Herr Ohl sent me a 527 page PDF reference document that chronicles the history of the World Championship from the early 19th century to the present (2011 World Cup). The document was compiled using copy & paste -- the word 'scrapbook' describes it best -- from knowledgeable sources that cover all aspects of the World Championship. For example, here are web sources I identified from the first 25% of the document, listed with the PDF page where the source is quoted.
- p.1, p.22 • Unofficial champions (pre-1886) [Wikipedia.org]
- p.25, p.32, p.39, ... • History of World Championship matches by ebutaljib [hence my use of the adjective 'ubiquitous'; forums.ubi.com] • covers the 1886 Steinitz - Zukertort match through the 1957 Botvinnik - Smyslov match (won by Smyslov)
- p.29, p.35 • Most Dominant Player to not be World Champion by ebutaljib [forums.ubi.com]
- p.34 • Sixth American Chess Congress (1889) [Wikipedia.org]
- p.35 (again) • Do the history books need to be re-written? by ebutaljib [rybkaforum.net]
- p.57, p.65, ... • FIDE: The Prehistory by Edward Winter [Chesshistory.com]
- p.125 • The London Rules by Edward Winter
- p.132 • 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad [Wikipedia.org]
- [...]
I even spotted a few pages copied from (gasp!) me, including that rare show of thanks : attribution. Filling up the other pages are crosstables and scanned clippings from offline resources that enhance the referenced material. For reasons of copyright, the Ohl document can't be distributed publicly, but it makes a good personal reference and I am lucky to have received a copy.
Making the document even more valuable is a second, three page PDF cross-referencing Ohl's list in my 'More Qualifiers' post with the longer document. For example, the blog post item '1907: Ostende Tournament (World Tournament Championship & Qualifier)' is supported by the Wikipedia page on the Ostend 1907 chess tournament, along with a German language clipping from an unidentified (probably contemporary) source.
I have several books covering different aspects of the history of the World Championship, but I don't have any single reference that is so comprehensive. It is truly a unique document. Thank you, Herr Ohl!
***
Later: More of the same investigation.
- p.146 • FIDE Championship (1928) by Edward Winter
- p.169 • Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (65) and World Championship Disorder by Edward Winter
- p.175 • AVRO 1938 chess tournament [Wikipedia.org]
- p.177-178 • Alexander Alekhine; 1937–39 [Wikipedia.org]
- p.175 • Absolute Championship of the USSR, Leningrad 1941 [Graeme.50webs.com/chesschamps/ussr]
- p.185 • The Death of Alekhine and the Rebirth of FIDE, 1948 [Chessgames.com]
- p.187 • Interregnum by Edward Winter
- p.191 • Section 5: Euwe world champion for one day by Edward Winter
- p.192 • World Championship Qualifiers 1946 on this blog
- [...]
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