Mikhail Chigorin

Defeated in two World Championship matches (1889, 1892)

Chessmetrics Ranking: World number two in 1889 – 1890 and 1896 – 1897

Tournament Career: Winner of five super-tournaments:

3-time winner of the Russian Championship

Winner in New York 1889 and Budapest 1896

Matches: Chigorin vs Tarrasch 9:9 (=4)

  Chigorin vs Salwe 7:5 (=3)

  Chigorin vs Alapin 7:3

What earned him this:

The last great representative of the romantic chess school, Mikhail Chigorin, played two World Championship matches against Steinitz. He lost the first one quite decisively, but in the second, he led several times and held a draw after twenty games before Steinitz decided the match with a powerful finish in the last two games.

Among his great tournament successes was his victory in New York 1889, where he shared first prize with Weiss and surpassed Gunsberg, Blackburne, Mason, and Burn; also the tournament in Budapest 1896, where he finished first ahead of Pillsbury, Schlechter, Janowski, Maroczy, Winawer, and Tarrasch. He had an excellent record in matches, which were still frequently played in his time, and his hard-fought draw with Tarrasch is well-known.

But perhaps the greatest success of his career was his sole second place in Hastings 1895 – the strongest tournament of the nineteenth century – just half a point behind the winner Pillsbury and ahead of reigning World Champion Lasker, Tarrasch, Steinitz, Schlechter, Janowski, Gunsberg, and many other significant players, as everyone who was anyone in the chess world at that time participated in this tournament.

Chigorin was ranked as high as second in the world and was a member of the elite top ten from the late 1880s until his death in 1908.

Best Games:

Mikhail Chigorin vs Wilhelm Steinitz

World Championship Match 1892, Havana, first round