MacDonnell-Steinitz 1862

Submitted by RookHouse on Thu, 07/24/2008 at 5:10am.

The great London tournament of 1862 was one of the strongest tournaments of the 19th century and only the second event recognized as a true international chess tournament. Several legendary players participated and many great games and novelties were conceived. Today we bring you one of these games between a young Wilhelm Steinitz and George Alcock MacDonnell.

Steinitz would become the unofficial champion of the chess world from 1866 until 1886, when he would then be recognized as the first official world chess champion. His long title reign would eventually end in 1894 at the hands of Emanuel Lasker. MacDonnell was a relatively unknown Irish chess player whose best results were third place finishes at Dundee 1867 and London 1872.

For game analysis and notes as presented by Johann Jakob Lowenthal in the 1864 tournament book, visit http://www.rookhouse.com/blog/?p=279

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by wdygml - 24 days ago
Delhi India

Member Since: Oct 2007
Member Points: 195

hhehe... the game looks nicer to me than your comments ...cause I don't know either of the paul()s & mc donalds

by RookHouse - 26 days ago
Ohio United States

Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 117

It's easy to get the last names confused. The opponent of La Bourdonnais in 1834 was Alexander McDonnell (last name spelled slightly different). That particular McDonnell died the following year in 1835 of Bright's Disease.

by drd - 26 days ago
United States

Member Since: Sep 2007
Member Points: 84

Nice article. With my deficient knowledge of history I assumed this was the same MacDonnell who played Labourdonnais, and thought, "unknown??". Anyway, it encouraged me to do a bit of web searching......

It reminded me of how Wolfgang Pauly is not Wolfgang Pauli....

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