Title Price: When the challengers had to pay to face the champion

The upcoming World Chess Championship between defending champion D Gukesh of India and challenger Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan will be held in Geneva from November 22 to December 12. The match, organized under the auspices of FIDE, has a financial fund of 2.5 million USD.The first World Chess Championship was held 140 years ago in the United States in 1886 between Wilhelm Steinitz (an Austrian born in Prague) and Johannes Zukertort (a British citizen). The championship was played in three cities and was contested for a total of $4,000 in stakes.What’s interesting is how that $4,000 purse was put together and how the match itself was organized. It was arranged by private treaty between two contestants who had to mutually agree on the terms of the championship. Each had to find backers willing to put $2,000 into the wallet. Steinitz won ten games to five, with five ties, in games played across New York, St. Louis and New Orleans.For the first six decades, the World Championship was governed by bilateral contracts between the champion and the challenger, with the incumbent generally having the stronger bargaining position. There was no fixed schedule. The champion decided whether to accept the challenge and under what conditions. The challenger had to find money from wealthy patrons or a club or other source.The system did not guarantee that the best player would have a chance to become world champion.

When the best player couldn’t buy his shot

Akiba Rubinstein is considered one of the best players of the early 20th century. Born in Poland, Rubinstein was introverted and fanatical about chess. Rubinstein reached his peak around 1912, winning five consecutive tournaments that year (San Sebastián, Pistyan, Breslau, Warsaw and Vilna). When he challenged Emanuel Lasker (the champion at the time) in 1912, Lasker agreed to play on the condition that Rubinstein raised the money. Lasker’s financial demands were high and Rubinstein tried to meet them.

Akiba Rubinstein

Plans were eventually made for a match in the fall of 1914. Unfortunately, the match never took place as World War I broke out in 1914, denying Rubinstein his chance at a world title. Just before Rubinstein challenged Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca sent Lasker a challenge in November 1911.At this point, Lasker had already held the title for seventeen years. Lasker responded to Capablanca’s challenge with a list of seventeen conditions that sparked a bitter dispute between them. Among other conditions that Capablanca considered unfair, Lasker demanded that the challenger win by at least 2 games or Lasker would retain the title.

Lasker, Capablanca and the Battle of Terms

The ensuing bitterness led to the two cutting off all communication. Negotiations resumed after the war and the two signed an agreement in January 1920. However, in a dramatic twist in June 1920, Lasker resigned his world title in writing via press announcement and declared Capablanca as his successor.According to a clause in their agreement, this made Capablanca champion, but the chess public was unwilling to accept the title handed over without a match. Lasker nevertheless agreed to play while continuing to insist that Capablanca was already the champion. The world championship match was finally held in Havana, Cuba in 1921 with a purse of US$20,000, of which Lasker was guaranteed US$11,000 and Capablanca US$9,000 regardless of the result. Capablanca dominated the competition and became the third world chess champion in 1921.

Emanuel Lasker (right) plays against José Raúl Capablanca

Once champion, Capablanca devised his own rules in what became known as the London Rules. According to them, the champion could not be forced to defend his title for a purse of less than $10,000. The champion received 20 percent as a fee, with the remaining 80 percent split 60:40 between the winner and loser.This was an impressive sum in the 1920s. It took Alexander Alekhin almost five years to find the financial backing to challenge Capablanca. Club Argentino de Ajedrez and Argentina supporters entered to place the purse. This secured an official match in Buenos Aires, where Alekhine eventually defeated Capablanca in 1927.

How the Champion–Challenger System Hit Its Limits

Ironically, the London Rules stood in the way of Capablanca’s return as a challenger. Alekhine insisted that the retaliation would have to follow the same rules. The talks dragged on for years without result, for reasons historians still argue, and Capablanca died in 1942 without getting another chance at the title.This system of bilateral challenges ended in 1946 with the death of Alekhine. Alekhine still held the title after his death. There was no one to challenge or negotiate with. FIDE, founded in 1924, intervened.The Soviet Union joined FIDE in 1947 and in 1948 FIDE organized a World Championship tournament. Five leading players took part, with Mikhail Botvinnik emerging as the winner and new world champion. The subsequent qualification cycle and tournaments were held under the auspices of FIDE, with the rules set by FIDE.FIDE retained elements of the old structure. The champion still doesn’t have to qualify and gets to defend his title. The challenger is determined during the cycle.Chess was hardly unique in its use of the champion-challenger model. Real tennis, the indoor game from which lawn tennis originated, claims the oldest world championship in any sport. Its first recorded champion, a Frenchman known only as Clergé, held the title in the 1740s and was always decided by challenge. For a long time, a champion could accept or reject a challenger, usually depending on what prize money the challenger’s sponsor offered, and several years could pass between matches.Professional boxing retained the champion-challenger structure but added sanctioning bodies to police it. The champion must regularly face a designated mandatory challenger or relinquish the belt. If the two camps can’t agree on terms, the sanctioning body will announce the purse: promoters will submit sealed bids and the highest bidder will initiate the fight.Today, Sindarov does not need to find rich patrons or negotiate with Gukesh. He has already won his place through the qualification system. That may be the biggest difference between Geneva in 2026 and New York in 1886. The winnings have gone from thousands to millions, but the real progress is that the challenger no longer has to buy a shot at the title.(Aarav Dengla is the 93rd Grandmaster of India. He is a keen observer and student of world history in general and chess history especially.)