Milestones of 1861/1870 – With Morphy’s withdrawal from the scene, Anderssen seems to take control, but Steinitz appears

GLOBAL CONTEXT

This decade saw the consolidation of modern nation-states, albeit a bloody one, as war was a constant presence, all within the context of a massive global industrial acceleration. It was the era in which the unified powers that would dominate the early 20th century were strengthened. Italy, still without Rome, united with Victor Emmanuel II (1820-1878) as king. France and Spain lost influence, and Prussia emerged as a key player, alongside England and the United States. For the first time, railways were used extensively to move troops, the telegraph to issue real-time orders, repeating rifles, and ironclads.

The United States fractures at the beginning of this period: the industrial North (the Union) clashes with the agricultural and slaveholding South (the Confederacy). In 1863, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) signs the Emancipation Proclamation and is assassinated shortly thereafter. However, the North’s victory in 1865 preserves the country and legally abolishes slavery in the U.S., at a cost of over six hundred thousand lives. Russia sells the territory of Alaska to the United States. In the southern part of the continent, the War of the Triple Alliance takes place between 1864 and 1870, pitting Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay against Paraguay, led by Francisco Solano López (1827-1870). The war leaves Paraguay’s population, economy, and territory completely devastated.

In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, resulting in a resounding victory for Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) over the French Empire of Napoleon III (1808-1873), a harbinger of German unification and the transformation of the French dictatorship into a constitutional republic. Rome fell as French troops withdrew from defending the Pope, becoming the capital of Italy. Around 1867, Mexico emerged victorious from its conflict with France. The Dominican Republic gained independence from Spain, which also waged a war against an alliance of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile, a conflict that lasted until 1871, and saw insurrections in Puerto Rico and Cuba. Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) restored power in Japan, bringing down the Tokugawa shogunate.

The world shrank thanks to monumental engineering projects that connected oceans and continents, facilitating international trade on an unprecedented scale. The Suez Canal opens in 1869, allowing ships to sail between Europe and Asia without having to circumnavigate Africa, and the Transcontinental Railroad in the U.S. links distant points in both oceans. The first transatlantic telegraph cable is successfully laid.

This marks the end of archaic labor systems, with the fall of legal serfdom in Russia (emancipating twenty-two million people) and slavery in the United States. Consequently, «free workers» emerge, who could be hired and employed by the burgeoning factories. From feudal exploitation and slavery, they become cannon fodder for a bourgeoisie that built suburbs for a low social class with no social protections. Capitalism ceases to be a phenomenon so concentrated in England, spreading globally, at least in the West.

Political leaders understood the need for strong nation-states, serving the prosperous industrial bourgeoisie, in accordance with the thesis of British historian Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012). Similarly, solid and unified domestic markets had to be created. It could be said, then, that the period 1861-1870 was not only a transition, but the birth—violent, technological, and economic—of the modern world.

In science and society, we have the manufacture of celluloid, one of the first synthetic polymers, initiating the modern plastics industry. The pasteurization system was created, revolutionizing the food industry. The British physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) presented his four equations, establishing that the nature of light is that of an electromagnetic wave. The Czech Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) introduced the concept of trait genes, outlining the theory of inheritance, and the Swede Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) invented dynamite. Helium was discovered. The Russian Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907) published the first periodic table with sixty-six elements, and the Swiss Friedrich Miescher (1844-1895) discovered nucleic acids inside cells. In 1863, the Red Cross was founded, headquartered in Geneva. The London Underground, the world’s first underground transport system, opened.

In cultural terms, the Realist movement consolidates its position, building upon the declining values ​​of Romanticism and Idealism. The First Vatican Council begins with the aim of confronting rationalism. The French writer Jules Verne (1828-1905) publishes Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, while the British author Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) publishes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The German philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883) presents The Capital. The Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) did tha same with his opera Don Carlos in Paris, the city that inaugurates the Universal Exhibition of Industries and Fine Arts in 1867, featuring chess, a cultural symbol of the time, through a major tournament.

CHESS IN THE YEARS 1861/1870

The previous decade had left its mark on the successful European tour of the American Paul Morphy (1837-1884), who had demonstrated his great superiority. Adding to his decision to stop playing was the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, forcing him to temporarily emigrate to Cuba. There, in 1862 and 1864, he gave some exhibitions, easily defeating local players and giving them a material advantage, including the Spaniard Celso Golmayo Zúpide (1820-1898), who was living on the island. In 1863, he made another foray into Europe, where he played only a friendly match against the Frenchman Jules de Rivière (1830-1905), whom he decisively defeated (nine wins and two losses for the American). However, his prime was already a thing of the past, even though records would continue to place him as the best player in the world for much of the decade.

It is regrettable, of course, that his career lacked continuity, as during his European tour he faced new opponents, both emerging stars and those of the past who remained prominent, such as his old rival, the Prussian Adolf Anderssen (1818-1879), who would primarily fill the void, especially since the American announced his definitive retirement from all activity related to the world of chess in 1867, field in which he had shone so brilliantly.

His arch-rival, the one with whom he had been unable to establish supremacy in the past due to his elusive nature, the British player Howard Staunton (1810-1874), also seemed to have abandoned competitions, focusing instead on organizational matters and promoting the game, as well as devoting his best efforts to his academic studies of the works of the English writer William Shakespeare (1564-1616), his other great passion. Nevertheless, he continued writing columns for The Illustrated London News and publishing books on chess. In 1860, he presented Chess Praxis, a supplement to the Chess Player’s Handbook, a work of 1848, which represented an update that began to gain widespread popularity from 1861 onward. There, despite the animosity that ended his relationship with Morphy, he expressed his admiration for him by dedicating some 160 pages of this new text to him.

Year of 1861 began with some familiar faces and some new ones. In Vienna, the German Daniel Harrwitz (1821-1884) defeated Wilhelm Steiniz (1836-1900), a still-promising player born in Prague, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, two to zero. The most competitive event of the year took place in Bristol: the fourth British Championship, won by the German Ludwig Paulsen (1833-1891)due to the absence of the local player Samuel Boden (1826-1882) in the final. Paulsen had already defeated a formidable up-and-coming player, the Slovak Ignatz Kolisch (1837-1889), in the quarterfinals.

GAME FROM THE BRISTOL TOURNAMENT 1861 ANALYZED BY IM ALEJO DE DOVITIIS

There were many matches this year, as usual, notably the one played in Berlin between the Germans Tassilo von der Lasa (1818-1899) and Carl Mayet (1810-1868), with the former winning three to two, and other friendly matches between Anderssen and Kolisch in London, one ending in a two-game draw and the other in a five-to-four victory for Anderssen. In another, more demanding match of this type, Paulsen, also in London, defeated Kolisch sixteen to fifteen.

With Morphy and Staunton out of the picture, it was clear that attention should turn to Anderssen, the winner of the 1851 London Tournament, a rapidly rising Paulsen, and the highly competitive Kolisch. However, almost imperceptibly, one must also consider Steinitz, who, first tentatively, and then decisively, would capture attention, although this would occur more in the second half of the period.

Thus, we arrive at 1862, when the respective strengths could be determined in an international tournament, with London as the host city, as it had been in the previous decade. Anderssen triumphed again, destined for great victories, though not necessarily to be considered the undisputed best player in the world, since other figures, in direct confrontations, would surpass him, as had happened in the previous decade, the one in which Morphy had soundly defeated him in their 1858 encounter in Paris.

For now, in this new tournament, in which for the first time it is played by the round-robin system, and not by elimination as in 1851, Anderssen again prevails, with two points advantage over Paulsen (in the individual confrontation the former prevails), the local John Owen (1827-1901) and the Irishman George MacDonnell (1830-1899).

Neither Kolisch nor von der Lasa, among other prominent players of the time, participated in the tournament. Steinitz made his first appearance on the international chess scene, achieving a respectable sixth place out of the fourteen participants. Another player making his debut, at just twenty years old, was the British Joseph Blackburne (1841-1924), who finished in a lower position. He would later have a remarkable career.

It is worth noting that Anderssen, who won eleven games, lost two: one to Owen and the other to the Hungarian-British Johann Löwenthal (1810-1876), who withdrew from the competition. However, his earlier results were taken into account, and he had achieved no less than three wins in as many games. His withdrawal was due to exhaustion, as he was not only a player but also the main organizer, a role he preferred to retain.

An interesting point is that time control using an hourglass began. Another noteworthy fact is that Löwenthal meticulously recorded all the games, which led to the publication, in 1864, of the tournament book: The Chess Congress of 1862: A Collection of the Games Played.

Both tournaments, the one in 1851 and this one in 1862, were held as part of International Expositions, through which the country sought to showcase its economic and technological power in the context of the Industrial Revolution.

Furthermore, a significant innovation was introduced: a timekeeping system using sand clocks. Each player had two independent clocks, with each player allotted two hours to make twenty-four moves.

For proper timekeeping, the procedure was as follows: when a player was thinking, their own sand clock was placed vertically so that the sand would flow downwards. The moment a player made their move on the board, the arbiter or the player themselves laid their clock on its side (horizontally) to stop the flow of sand and, simultaneously, raised the opponent’s clock vertically to start their time running.

One problem that arose, given the system’s precariousness—and this was noted by the organizers themselves—was that the hourglasses were affected by London’s humidity, which sometimes compacted the sand and altered its flow. Different types of fine sand and even tinted glass bubbles were tested before an acceptable standard was found, during a period of experimentation.

Another absolute novelty is that a Brilliant Prize was awarded for the first time to a game, arranged by the Organizing Committee of the British Chess Association (BCA), which Steinitz deserved for his victory against the British August Mongredien (1807–1888), demonstrating in the game, with a spectacular outcome, the romantic style that characterized his playing style in an early period.

The standings for the 1862 London Tournament are as follows:

Rank	Player	Origin	Points
1	Adolf Anderssen	Prussia (Germany)	11.0
2	Louis Paulsen	Kingdom of Hanover (Germany)	9.0
3	John Owen	England	9.0
4	George Alcock MacDonnell	Ireland	9.0
5	Thomas Wilson Barnes	England	7.0
6	Wilhelm Steinitz	Austro-Hungarian Empire (Bohemia)	6.0
7	Serafino Dubois	Italy	5.0
8	Valentine Green	England	5.0
9	James Hannah	Scotland	4.0
10	Johann Löwenthal	Hungary / England	4.0
11	Joseph Blackburne	England	4.0
12	Frederick Deacon	England	3.0
13	Augustus Mongredien	England	3.0
14	Samuel Newham	England	1.0

GAME FROM THE 1862 LONDON TOURNAMENT ANALYZED BY IM ALEJO DE DOVITIIS

Among the activities of 1862, a telegraphed match was recorded between representatives of the Irish cities of Dublin and Belfast, as well as several informal matches in London. Notable among these were a 4-4 draw between Anderssen and Paulsen, and another in which Paulsen defeated Anderssen 4.5-0.5; a match in which Anderssen defeated Steinitz 4-2; and two matches in which the Prague native triumphed: one against Blackburne, 8-2, and another against Paulsen, 2-0.

Matches were also held in St. Petersburg, with Aleksandr Petrov (1794-1867) defeating Ilya Shumov (1819-1881) 4-2; and others featuring Kolisch, who drew 2-2 with Prince Sergei Urusov (1827-1897) and defeated Shumov 6-2. And a very long in Berlin, in which the local player Gustav Neumann (1838-1881) prevailed over Anderssen, eleven to ten, demonstrating, here too, that the dominance of the London tournament winner could not be considered indisputable at the time. Meanwhile, in Havana, Morphy, in matches where the teams were not equal, defeated the Cubans Félix Sicre (1817-1871) and Gabriel Toscano (birth and death dates unknown), winning two games against the former and one against the latter.

By 1863, activity continued, in significant portions, in tournaments, and even more so in matches, particularly another telegraphic one between Belfast and Dublin, within the context of encounters where the prevailing tone, in many cases, was one of informality.

The most anticipated match was undoubtedly Morphy’s return to Paris, where he defeated the local player Jules de Rivière (1830-1905) thirteen to five. There were other competitive matches that year: in London, Steinitz beat Blackburne eight to two; in the same city, Blackburne defeated the German Bernhard Horwitz (1807-1885) three to two; and there were two matches in Breslau (now Wroclaw) in which Paulsen again defeated Anderssen, three to two in one instance and two to zero in the other.

In 1864, we see Morphy in Havana being defeated by the Spaniard (and already Cuban champion) César Golmayo Zúpide (1820-1898) by three to two, but with Morphy giving him a knight advantage. In other matches that year, in Leipzig, Paulsen beat the German Max Lange (1832-1899) by five to two; in informal games, in Breslau, Anderssen beat Neumann by 41.5 to 36.5, and in Berlin they drew at twenty-eight; in Berlin, Paulsen prevailed over Neumann by 6.5 to 4.5 and by 4.5 to 0.5; in Berlin, there was a draw at four between the Prussian Berthold Suhle (1837-1904) and Anderssen; in Berlin, Neumann defeated his compatriot Carl Mayet (1810-1868) 38.5 to 13.5, and in a more formal match, 8 to 5, and still within the same format, played with great intensity, in Breslau Anderssen triumphed over an emerging figure, the Pole (then part of the Russian Empire) Johannes Zukertort (1842-1888), 5.5 to 3.5.

In 1865, telegraph matches were held between London and Dublin, another of the same nature in Canada between Montreal and Quebec, a tournament in Elberfeld with a victory for Neumann followed by the Ukrainian (then part of the Russian Empire) Viktor Knorre (1840-1919), and activity was recorded in such unconventional locations as Hong Kong and New Zealand.

In informal games, a very long encounter in Berlin saw Neumann defeat Anderssen 52 to 48, and in another, shorter match in the same city, Anderssen beat Mayet 5.5 to 2.5. In Breslau, Zukertort, demonstrating his strength and the lack of undisputed dominance of his rival, also in informal games, defeated Anderssen 15 to 8 on one occasion and 10 to 4 on another. In a tournament in Dublin, Steinitz prevailed, continuing his upward trajectory.

GAME FROM THE DUBLIN TOURNAMENT 1865 ANALYZED BY IM ALEJO DE DOVITIIS

At the match level, one particularly noteworthy encounter took place in London in 1866 between an established figure and a rising star, Anderssen and Steinitz, respectively. The newcomer emerged victorious, marking a turning point in the game, with a score of eight to six, without a single draw in such a hard-fought contest. Hourglasses were used to keep time, with twenty moves allotted for two hours. The match was played at three different venues: the Westminster Chess Club, St. George’s Chess Club, and the London Chess Club. The winner received fifty pounds sterling, while the loser received twenty. The sequence of results was as follows:

ANDERSSEN VS. STEINITZ MATCH, 1866

Game	Date	Opening	Winner	Score (Steinitz- Anderssen
1	July 18	King’s Gambit	Steinitz	1 – 0
2	July 20	Evans Gambit	Anderssen	1 – 1
3	July 21	King’s Gambit	Anderssen	1 – 2
4	July 23	Evans Gambit	Anderssen	1 – 3
5	July 25	King’s Gambit	Steinitz	2 – 3
6	July 27	Evans Gambit	Steinitz	3 – 3
7	July 28	King’s Gambit	Steinitz	4 – 3
8	August 1	Evans Gambit	Steinitz	5 – 3
9	August 3	King’s Gambit	Anderssen	5 – 4
10	August 4	Evans Gambit	Anderssen	5 – 5
11	August 6	Sicilian Defense	Steinitz	6 – 5
12	August 8	Evans Gambit	Anderssen	6 – 6
13	August 9	Sicilian Defense	Steinitz	7 – 6
14	August 10	Evans Gambit	Steinitz	8 – 6

GAME OF THE 1866 STEINITZ VS. ANDERSSEN MATCH ANALYZED BY IM ALEJO DE DOVITIIS

In other matches that year, also in London, Steinitz defeated the local player Henry Bird (1829-1908) 9.5 to 7.5; in Breslau, Zukertort beat Knorre 11.5 to 8.5 and Anderssen 2.5 to 1.5; in a long, informal contest, Neumann and Anderssen drew 2.5 to 2.5 in Berlin; there, Neumann also defeated Mayet 5.5 to 0.5; meanwhile, in the USA, the Scottish player George Mackenzie (1837-1891) began to dominate the local scene, given that Morphy was already clearly retired from competition.

In 1867, Paris, as part of another Universal Exhibition and under the general patronage of Napoleon III, hosted a major tournament. Kolisch emerged victorious, followed by the Polish player Symon Winawer (1838-1919), another rising star of the new era. Steinitz finished third and Neumann fourth. The time control was ten moves per hour.

GAME FROM THE 1867 PARIS TOURNAMENT ANALYZED BY IM ALEJO DE DOVITIIS

Other chess activities also took place, with Paris as the focus of attention, such as simultaneous sessions given by several masters, such as the Polish-French Samuel Rosenthal (1837-1902) and, in the case of Steinitz and Neumann, those given under the «blindfold» modality caused a special sensation.

In a match in Paris, Neumann clearly defeated Winawer, three to zero. Another tournament of interest was held in Dundee, where he won ahead of Steinitz, although in their encounter during the tournament, the player from Prague prevailed.

GAME FROM THE 1867 DUNDEE TOURNAMENT ANALYZED BY IM ALEJO DE DOVITIIS

In 1868, the first North German tournament was held in Hamburg, organized by the Norddeutscher Schachbund (NDSB), founded that year, and won by Max Lange. In the western part of the country, another tournament was held in Aachen, also with Lange emerging victorious. In Berlin, in an intergenerational duel between master and student, Anderssen triumphed over Zukertort.

In the second edition of the North German tournament, again held in Hamburg in 1869, Anderssen won the event, defeating Paulsen in a tiebreaker. The player from Breslau also won the West German tournament, this time in Barmen. Among the matches of the year, Morphy is seen in New Orleans playing the last formal games of his life against his childhood friend Charles Amédée de Maurian (1838-1912), with a curious overall victory for the latter. However, Morphy gave him the advantage of a knight in all thirty-nine games.

Completing the period, in 1870 an important tournament was held in Baden-Baden, with another victory for Anderssen, this time by the narrowest of margins over Steinitz, and Neumann and Blackburne finishing one point behind. The best players of the time participated, with the exceptions of Kolisch, Lange, and Zukertort.

Twenty moves per hour were required, and for the first time, mechanical clocks were used instead of hourglasses. These rudimentary clocks could only be considered prototypes, not yet entirely precise, which is why players were given the option of continuing to use conventional hourglasses.

The introduction of this device, which would eventually become standard, brought with it the concept of «time pressure» (zeitnot). Therefore, players had to manage not only the quality of their moves but also the use of time, which became finite, unlike in the past. This meant that games could be less passive than before, generating more dynamic encounters better suited to the aggressive style of an Anderssen or the youthful vitality of a Steinitz.

While the tournament was underway, war broke out between Prussia and France. As the tournament progressed, the sounds of artillery fire could be heard thirty kilometers away from the city. One of the players, the Prussian Adolf Stern (1849-1907), a reservist, had to withdraw from the competition to join his country’s army. He even played a few games, including two that he lost due to time under the system that was beginning to be installed from this competition.

Below, the standings table.

Rank	Player	Origin	Points
1	Adolf Anderssen	Prussia (Germany)	11.0
2	Wilhelm Steinitz	Austro-Hungarian Empire	10.5
3	Gustav Neumann	Prussia (Germany)	10.0
4	Joseph Henry Blackburne	England	10.0
5	Louis Paulsen	Prussia (Germany)	7.5
6	Cecil Valentine De Vére	England	6.5
7	Szymon Winawer	Poland (Russian Empire)	6.5
8	Samuel Rosenthal	France (Polish origin)	5.0
9	Johannes von Minckwitz	Kingdom of Saxony	5.0
10	Adolf Stern	Electorate of Hesse	2.5

In summary, in a decade where matches continued to predominate as the form of chess competition, three important tournaments took place, with two victories for Anderssen, in London 1862 and Baden-Baden 1870, and one for Kolisch, in Paris 1867.

One name, from the past, could aspire to be recognized as the best after Morphy’s retirement, while another was emerging, although in this category, attention began to turn to Steinitz, who, in 1866, also in London, managed to defeat Anderssen, signaling that the dominance on the chess scene was beginning to change hands.

POWERFULNESS OF THE PROMINENT CHESS PLAYERS OF THE PERIOD

There are two retrospective measurements that assess the comparative chess strength of the players of the period. Regarding the Edo Historical Chess Ratings and their figures presented at the end of each year, the decade saw a shift from Morphy’s initial leadership until 1867, despite his clear inactivity, to Steinitz taking the lead from 1868 until the end of the period (and projecting into the next). The runner-up position was held successively by Paulsen (1861 to 1866), Steinitz himself (in 1867), Morphy (in 1868), and Anderssen (1869/1870).

Regarding Chessmetrics, with data collected for December of each year, there is greater variability, and other notable inclusions, including a somewhat unexpected one: Knorre, someone who, in addition to being a chess player, was an astronomer who discovered four asteroids. Also absent are Anderssen and Steinitz from the top two spots, as detailed below:

THE TWO BEST PLAYERS EACH YEAR ACCORDING TO CHESSMETRICS

Year	1st Place	2nd Place
1861	Morphy	Paulsen
1862	Paulsen	Kolisch
1863	Morphy	Paulsen
1864	Morphy	Paulsen
1865	Paulsen	Neumann
1866	Neumann	Knorre
1867	Kolisch	Neumann
1868	Neumann	Knorre
1869	Paulsen	Neumann
1870	Paulsen	Neumann

The Hungarian professor Arpad Elo (1903-1992), who later became an American citizen and created the rating system adopted by FIDE in 1970, also conducted a retrospective analysis. He presented his findings in his 1978 book, The Ratings of Chessplayers – Past & Present, from which the maximum rating for each player of the decade is derived, taking into account the most outstanding players (those who would have been at least 5-star according to the rating systems mentioned above). The following figures are obtained (it should be noted that he does not assign any rating to Knorre):

Historical Performance Rating of Masters – According to Prof. Elo

Player	Country	ELO Rating
Paul Morphy	United States	2690
Wilhelm Steinitz	Austro-Hungarian Empire / United States	2650
Adolf Anderssen	Prussia	2600
Johannes Zukertort	Poland (Russian Empire) / German Empire	2600
Gustav Neumann	Prussia	2570
Ignatz von Kolisch	Austro-Hungarian Empire	2570
Joseph Henry Blackburne	United Kingdom	2570
George Henry Mackenzie	Scotland (British Empire) / United States	2560
Louis (Ludwig) Paulsen	German Empire	2550
Daniel Harrwitz	Prussia	2520
Johann Löwenthal	Hungary / United Kingdom	2510
Jules Arnous de Rivière	France	2450
Berthold Suhle	Prussia	2440
Max Lange	German Empire	2440
John Owen	United Kingdom	2380

The following births and deaths of chess players, and in one case a composer, who were prominent figures occurred:

Births in the Period 1861-1870

Player / Composer	Year	Country	Main Achievements
Curt von Bardeleben	1861	Germany	Strong master and theorist. Winner of the Leipzig 1888 tournament and the Masters section in London 1883. He is world-famous for his legendary loss against Wilhelm Steinitz at Hastings 1895. His figure may have been an inspiration for the central character of Nabokov’s novel The Luzhin´s Defence.
Edith Martha Holloway	1868	United Kingdom	Pioneer of women’s chess. She was a two-time British Champion (1910 and 1936) and competed in the first Women’s World Championship in 1927. She was one of the first women to compete internationally at an elite level, appearing at the 1924 Paris Tournament of Nations.
David Janowski	1868	Poland (Belarus, Russian Empire) / France	One of the most spectacular attacking players of the Belle Époque. He challenged Emanuel Lasker for the World Championship in 1910 and won major tournaments such as Monte Carlo 1901 and Hanover 1902.
Emanuel Lasker	1868	Germany	The second official World Chess Champion. He holds the absolute record for the longest reign in chess history (27 years, between 1894 and 1921). A genius of over-the-board psychology, as well as a mathematician and philosopher.
Georg Marco	1863	Romania (Austro-Hungarian Empire)	Grandmaster and one of the most brilliant chess analysts and chroniclers of his era. Editor-in-chief of the influential magazine Wiener Schachzeitung for more than two decades.
Géza Maróczy	1870	Austro-Hungarian Empire	One of the best players in the world at the beginning of the 20th century, winner of Ostend 1905 and Barmen 1905. Immortalized in chess theory by the Maróczy Bind, a fundamental strategic concept against the Sicilian Defense.
Jacques Mieses	1865	Germany / United Kingdom	A master of a distinctively Romantic style and a prolific writer. He enjoyed an incredibly long-lived career (being one of the original players awarded the Grandmaster title by FIDE in 1950 for his lifetime achievements) and was a major advocate for the Scandinavian Defense.
Henri Rinck	1870	France	One of the greatest endgame study composers and researchers of all time. He published thousands of theoretical studies, revolutionizing the technical understanding of the final phases of the game.
Siegbert Tarrasch	1862	Germany	The «Praeceptor Germaniae» (Teacher of Germany). One of the strongest players of the 19th century and the great dogmatist of the positional school, systematizing the principles of Steinitz. Creator of the Tarrasch Defense and a World Championship challenger.
Richard Teichmann	1868	Germany	Nicknamed «Richard the Fifth» due to his tendency to finish in fifth place, he demonstrated his colossal true potential by winning the strong Carlsbad 1911 tournament undefeated, finishing ahead of Rubinstein and Schlechter.

Deaths in the Period 1861-1870

Here is the data formatted as a clean table in English:

Master	Year of Death	Country	Main Contributions
Henry Thomas Buckle	1862	United Kingdom	Eminent historian and one of the world’s strongest amateur players during the 1840s and 1850s. He defeated Lionel Kieseritzky in a famous 1848 match and won the Divan Club tournament in 1849.
William Lewis	1865	United Kingdom	Prominent theorist, author, and teacher of the classical era (student of Sarratt and teacher of McDonnell). His manuals introduced deep analysis of the Evans Gambit and helped establish British chess literature.
Carl Mayet	1868	Germany	Key member and the longest-surviving active player of the celebrated Berlin Pleiades. He was a great promoter of the Berlin Defense in the Ruy Lopez and a regular competitor in café matches against Anderssen.
Aleksandr Petrov	1867	Russian Empire	Considered the first great master of Russia (nicknamed «The Philidor of the North«). Co-creator of the Petrov Defense, one of the most solid openings in history. He was also a brilliant problem composer.

CHESS IN THE PUBLISHING WORLD

The Chess Player’s Magazine, which appeared in England in 1863 and ran until 1867, was edited in London by the two-time national champion Löwenthal, of Hungarian origin, having covered the London Congress of 1862. In 1868, it passed the torch to The Chess Player’s Quarterly Chronicle, edited by Arthur Bolland Skipworth (1830–1898), which published several volumes, the last corresponding to the period from February 1874 to December 1875.

Founded by Anderssen and Neumann, and later also edited by Zukertort, the Neue Berliner Schachzeitung emerged in 1864 in Berlin. This publication would last until 1871, offering eight annual volumes in the interim. It was created to compete with the classic Schachzeitung, a magazine that had been published since 1846 and, with some interruptions, would continue its publication until 1988. In this decade, the publication moved first from Berlin to Leipzig, under the direction of Max Lange, and then returned to Berlin, with an editorial committee made up of Anderssen and Neumann between 1865 and 1866, although the following year it returned to Leipzig, now led by Johannes Minckwitz (1843-1901).

After the closure of the legendary magazines Le Palamède and La Régence, the world of French-speaking chess, in line with the Paris tournament of 1867, saw the appearance, thanks to the French editor Jean-Louis Preti (1798-1881), of La Stratégie, originally subtitled Journal d’échecs, which would become one of the most influential magazines, with a monthly frequency that continued until 1940.

In non-specialized media, Staunton’s chess column continued throughout the decade in the Illustrated London News, founded in 1842 as the world’s first illustrated weekly. This allowed grandmaster games and brain teasers to reach tens of thousands of homes in Great Britain and its colonies weekly. A similar phenomenon occurred in France with Le Monde Illustré, founded in 1857, where the chess section was edited by Jules Arnous de Rivière (1830–1905).

In the United States, however, the iconic The Chess Monthly, edited by Daniel Willard Fiske (1831–1904), closed its doors in 1861 due to the outbreak of the Civil War. It wasn’t until August 1870 that Brownson’s Chess Journal (or The Dubuque Chess Journal) was launched, edited by the American professor Oramel Allen Brownson Jr. (1844–1920).

Regarding books, in addition to the aforementioned record of the 1862 London Chess Congress, compiled by Löwenthal, a three-volume work entitled Traité des applications de l’analyse mathématique au jeu des échecs (Treatise on the Applications of Mathematical Analysis to the Game of Chess), by the mathematician and chess player Jaenisch, was published in St. Petersburg between 1862 and 1863, though in French. In it, he formally applies mathematical analysis and early matrices to solve combinatorial problems on the chessboard.

Furthermore, the fourth edition of the Handbuch des Schachspiels, conceived by the Germans Tassilo von der Lasa (1818–1899) and Paul Bilguer (1815–1840), was published in 1864 by Max Lange. This virtual bible of opening theory in the 19th century was now enriched by the findings of the Morphy era. The Paris Tournament was also duly recorded in the text Congrès International des Échecs (Compte rendu du Congrès de 1867 et de l’Exposition Universelle), published in 1868 by de Rivière and Neumann.

CHESS, POLITICS, THOUGHT, AND SOCIETY

At a social level, clubs and cafes, with their growing presence worldwide, were the preferred venues for playing chess. It could also be played in private homes and, during ongoing wars, on the sidelines of battlefields.

Paris and London, as well as New York, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, and Buenos Aires, were places, among others, where it was practiced in social settings. The Café de la Régence, now located at 161 Rue Saint-Honoré, remained an epicenter in the French capital, just as Simpson’s Divan at 101–102 The Strand held sway in England. A common practice was for customers to pay a modest entrance fee, which included coffee and a cigar, to access the upstairs rooms where the game was played, in an exclusively male environment.

In Berlin, there was the Café de l’Europe and the Berliner Schachgesellschaft, where Anderssen, Neumann, and Zukertort played. Meanwhile, in Vienna, the Café Silver and the Wiener Schachgesellschaft were located in a square that would gain considerable importance from this period onward, especially with the presence of Steinitz. The St. Petersburg Chess Club opened in January 1862, bringing together brilliant minds from across Russia; however, in June of that same year, the Tsar’s secret police closed the club, arguing that it was a front for meetings of political agitators and revolutionary writers. As a result, chess activity moved to the Café Dominic (Nevsky Prospekt).

With the growing importance of cafés, clubs began to gain increasing prominence, such as London’s St. George’s Chess Club, frequented by Victorian high society with the ubiquitous figure of Staunton as its driving force; and the Westminster Chess Club, founded in 1866, which became a more dynamic environment and from which the British Chess Federation was formed.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in the north, in New York, the activity was concentrated at the New York Chess Club, which had held preeminence since the end of the Civil War in 1861, gaining particular prominence after the Scottish war veteran Mackenzie settled in the country, becoming the de facto champion of the club and the nation in 1867. Meanwhile, in Broadway venues, the practice of playing for money spread, even on the street.

In the south of the continent, in Buenos Aires, it was cultivated at the Club del Progreso, where the local elite played, and at the Club de Residentes Extranjeros, where English and French immigrants played; it was also played in various cafés, such as the Café de los Catalanes.

With the massive influx of British and French engineers into Egypt for the Suez Canal project, bankers and diplomats encouraged the establishment of the first purely European-style gentlemen’s clubs in the neighborhoods of the new city. These clubs were where chess was played, gradually replacing the older game of shatranj, which was still practiced in local establishments.

Similarly, since the British occupation of India, which began in 1858 and intensified in subsequent years, including this decade, the Western model of chess was introduced and imposed in the land of chaturanga, particularly in British clubs in Calcutta and Madras.

Prominent figures in politics, science, and society cultivated the game. Among them were US Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885); and Brazilian Emperor Pedro II (1825-1891). Argentine President Bartolomé Mitre (1821-1906); Italian unifier Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882); Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev, and two writers who were his compatriots, the writer Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) and Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), in this case, especially during his stays in Germany and France, having been appointed vice-president of the great Baden-Baden International Tournament of 1870; another writer, the Brazilian Joaquim Machado de Assis (1839-1908); the Italian musical composer Giuseppe Verdi, and the German philosopher Karl Marx, in this case at his residence in England, where he played it with his friend, colleague and compatriot Friedrich Engels (1820-1895).

LITERATURE, ART AND CHESS

In 1863 the French painter Honoré Daumier (1808-1879), who had previously presented caricatures in Parisian media contemplating the game, began to develop his painting Les Joueurs d’échecs (The Chess Players), which was finished some time later.

In 1865, the Dutchman Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) created the painting Egyptian Chess Players, showing, in addition to the artistic aspect, how the game could also have a place in geographies where chess was still played in a version more related to shatranj.

Lady Howe Checkmating Benjamin Franklin is an 1867 work by Anglo-American Edward Harrison May (1824-1887). It recreates a real event in which the then-American diplomat Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) is seen playing chess against Caroline Howe (1722-1814), sister of British Admiral Richard Howe (1726-1799). In this context, the game was a way to gain trust and obtain details that would serve the cause of independence of what would become the United States.

Another painting that presents a kind of exoticism, from a Eurocentric perspective of course, is Soldats bachi-bouzouks jouant aux échecs (Bashi-bazouk mercenaries playing chess), by the Frenchman Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), created in 1870, an oil painting of a chess player in the Café de la Régence that, in this case, presents two Ottoman mercenary soldiers in a Cairo café, completely focused on making moves on a mother-of-pearl inlaid chessboard.

A significant portion of the work of Benjamin-Eugène Fichel (1826–1895) dates from this decade. Fichel was one of the French academic painters of the Meissonier style, known as «genre painting.» Like his mentor, he worked on small-format canvases characterized by absolute technical precision, meticulous detail in historical costumes, and a predilection for recreating courtly, intellectual, and tavern scenes of the 17th and 18th centuries. Chess frequently appeared in this context, as in the work La Partie d’échecs (The Chess Game).

On a literary level, the Russian writer Tolstoy’s connection to chess is truly legendary. Not only did he play it with great enthusiasm, but he also included it in several of his notable works. From this period, we have War and Peace, published in 1869, which includes these passages mentioning the pastime, which was played in private residences, on the battlefield, and could also be an allegory for war:

«Andrew on Barclay de Tolly. War and chess. The spirit of the army. Wolzogen and Clausewitz. «The war must be extended widely.» Pierre understands the importance of this war. «Not take prisoners.» What is war? Prince Andrew thinks of Natlsha…».

«Berg and Boris, having rested after yesterday’s march, were sitting, clean and neatly dressed, at a round table in the clean quarters allotted to them, playing chess. Berg held a smoking pipe between his knees. Boris, in the accurate way characteristic of him, was building a little pyramid of chessmen with his delicate white fingers while awaiting Berg’s move, and watched his opponent’s face, evidently thinking about the game as he always thought only of whatever he was engaged on…»

«Boris rose to meet Rostov, but in doing so did not omit to steady and replace some chess- men that were falling. He was about to embrace his friend, but Nicholas avoided him…»

«Vera was playing chess with Shinshin in the drawing room. The old countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son, sat playing patience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house… «

«On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andrew brought with him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostovs’ once since the ball. Pierre seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the countess, and Natdsha sat down beside a little chess table with Sonya, thereby inviting Prince Andrew to come too…»

«And yet they say that war is like a game of chess?» he remarked. «Yes,» replied Prince Andrew, «but with this little difference, that in chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can never be known to anyone. Believe me,» he went on, «if things depended on arrangements made by the staff, I should be there making arrangements, but instead of that I have the honor to serve here in the regiment with these gentlemen, and I consider that on us tomorrow’s battle will depend and not on those others. . . . Success never depends, and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on numbers, and least of all on position.»

In January 1868, the British biologist Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) gave a lecture in London entitled «A Liberal Education; and Where to Find It,» in which, when clarifying that education does not consist merely in accumulating memorized facts, but in understanding the rules of human existence, he illustrated it with this example based on chess:

«Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of chess. Don’t you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do [82] you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?

Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated–without haste, but without remorse.

My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that [83] picture a calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win–and I should accept it as an image of human life».

Although chess pieces designed by Nathaniel Cook (1810-1879) and popularized by Howard Staunton (1810-1874) originated in 1849, it was during the decade of 1861 to 1870 that they became the absolute standard of sculpture applied to the game. During these years, the Jaques workshops in London standardized the production of weighted ebony and boxwood pieces, definitively displacing the decorative but unstable designs of the St. George or Regency types. The knight’s head (the Staunton Knight), directly inspired by the Elgin Marbles of the Parthenon, became the undisputed sculptural icon of the modern game.

Given the inherent association between real and symbolic battles (such as chess), it is not surprising that the American Civil War, fought between 1861 and 1865, could be represented in chess terms. A patented model from 1862 exists, with a board manufactured in New York, featuring albumen photographs of Abraham Lincoln and Union Army generals, accompanied by large, hand-carved bone pieces that can be disassembled for easy transport.

In this work, we see that the American Civil War could be interpreted through the lens of chess, just as Leo Tolstoy, in his novel, conceived that the association of chess with war could be reinterpreted, as it had been since the ancient chaturanga.

Chess as a sublimation of conflict. Chess, present in art, in reality, in society, in culture. In this decade and forever.