World Chess Championship 1910 (Lasker–Schlechter)

Match conditions

The status of the 1910 match between Emanuel Lasker and Carl Schlechter is a matter of debate. While it is usually considered a World Championship contest, its unusual outcome has led some to question this. R.J. Buckley wrote in the American Chess Bulletin that the ten-game match was not for the world title, and its result suggested a proper championship match should be played instead. However, the editor of that same publication added a note stating that Lasker had told him directly, "Yes, I placed the title at stake." Anne Sunnucks, in her Encyclopaedia of Chess, refers to it as "a so-called championship match." In contrast, chess author Nicolas Giffard, in Le guide des échecs, has no doubt it was a championship match, though he notes that if Schlechter had won, he would have still needed to win a revenge match before being recognized as world champion.

Lasker managed to draw the match by winning the final game. This final game has long puzzled commentators, as Schlechter appeared to avoid a draw and instead played aggressively for a win. A common explanation for this is that Schlechter needed to win by a margin of two points to claim the world title. This view is supported by Israel Horowitz, Nicolas Giffard, and Fred Wilson. However, there is no direct evidence to confirm this requirement for the actual match. What is documented is that in 1908, a different set of conditions was agreed upon for a thirty-game match, not the ten-game match that was eventually played. Those conditions stated that Schlechter would win the world championship only if his score exceeded Lasker's by at least two points, and if the difference was only one point, the match would be a draw and a tie match would be arranged.