THE COLLECTED WORKS OF WILHELM STEINITZ, a CD edited by Sid Pickard, fills out the wonderful set of recent literature about this giant of chess history; and then some. We have seen Thorsten Heedt's ChessBase CD, Landsberger's THE STEINITZ PAPERS (click to see reviews by DONALDSON and WATSON), and the definitive biography in Landsberger's WILHELM STEINITZ, CHESS CHAMPION. Pickard has already published a volume of Steinitz's games. But none of these have the gold mine of Steinitz's writings without any of the research, articles, writings, and analysis that we get here. There is an astonishing amount of material organized on this single CD, and one could spend months if not years studying it. One requires ChessBase to use the product, but since the ChessBase Reader comes with it that isn't a problem.

I'll let Pickard describe the disc's features:

“It should be stressed that only writings by Steinitz are found here. No doubt many of his games have been annotated by famous masters, but the central idea of this project is to let Steinitz speak in his own words. For the first time anywhere all of Steinitz' surviving games have been gathered into one place, along with his two books and a selection of his writing as a chess journalist, all readable by chess software. The annotations have been assembled and translated into English algebraic notation, both games and articles. In all, about 900 games annotated by Steinitz are on this CD, plus a lot of supplementary text. THE COLLECTED WORKS OF WILHELM STEINITZ includes the following:

1) The ‘Steinitz' Folder

The Games of Wilhelm Steinitz. The main biographical collection of 1,072 games played by Steinitz. Includes 22 text documents with Steinitz's own account of 4 World Championships, the London-Vienna match, the Steinitz-Blackburne match, the cable match with Tschigorin and more. 288 games (about thirty-five per cent) are annotated by Steinitz.”

I should also add that many of these annotated games are highly enjoyable for Steinitz' extremely opinionated and crusty style, with sharp criticisms of the play of his contemporaries. There is also a list of all tournaments with results, and 32 matches. He won 28, lost one at a handicap, lost a famous two-game telegraph match to Chigorin, and lost the two matches to Lasker at the end of his career. Some of the wins were against unworthy opposition (and one was a “match” of 1 game); but the number of high-quality victories is nevertheless an achievement for the ages, and include a 7-0-0 and a 7-1-2 versus Blackburne as well as a 7-1-4 and 10-5-5 versus Zukertort! Incidentally, by way of comparison, there are 689 Steinitz games in my own database.

Back to Pickard's comments:

“2) The ‘Instruct' Folder

The Modern Chess Instructor. Steinitz's masterpiece in 20 text documents, which include 7 chapters of Steinitz teaching chess. Steinitz discusses the openings, examining 8 major systems in 167 Surveys and 79 Illustrative Games. Also included is the Steinitz-Tschigorin match of 1889, for the World Championship.

To me, these now hard-to-get writings that Pickard has collected are the core of his contribution, especially the classic THE MODERN CHESS INSTRUCTOR in e-book form. I'd like to mention a few fascinating quotes that I've already run across from the INSTRUCTOR:

“In the present treatise I have adopted a new mark += to signify a preferable game without sufficient advantage to force a sure win as distinguished from the +- sign which I intend to use for a clearly winning position or at least for a much greater superiority. The sign ‘N' I have employed in accordance with the example of Cordel's FUHER DURCH DIE SCHACHTHEORIE, in order to call attention to moves of which I was the inventor in practical play, or else for the purpose of marking analytical novelties which for some reason or other I consider of great importance, with the view of challenging the strictest investigation of the ideas which they intend to develop and of the often numerous sub-variations which form the subject of entirely new analytical demonstrations in subsequent main columns and in the notes.

“For a similar reason it cannot be too much impressed on the learner that the study of trustworthy analyses of the opening is of paramount importance in comparison to partial researches of later stages of the game, if only on the ground that the former often include some of the best samples of middle play and of the end, or most instructive hints for the conduct of the game to the last by pointing out the respective object of attack or defense, and by giving useful assurances in reference to equalities of position or of any superiority on either side. On the other hand, the study of middle play and of termination alone, will only very rarely throw any retrospective light on the knowledge of the openings.

“One of the principles laid down in Part I of this work is that the Bishop is stronger that the Knight. From this I deduced that pinning a Knight early in the game ought to be disadvantageous, as it must lead to a loss of a move or of value in exchange.  Ergo, I concluded that the much-dreaded Ruy Lopez ought not to be a strong opening, although it has been favored by some of the greatest masters and for some time even by myself in actual play.

“Moreover, the cultivation of the game seems also to exercise a direct influence of the physical condition of chess players and the prolongation of their lives, for most of the celebrated chess masters and authors on the game have reached a very old age, and have preserved their mental powers unimpaired in some instances up to their very last moments. It has also been computed that the average length of life of the general devotees of the game is the highest in comparison to any other class of men whose duration of life has been systematically subjected to statistical observation*. [*We make this statement on the authority of Mr. Jas. D. Seguin, Chess editor of the Times-Democrat of New Orleans.]”

Of course the bulk of INSTRUCTOR is of a more theoretical nature. It includes a discussion of chess principles, and more than half of the book is devoted to analysis of just about every double e-pawn opening, often in great depth.

Again, we return to Pickard's comments:

“3) The ‘Congress' Folder

The Sixth American Chess Congress.  Five text documents, including the Committee Report and tournament crosstable. Then all 430 games are given, each annotated by Steinitz. An important part of American chess history, and one of the best tournament books of all time.

“4) The ‘Magazine' Folder

Newspapers and Magazines. Large excerpts from The Field, and the International Chess Magazine in 13 text documents. These include the Wisker-MacDonnell match (1874), the Zukertort-Rosenthal match (1880), the Lipschuetz-Delmar match (1888). Many additional games and articles are found.

* Chief among his newspaper columns is The Field, which Steinitz edited from November 1873 until the summer of 1882, after the Vienna Congress. Later Steinitz declared that in this column he set forth the basic tenets of the modern school. The Figaro column is roughly co-terminus, offering mostly problems and lighter fare.

* Syndicated columns appearing in America between 1883 and 1899, or single contributions to various papers, still need much work to unearth. Names of newspapers and columns have yet to be cataloged and scanned year by year.

* The International Chess Magazine (1885-1891) is intact and often available in specialty shops. A primary source for Steinitz's account of the first four world championship matches, and the Steinitz-Tschigorin cable match.”

And I should add to this list a lengthy and admiring tribute to Anderssen (“Dr. Anderssen”) upon his death.

“5) The ‘Gambit' Folder

The Steinitz Gambit.  Covering 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 exf4 4.d4 Qh4+ 5.Ke2 in 2 text documents, 6 Surveys and 300 games. 28 games annotated by Steinitz. A modern openings book, and the sole exception to our ‘Steinitz-only' rule.

“6) The ‘Tables' Folder

A comprehensive document of Steinitz's match and tournament crosstables in .pdf format. The Adobe Acrobat Reader is included here. [jw: see above for a description of these tables]

“7) The ‘Bonus' Folder  

Two professionally made Steinitz screensavers. Simply double-click and an icon will be placed on your desktop. User may adjust settings or uninstall with a right-click on the desktop icon. Also contains an electronic jigsaw puzzle with a Steinitz theme.”

All of these sections are well organized by “texts” and links to relevant sections, general writings, and annotated games. And there are photographs, although I couldn't get some of them to display, something that hasn't happened with other CDs.

Regrettably one serious obstacle stands in the way for potential buyers. I don't normally talk about prices, but the $74.95 tag is by far the largest I have seen for any CD product. In fact, this will probably scare off the majority of TWIC readers. My guess is that Pickard, having spent so much time and money on the project, assumed that chess history bugs, collectors, and the most serious students would be his market. In fact, THE COLLECTED WORKS OF WILHELM STEINITZ is a must for every such historian and those in love with chess history. It is also a find for the player (like Fischer) who wants to learn from a brilliant player/writer – remember that this is a huge well-annotated games collection. To cite an argument that this price may be reasonable (given a certain perspective), let me quote the ever-informative Taylor Kingston from his review in ChessCafe:

“A greater problem for some potential buyers may be the price, $74.95. While this may seem high, it is actually quite a bargain. Little of Steinitz's work has been reissued inexpensively. Old copies of THE MODERN CHESS INSTRUCTOR are not all that rare, but are not cheap; the average price we found in a search of online booksellers was about $120 (we got lucky and found a first edition for $50 a few years ago). THE SIXTH AMERICAN CHESS CONGRESS is much harder to find; we located two copies, selling for $152.50 and $400 respectively. Moravian Chess and Edition Olms reissued several volumes of THE INTERNATIONAL CHESS MAGAZINE some years ago; these we found going for $35 to $65 each. We estimate that to get all this in hard copy, plus the game collection and everything else on the disk, would cost anywhere from $350 to $1000.”

Okay, that still might not convince the average or even advanced player that it's worth it to plunk down so much money. After all, most of us aren't collectors or historians and wouldn't go around buying $120.00 books anyway. All I can say is that this is easily the best historical/analytical/biographical CD that I have ever seen and will be an absolute treasure if you do have an historical interest in great players or just want insight into the ideas of the inventor of modern chess