The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Ding Liren, who defeated his opponent Ian Nepomniachtchi in the 2023 World Chess Championship. Magnus Carlsen, the previous world champion, had declined to defend his title.
William Steinitz was a Bohemian-Austrian and, later, American chess player. From 1886 to 1894, he was the first World Chess Champion. He was also a highly influential writer and chess theoretician.
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was the third world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. A chess prodigy, he is widely renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play.
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher. He was the second World Chess Champion, holding the title for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Champion in history. In his prime, Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players in history.
The British Chess Championships are organised by the English Chess Federation. The main tournament incorporates the British Championship, the English Chess Championships and the British Women's Chess Championship so it is possible, although it has never happened, for one player to win all three titles in the same competition. The English Women's Chess Championship was also incorporated into this event but did not take place in 2015 and was held as a separate competition in 2016. Since 1923 there have been sections for juniors, and since 1982 there has been an over-sixty championship. The championship venue usually changes every year and has been held in different locations in England, Scotland, Wales and once on the Isle of Man.
Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin was a Russian chess player. He played two World Championship matches against Wilhelm Steinitz, losing both times. The last great player of the Romantic chess style, he also served as a major source of inspiration for the "Soviet chess school", which dominated the chess world in the middle and latter parts of the 20th century.
Dawid Markelowicz Janowski was a Polish
chess player. Several openings variations are named after Janowski.
Géza Maróczy was a Hungarian chess player, one of the leading players in the world in his time. He was one of the inaugural recipients of the International Grandmaster title from FIDE in 1950.
Joseph Henry Blackburne was a British chess player. Nicknamed "The Black Death", he dominated the British scene during the latter part of the 19th century. Blackburne learned the game at the relatively late age of 17 or 18, but he quickly became a strong player and went on to develop a professional chess career that spanned over 50 years. At one point he was one of the world's leading players, with a string of tournament victories behind him, and popularised chess by giving simultaneous and blindfold displays around the country. Blackburne also published a collection of his own games.
Siegbert Tarrasch was a German chess player, considered to have been among the strongest players and most influential theoreticians of the late 19th and early 20th century.
Szymon Abramowicz Winawer was a Polish chess player who won the German Chess Championship in 1883.
William Ewart Napier was an American chess master of English birth.
The American Chess Congress was a series of chess tournaments held in the United States, a predecessor to the current U.S. Chess Championship. It had nine editions, the first played in October 1857 and the last in August 1923.
George Alcock MacDonnell was an Anglican clergyman as well as a chess master and writer.
The St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament was one of the most famous chess tournaments of the early twentieth century. It included almost all the leading players of the time, and was won by World Champion Emanuel Lasker, who came from behind to narrowly defeat future World Champion José Raúl Capablanca. Another future World Champion, Alexander Alekhine, finished third, ahead of the former World Championship contenders Siegbert Tarrasch and Frank Marshall.
Francis Joseph Lee was an English chess master.
George Hatfeild Dingley Gossip was an American-English chess master and writer. He competed in chess tournaments between 1870 and 1895, playing against most of the world's leading players, but with only modest success. The writer G. H. Diggle calls him "the King of Wooden Spoonists" because he usually finished last in strong tournaments.
The 1904 Cambridge Springs International Chess Congress was the first major international chess tournament in America in the twentieth century. It featured the participation of World Champion Emanuel Lasker, who had not played a tournament since 1900 and would not play again until 1909. After the tournament Lasker moved to America and started publishing Lasker's Chess Magazine, which ran from 1904 to 1907. However, that was not the only chess magazine spawned by the tournament. The Daily Bulletins produced by Hermann Helms proved so popular that Helms started the American Chess Bulletin as a direct consequence of the tournament. Volume 1, Issue 1 of the magazine was devoted to Cambridge Springs. Helms was somewhat more successful than Lasker as a publisher and American Chess Bulletin would be edited and published by Helms from 1904 until his death in 1963. The surprising upset victory of Frank Marshall marked his rise to prominence in American chess and he would eventually reign as champion of the United States for twenty-six years.
Emanuel Lasker (German Empire)
Géza Maróczy (Austria-Hungary)
Harry Nelson Pillsbury (United States)
Dawid Janowski (France)
Joseph Henry Blackburne (United Kingdom)
Mikhail Chigorin (Russian Empire)
