Editing Wilhelm Steinitz (section)

===World Championship match===

{{Main| World Chess Championship 1886}}

Eventually it was agreed that in 1886 Steinitz and Zukertort would play a [[World Chess Championship 1886|match]] in New York, [[St. Louis]] and New Orleans, and that the victor would be the player who first won 10 games. At Steinitz's insistence the contract said it would be "for the Championship of the World".<ref name="WinterWorldChessChampion" /><ref name="LandsbergBiographySteinitz">{{Cite book | last=Landsberg | first=K. | title=William Steinitz: A biography of the Bohemian Caesar | publisher=McFarland & Co. | year=1993}}</ref> After the five games played in New York, Zukertort led by 4–1, but in the end Steinitz won decisively by 12½–7½ (ten wins, five draws, five losses), becoming the first official world champion on March 29.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=53788 | title=Steinitz vs. Zukertort World Championship Match (1886) }}</ref> The collapse by Zukertort, who won only one of the last 15 games, has been described as "perhaps the most thoroughgoing reversal of fortune in the history of world championship play."<ref>Horowitz, p. 30</ref>

Though not yet officially an American citizen, Steinitz wanted the United States flag to be placed next to him during the match. He became a US citizen on November 23, 1888, having resided for five years in New York, and changed his first name from Wilhelm to William.<ref name="WallProfileSteinitz" />{{Unreliable source?|failed=y|date=December 2013}}

In 1887 the [[American Chess Congress]] started work on drawing up regulations for the future conduct of world championship contests. Steinitz actively supported this endeavor, as he thought he was becoming too old to remain world champion&nbsp;– he wrote in his own magazine "I know I am not fit to be the champion, and I am not likely to bear that title for ever".<ref name="Thulin1899WorldChampionshipMatchOrNot" />