Playing Like Steinitz

Hello everyone and welcome to another study that I've conducted below, this time of Steinitz.

Steinitz is known to be the prominent master who emphasized control of the center. He went so far as to sacrifice "nice things" such as castling (Blackburne-Steinitz, London 1863), material (Dubois-Steinitz, London 1862) and even going for an early morning walk (Steinitz-Paulsen, Baden-Baden 1870) to maintain his grip on the central squares.

In the following game played by Steinitz against Mongredien in London 1863, we meet a solid system. Steinitz used it in several games so he could close the center and launch a flank attack.



After such a convincing crush, I decided to play in the same manner against a stronger player:

Haven't checked with engine so take it for what it is.

7. Bb3 I still don't understand the reasoning. You say you do it to prevent d5 -> dxe4 but you're not preventing it when he does play it. And why did you play 6. Bc4 anyways for? That bishop isn't going to do any damage to that black light squared wall. Wouldn't 6. Be2 be more sensible, supporting h4 -> h5 push in some lines? And why are you not playing e5 earlier to prevent that f5 push?

22. f3 seems very risky. Why not 22. Re3 and building up slowly since you have everything under control?

Nice game.

Yeah

@Itsmidnight Great questions and thank you for asking.

When he plays ...d5 I am not forced to play exd5. I can also play e4-e5 if I want, keeping a strong pawn on e5. The extra option of e4-e5 allows you to be flexible with your strategy.

The activity of the bishop on c4 is seen in the Steinitz game linked above. Be2 is more passive and the queen belongs here anyways.

After e4-e5 he is okay with not playing f7-f5 because he's playing on the queenside, not the kingside.

Finally f2-f3 needs to be played to rid of the oppressive e4 pawn. In case of a future ...Be4, my f-file would be open for my rooks.

Here's a similar game. I played Qc2 early on, but completely missed Bc2.

However, I managed to re-position my pieces to the right places. I don't think I would have had the time to do that if the position was more open.

I admire Steinitz's style because if you make a mistake, it's not as critical under a closed, supported center.

At last some useful content thanks

You're welcome, @Mahith1708! I'll create similar content from now on.

@MrCalderon
Interesting, In the Steintz game it was actually clear that white had to castle queenside to push his attack home easily, yet black played slowly not recognizing this and paid the price with king vulnerability.

In your game, Black dealt poorly with the control of open files. Also he played with his pawns but his piece mobility and coordination was in fact quite poor, not terrible, but poor. 14. f5 His pieces appear to be "developed" yet he creates further weaknesses in his structure while his pieces stand in an awkward muddle.

Just my thoughts, they may be helpful or not. Very interesting topic though, I admire Steintiz for sure, but my focus is personally on learning from chess theory and the games of the top current players (i.e. computers). Not new or brilliant, so we shall see how that works out.