinitz revolutionized the game. Steinitz was the 1st player to build formations; previously, players brought their queen out as early as possible without setting up their other pieces in order to mount a quick attack on the opposing king. Steinitz lost the championship title in 1894 to another German, Emanuel Lasker, a mathematician who held the title for 27 years which remains the longest tenure of all world champions.

The end of the 19th century had already seen the number of annually held master tournaments and matches growing rapidly. In between the 2 world wars, chess saw its game revolutionized by the new theoretical school of self-proclaimed hyper-modernists. Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard Réti. Advocating the control of the center of the board with distant pieces instead of pawns, they invited opponents to take hold of the center then proceeded to capture those pawns with long range attacks.

The German dominance in chess was ended by a Cuban prodigy named José Raúl Capablanca who became the 3rd World Champion from 1921–27. Capablanca amazingly stayed undefeated for 8 years from until 1924. 1924 also saw the founding of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) as a tournament holder to determine the world chess champion. In 1927 the 4th world champion became a Russian-French player named Alexander Alekhine. Alekhine would hold the title twice, having lost it briefly to Dutch player Max Euwe in 1935. His 2 reigns would encompass 1927 to 1935 and 1937 to 1946. 1927 would also see the formation of the Women’s World Chess Championship, 1st held by Czech-English player Vera Menchik.