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1886 World Chess Championship

When: 1886
Where: United States
Part of: Event of 1886: Wilhelm Steinitz becomes the first recognized World Chess Champion.

Steinitz defeated Zukertort in the first official World Chess Championship match held in the United States.

The match ran from January 11 to March 29, 1886. Steinitz won by achieving ten wins. Zukertort resigned on the final day, congratulating Steinitz as the new World Champion. This match is recognized by historians as the first official championship.

Sources

World Chess Championship 1886 Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-19

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.