Worldchess Newsletter

Remember Worldchess.com? I had almost forgotten about the site until I received an email a few days ago announcing a newsletter. The site has apparently leveraged its signup procedure -- mandatory to watch any live action on the site -- into a periodic communication. It started,

This is the first newsletter from WorldChess.com, the official web site of the World Championship cycle of events. This is a monthly newsletter that contains information that we hope you will find interesting and useful.

I mentioned the site in March, in a couple of posts on the Moscow Candidates:-

• First Week • 'The big news of the first week was the attempt by Agon, the organizer of the Moscow event, to restrict broadcasts of the tournament'
• Third Week • 'I watched the event both on Agon's site, Worldchess.com, and on Chess24.com, often switching between the two. Although Worldchess.com had more technical problems, it offered post-game press conferences with the players.'

The newsletter's first link was to a video that I featured last month on my main blog: We Will Be Agog!, 'Making of the World Chess Candidates Tournament'. Other links eventually led me to the site's page on the forthcoming title match.

The World Chess Championship comes to New York City
(worldchess.com)

'I and all New Yorkers welcome the World Chess Championship back to New York City. What better place to be than the city where parks are often populated by chess enthusiasts!' — New York Mayor Bill de Blasio

I'm following this match on my own WCC page 2016 Carlsen - Karjakin. The newsletter also introduced a series of articles titled History of the World Championship by Tim Harding:-

• A Brief History of the World Chess Championship, Part I • Steinitz & Zukertort
• Part II: From Steinitz to Lasker
• Part III: The Virtuoso and the Theoretician • Capablanca & Alekhine
• Part IV: FIDE Takes Control
• Part V: Botvinnik's Reign
• Part VI: Petrosian, Spassky and Fischer
• Part VII: Hated Rivals • Karpov & Korchnoi
• Part VIII: The Greatest Rivalry Ever • Kasparov & Karpov

The same author, perhaps best known for his detailed histories of correspondence chess, wrote a shorter series titled History of the Candidates:-

• Part I: The Soviets Dominate
• Part II: Karpov, Korchnoi and Kasparov
• Part III: Disappearance and Rebirth

In WCC Part I, Harding writes of the 1886 match, '[Steinitz] won the 19th and final game on March 24 in only 19 moves'. This statement received a comment, 'I thought that the match lasted 20 games, not 19. The Steinitz Gambit was game 20 to end the match.' My own page, 1886 Steinitz - Zukertort Title Match, gives 20 games. Is there a controversy here that I haven't seen before?