Dawid Janowski
- November 24, 2025
Defeated in the 1910 World Championship Match
Chessmetrics Ranking: World Number One for five months in 1904
Tournament Career: Winner of five super-tournaments:
Monte Carlo Chess Tournament 1901
Vienna Chess Tournament 1902
German Chess Congress 1902
Barmen Chess Tournament 1905
American Chess Congress 1921
Matches: Janowski vs Schlechter 2:2 (=3)
Janowski vs Lasker 2:2
What He Achieved:
Janowski played for the world championship title against Lasker and managed only three draws out of eleven games, making this match the most one-sided title match in chess history. It was not Janowski’s finest hour, but he more than compensated for it in the rest of his career, which was extraordinarily successful. Amidst a flood of second and third places in various super-tournaments, we find several of his victories, often ahead of the best – Schlechter, Chigorin, Maroczy, Pillsbury, and others.
In 1904, he briefly became the world number one according to retrospectively calculated historical rankings, which perfectly matched his results, consistency, and chess strength. Janowski is one of only two players (the other being Tarrasch) who managed to defeat each of the first four world champions – Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine at least once.
Janowski’s personal nature was controversial, and he was rather unpopular among his peers for his habit of playing clearly lost positions. He was also reportedly a gambler, losing a large portion of his tournament earnings in bets.
Best Games:
David Janowski vs Semyon Alapin
Barmen 1905
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Miroslav Janeček graduated in English Philology at Palacký University Olomouc. Currently he works in Prague as a content editor for a large marketing company. His roots are in Opava - the historic and cultural centre of the Czech part of Silesia. That city is also the home of Slezan Opava, the chess club where Miroslav started to play chess, later went on to work as a youth coach and which he to this day proudly represents. As an aspiring chess publicist, he is the main author of articles on ChessDB.cz. In his free time, in addition to chess and writing, he also devotes himself to racket sports, history, and literature.