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The Chess
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Editor: Dr Tim |
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The Chess
History |
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Editor: Dr Tim |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
24 October 2025
As explained in the first of a series of articles for this website we wrote some years ago, Tim used software developed by Thomas Niessen to check all Steinitz games. We are now turning our attention to Schlechter, the Austrian grandmaster who tied a match for the world championship with Emanuel Lasker in 1910.
Carl Schlechter from Deutsche Schachzeitung 1909
Our collection of Schlechter games has now grown to about 1,100 and we have discovered several cases where game scores are incorrect in main databases. Checking all the primary sources for his career is going to be a major job on which we first embarked last winter but now intend to progress more thoroughly.
The next stage of this process will be to thoroughly review the sources for the Hastings 1895 international tournament where there are many discrepancies between the various books of the evenmt which have been published.
Steinitz in London was the fifth of Tim's books to be published by McFarland. Then Covid and his wife's serious illness prevented further serious research for several years.
Tim is not preparing any new book at present. Although the Schlechter research may eventually result in a new and more complete game collection. we do not think a biography would be psosible unless an Austrian historian collaborates on such a work.
Tim is also gradually preparing a total revision of his Blackburne biography but we do not expect any new edition to be ready for several years.
Some more Blackburne games have been found and we have been making a thorough list of corrections to games which are wrong in many databases to add to text corrections which have been listed on this website for a long time. We also hope soon to be able to release new information about Blackburne's family.
Essays on Chess History : A possible project is to produce (perhaps as an e-book or print-to-order) a collection of essays in chess history, which in some cases would be extensively updated, with a few new essays included. There are still some sections of Tim's PhD thesis and past conference papers which have never been published in book or article form, including a major study of early Irish chess clubs and a biographical study of Lord George William Lyttelton, who was President of the first British Chess Association. This book might also include a section on more recent chess history.
Further ideas include the possibility of publishing e-books of some of my older books of which I have retained electronic rights. By all means, email with preference suggestions to help me prioritise.