The upcoming world chess championship between defending champion D Gukesh of India and challenger Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan will take place in Geneva from November 22 to December 12. Organized under the aegis of FIDE, the match carries a prize fund of USD 2.5 million.The first world chess championship took place 140 years ago in the United States in 1886 between Wilhelm Steinitz (a Prague-born Austrian subject) and Johannes Zukertort (a British citizen). Played across three cities, the championship was contested for stakes totaling USD 4,000.What is interesting is how that USD 4,000 purse was assembled and how the match itself was organised. It was arranged under a private contract between the two contestants who had to agree to championship terms with each other. Each had to find backers willing to put USD 2,000 into the purse. Steinitz won by ten games to five, with five draws, in games played across New York, St. Louis and New Orleans.For its first six decades, the world championship was governed by bilateral contracts between the champion and the challenger, with the incumbent generally holding the stronger negotiating position. There was no fixed schedule. The champion decided whether to accept the challenge and on what conditions. The challenger had to find money from wealthy patrons or a club or another source.The system did not guarantee that the best player would have a shot at being the world champion.
When the Best Player Could Not Buy His Shot
Akiba Rubinstein is considered to be among the best players of the early 1900s. Born in Poland, Rubinstein was introverted and fanatical about chess. Rubinstein reached his peak around 1912, winning five consecutive tournaments that year (San Sebastián, Pistyan, Breslau, Warsaw and Vilna). When he challenged Emanuel Lasker (then champion) in 1912, Lasker agreed to play on the condition that Rubinstein raised the money. Lasker’s financial demands were high, and Rubinstein struggled to meet them.
Akiba Rubinstein
Eventually, plans were made for a match in the autumn of 1914. Sadly, the match never happened, as World War I broke out in 1914, denying Rubinstein his shot at the world title. Just before Rubinstein challenged Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca sent a letter of challenge to Lasker in November 1911.At this point, Lasker had already held the title for seventeen years. Lasker responded to Capablanca’s challenge with a list of seventeen conditions which sparked a bitter dispute between the two. Among other conditions that Capablanca deemed unfair, Lasker demanded that the challenger win by a margin of at least 2 games, or Lasker would keep the title.
Lasker, Capablanca and a Battle Over Conditions
The ensuing bitterness led to the two cutting off all communication. Negotiations resumed after the war, and the two signed an agreement in January 1920. However, in a dramatic twist in June 1920, Lasker resigned his world title in writing via a press announcement, declaring Capablanca his successor.Under a clause in their agreement, this made Capablanca champion, but the chess public was unwilling to accept a title handed over without a match. Lasker nevertheless agreed to play, while continuing to insist that Capablanca was already the champion. The world championship match finally happened in Havana, Cuba, in 1921 with a USD 20,000 purse, of which Lasker was guaranteed USD 11,000 and Capablanca USD 9,000 whatever the result. Capablanca dominated the contest and became the third World Chess Champion in 1921.
Emanuel Lasker (on the right) plays against José Raúl Capablanca
Once champion, Capablanca proposed rules of his own in what came to be known as the London Rules. Under them, the champion could not be compelled to defend his title for a purse below USD 10,000. The champion received 20 percent as a fee, with the remaining 80 percent split 60:40 between the winner and the loser.This was a formidable sum in the 1920s. It took Alexander Alekhine almost five years to find financial support to challenge Capablanca. The Club Argentino de Ajedrez and Argentine supporters stepped in to put up the purse. This secured the official match in Buenos Aires, where Alekhine ultimately defeated Capablanca in 1927.
How the Champion–Challenger System Hit Its Limits
Ironically, the London Rules stood in the way of Capablanca’s return as a challenger. Alekhine insisted that a rematch would have to follow the same rules. Talks dragged on for years without result, for reasons historians still dispute, and Capablanca died in 1942 without getting another shot at the title.This system of bilateral challenges ended in 1946 with the death of Alekhine. Alekhine still held the title at his death. There was nobody to challenge or negotiate with. FIDE, founded in 1924, stepped in.The Soviet Union joined FIDE in 1947, and in 1948 FIDE organised a world championship tournament. Five leading players took part, with Mikhail Botvinnik emerging as the winner and the new world champion. The subsequent qualifying cycle and tournaments were held under the aegis of FIDE with FIDE setting the rules.FIDE retained elements of the old structure. The champion still does not need to qualify and gets to defend the title. The challenger is determined through the cycle.Chess was hardly unique in using the champion–challenger model. Real tennis, the indoor game from which lawn tennis descends, claims the oldest world championship in any sport. Its first recorded champion, a Frenchman known only as Clergé, held the title in the 1740s, and it has always been decided by challenge. For long periods, the champion could accept or refuse a challenger, usually according to how much prize money the challenger’s sponsor offered, and several years could pass between matches.Professional boxing retained the champion–challenger structure but added sanctioning bodies to police it. A champion must periodically face a designated mandatory challenger or give up the belt. If the two camps cannot agree on terms, the sanctioning body holds a purse bid: promoters submit sealed offers, and the highest bidder stages the fight.Today, Sindarov does not have to find wealthy patrons or negotiate with Gukesh. He has already earned his seat across the board through a qualifying system. That may be the greatest difference between Geneva in 2026 and New York in 1886. The prize money has risen from thousands to millions, but the real progress is that a challenger no longer has to buy a shot at the title.(Aarav Dengla is India’s 93rd Grandmaster. He is a keen observer and student of world history in general and chess history in particular.)
