Gunsberg Life and Games: The Forgotten Challenger

Isidor Gunsberg was a world championship challenger and one of the strongest players of his time, but is largely forgotten today. Below, I explore his life and games.

Photo: Cleveland Public Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Table of contents:

1. Biography
2. Game Analysis
3. Puzzles
4. Solutions

Biography

Early life

Isidor Gunsberg was born in 1854 in Budapest, Hungary. His father taught him to play chess around the age of 11, and shortly after, his family spent some time in Paris. This gave the young Gunsberg the opportunity to frequent the famous Café de la Régence, where he could play and learn from strong masters of the time.

Life in Britain

In 1876, Gunsberg moved to Britain, which helped him to start a chess career. There is some evidence to suggest that he played and lost a simul game against Steinitz in 1877. In 1878, Gunsberg began to work as the hidden operator of the popular chess automaton Mephisto, and he continued to do so for about ten years. His early tournament results were not particularly noteworthy: he finished 17^th at the third German Chess Congress in 1883.

Breakthrough

However, 1885 was a breakthrough year for Gunsberg. He finished first at both the 4^th German Chess Congress in Hamburg, and at the first British Chess Association Congress, in London. These victories greatly enhanced his reputation, as it became clear that Gunsberg was becoming a very strong player.

In 1886, Gunsberg won a match against the strong English master Henry Bird (6,5-2,5), and the following year, he defeated another top English player, Joseph Blackburne (8-5). This confirmed his status as one of the strongest players from England. A disappointing shared 14^th place at the 5^th German Chess Congress at Frankfurt in 1887 was overshadowed by a phenomenal performance at the British Championship in London that same year. Gunsberg shared first place with Burn, 1,5 points ahead of Blackburne, further enhancing his reputation. When he finished in clear first at the British Championship in 1888 in Bradford, 1,5 points ahead of his British rivals McKenzie, Burn, Blackburne, Mason, and Bird, it became his third British Championship title in four years.

New York 1889

1889 saw Gunsberg finish a disappointing 5^th at Amsterdam and equal 4^th at Breslau, but also a 3^rd place finish at the very strong New York tournament. 1^st place was shared by Max Weis and Mikhail Chigorin. The winner of the tournament would have the right to challenge Steinitz for the title of World Champion. However, Weis did not want to challenge Steinitz, and Chigorin had just lost a World Championship match to Steinitz that same year.

Gunsberg – Chigorin, Havana 1890

Gunsberg therefore challenged Chigorin to a match, which took place in Havana in 1890. The winner of the match would be declared to be the next challenger for the chess crown. The match was extremely close, and ended up drawn, with both players scoring nine wins, with five draws. Gunsberg subsequently officially challenged Steinitz, who accepted the challenge based on Gunsberg’s recent results.

Battle for the crown

The match took place at the Manhattan Chess Club in America, as Steinitz was living in America at the time. The prize fund was $1500, with the winner of the match receiving two thirds. The winner would be the first to achieve ten wins, or the player with the most wins after 20 games.

The match was close, and although Steinitz was considered to be the favourite, Gunsberg was ahead after five games. However, Steinitz fought back, and was ahead by five wins to four after 17 games. Steinitz did not arrive for the 18^th game. He had sent a telegram to excuse himself for the game, but unfortunately it did not arrive in time. This meant that Gunsberg had the opportunity to claim a win, levelling the scores. However, he insisted that the game be played. Steinitz went on to win the game, which proved to be the decisive moment in the match. A draw in game 19 meant that Gunsberg could not make up the two-point deficit, and Steinitz won the match, retaining the title of World Champion.

Limited opportunities

Gunsberg had been playing some of the best chess of his career, and had come close to winning a World Championship match. However, soon after the match, his wife died from tuberculosis. This left Gunsberg with three young children to care for alone, which made travelling internationally to chess tournaments very difficult. His chess career began to stall.

Therefore, to replace the income from prize money, Gunsberg began to write chess columns in various publications, such as the St. James Budget, the Pall Mall Gazette, and the Penny Illustrated Paper. He also wrote a book called Chess Openings, which was published in 1895.

Writing and lecturing

Although Gunsberg remarried in 1893, his second wife also died from tuberculosis, only a few years later, and Gunsberg now had four children to care for. When he did manage to compete in tournaments, his results did not match his previous standards. For example, the strong tournament of Hastings 1895 saw him share 15^th place with Henry Bird. Around 1900, Gunsberg started to lecture at various chess clubs, and he became known for the high quality of his lectures.

A strong performance at the London tournament in 1900, where he finished in shared second place with Mason and behind only Teichmann, proved not to be the start of a resurgence, as his results continued to disappoint in later tournaments. Gunsberg was officially granted British citizenship in 1908. In his later years, he became involved in organising and directing tournaments, such as Ostend 1905 and 1906, as well as Marienbad 1925.

Today

Gunsberg lived a long life, and died in 1930, at the age of 75. Although there is less material written about him than other great players of his era, today he is remembered as one of the strongest masters of his time, who came closer than anyone before at taking the chess crown from Steinitz.

Game Analysis

At the famous tournament of New York 1889, Gunsberg won an instructive game against the Polish and American master Max Judd, demonstrating a pretty knight manoeuvre.

Lessons from this game:

1. It is always useful to ask, “Which is my worst placed piece?” In this game, it was the knight on g3, and Gunsberg transferred it to e5, where it became incredibly strong.
2. An attack on the king is most likely to succeed when all of the pieces are working together and included in the attack.
3. Watch out for undefended pieces! They can make unexpected tactics possible, such as 19.Nxf7! in this game.

Puzzles

Gunsberg – Paulsen, Hamburg 1885

Fritz – Gunsberg, Breslau 1889

Gunsberg – Steinitz, World Championship 1890/1

Gunsberg – Steinitz, World Championship 1890/1

Solutions

Further Reading

Of course, My Great Predecessors by Kasparov is a great place to start.

Other useful sources are:

Gunsberg’s chess.com page,

His chessgames.com page,

His chesshistory.com page,

This chessgames.com page about the Gunsberg – Chigorin match in 1890,

This chessgames.com page about the Gunsberg – Steinitz World Championship match,

This chessbase article about Gunsberg,

And this chessbase article about Gunsberg.

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