World Champions

The History of Chess

Course 13 · Chapter 7 · World Champions

After London 1851 (Chapter 6), the question "who is the best?" became formal. This chapter follows the title of world champion from its start in 1886 to the present, and shows how a title that began as a private agreement between two players became an institution run by a federation. The sequence of champions was checked by web search, though most sources found were popular rather than official; other details are flagged "check".

The First Champion

Steinitz, 1886

The title of world champion is usually dated from 1886, when Wilhelm Steinitz beat Johannes Zukertort in a match generally treated as the first world championship. Steinitz held it until 1894. He had earlier been seen as the leading player, so the title formalised a reputation (check).

Lasker, 1894 to 1921

Emanuel Lasker took the title from Steinitz and held it for 27 years, the longest reign on record. He was also a mathematician (check).

Capablanca, 1921 to 1927

The Cuban José Raúl Capablanca beat Lasker in 1921 and lost to Alexander Alekhine in 1927 (check).

A title owned by the champion Before the Second World War there was no body in charge of the title. The champion decided whom to play, on what terms and for what stake, which meant he could, and sometimes did, avoid a dangerous challenger. The title went with the person, not with an institution (check).

The Title Passes to FIDE

Event (check each)	What happened
Alekhine, 1927 to 1935	Alekhine beat Capablanca in 1927 and lost the title to the Dutchman Max Euwe in 1935.
Alekhine, 1937	Alekhine won the title back from Euwe in a return match.
Alekhine's death, 1946	He died while still champion, leaving the title vacant.
The 1948 tournament	FIDE, founded in 1924, organised a five-player tournament to decide the successor. Mikhail Botvinnik won it, and from then on FIDE controlled the cycle of qualifiers and challenge matches.
Later champions	Smyslov (1957 to 1958), Tal (1960 to 1961), Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand, Carlsen, then Ding Liren (2023) (check).

Botvinnik's reigns were interrupted by the loss of the title to Smyslov in 1957 and to Tal in 1960, each followed by a rematch; lists differ on how they count these (check). The 1948 tournament marks the point at which the title moved from a personal possession to a federation-run championship.

The Split of 1993

In 1993 the reigning champion Garry Kasparov and his challenger Nigel Short, an English player, left FIDE to hold their match under a new organisation, the Professional Chess Association. FIDE named its own champion, and for about thirteen years there were two competing world titles. They were reunited in 2006 by a match between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov (check). The episode shows that a title is only as strong as the agreement of the players to recognise it.

A pattern to watch The championship is a story about who controls a prestige title. Whenever the champion, the federation, a sponsor or a government wants different things, the title becomes a political object. Look at who benefits when a title changes its rules.

Reign Lengths: A Small Check

The claim that Lasker held the title longest is easy to test from a list of reigns. The script below stores the first three champions and computes their reigns. It was run to produce the output shown.

# (name, first year as champion, year the reign ended)
reigns = [
    ("Steinitz", 1886, 1894),
    ("Lasker", 1894, 1921),
    ("Capablanca", 1921, 1927),
]

for name, start, end in reigns:
    print(f"{name:11} {end - start:2} years")

longest = max(reigns, key=lambda r: r[2] - r[1])
print("Longest:", longest[0])
# Steinitz 8 years, Lasker 27 years, Capablanca 6 years; Longest: Lasker

Calendar years are a rough measure: the exact dates of the matches fall within the years, and a full table of all champions would need the matches' months and the break between 1946 and 1948 (check).

Evidence, Weighed

Claim (check each)	Evidence	Verdict
Steinitz was the first world champion	The 1886 match is usually treated as the first official title match	Accepted convention; earlier "champions" were informal
Lasker held the title longest	27 years, 1894 to 1921, in standard lists	Well supported
FIDE has always run the title	FIDE took control in 1948	False; before that it was personal
There has always been one champion	The 1993 split lasted until 2006	False

A British comparison The 1993 split was a British story as well as a world one: the challenger Nigel Short, from England, reached the final by beating former world champions in the qualifiers, and the match was played in London (check). Short's challenge is often called the high point of British chess in the modern period. Earlier, in the nineteenth century, British players such as Howard Staunton and Joseph Blackburne, the latter nicknamed "the Black Death" for his play, were among the strongest in the world (check).

Not Yet Verified A web search gave a consistent core sequence of champions (Steinitz in 1886, Lasker for 27 years, Capablanca in 1921, Alekhine in 1927, Euwe in 1935, Alekhine again in 1937, the 1948 tournament won by Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Carlsen and Ding Liren in 2023), but the sources were popular blogs, not official records, and they disagree on details of the Botvinnik reigns. The 1993 split and reunion, the identities of later champions and the Short and Blackburne notes come from general knowledge and have not been checked against primary sources. The title may have passed again since the 2023 match; check a current source. Treat every "(check)" accordingly.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Explain what changed in 1948 and why it mattered for who could challenge the champion.

→ Solution

Exercise 2

Describe the split of 1993 in a short paragraph and say what it shows about how a title gets its authority.

→ Solution

Exercise 3

Add Alekhine's first reign (1927 to 1935) to the script and say what the output shows, and what a calendar-year count leaves out.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

First champion: Steinitz, 1886; longest reign: Lasker, 27 years
1948: FIDE takes control after Alekhine's death
1993 to 2006: two rival titles
Method: ask who controls the title and who recognises it