CHESS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: All the Games, All the Diagrams, 1834-1998 (2nd edition)

Author: James H. Gelo

McFarland and Company (1999)

838 pages

$39.95

Reviewed by Donald K. McKim

This reference book ought to be in the library of all chess players who take chess seriously, or even casually! It contains every move of every game played in the history of world chess championship competitions. Here is the whole sweep of championship play from the first match between Louis de Labourdonnais and Alexander McDonnell in 1834 to the 1998 match between Anatoly Karpov and Viswanathan Anand. 1375 games are included. A bibliography and indices of ECO classifications, openings (descriptive classification), and players and opponents complete this treasury.

World championships did not become official in the chess world until 1886. Before then, matches between the world’s strongest players were considered the arena through which players made and maintained their reputations. Gelo describes three periods in world championship play.     

The first, 1834-1865, includes matches between Labourdonnais and McDonnell, matches played by Howard Staunton, the victory of Adolf Anderssen in the first international tournament in London in 1851, the victories of Paul Morphy in Europe, and Anderssen’s reemergence after Morphy’s retirement. These players did not gain the title “World Champion,” but were regarded as the world’s strongest players in their times.

The second period of championship play (1866-1947) begins with the defeat of Anderssen by Wilhelm Steinitz in London in 1866. Steinitz became the first official world champion in 1886 by defeating Johannes Zukertort. Steinitz himself invented the title! He was preeminent for twenty-eight years. Great stars in the chess world competed this period: Emmanuel Lasker, José Capablanca, Alexanderr Alekhine, and Max Euwe. The title stood vacant in 1947 due to the death of the reigning champion, Alekhine.

The third period, extending to the present, began with the reestablishment of the World Championship title under the control of the International Chess Federation (FIDE). This began with the Hague-Moscow Championship Tournament in 1948. Here the games of Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov, and Kasparov are the focus.

All games in the book follow a consistent format. They are in algebraic notation, a diagram is given for each game illustrating a critical or important point in the contest, and the games are presented without annotations.

This book is a fitting tribute to those who have competed for the title “World Champion” of chess and is an impressive historical record of this competition. It is an outstanding reference book but will also delight those who dip into its games to relive the triumphs – and the disappointments – of those who vied for this revered title.