It was the best of matches, it was the worst of matches...

     “Joking aside, I would have thought that the prestige of the World Title would have at least motivated the players to try harder…especially when they could play on without any risk.” (Kevin Spraggett)
     Carlsen said he had made up his mind before game 12 that if he had a slightly favorable position he was going to offer a draw because he felt his best chance of winning the match was in the rapid playoffs. When his strategy was criticized by Kaspaov and Kramnik he commented that they were “... entitled to their stupid opinion." 
     It is sad that the world championship was as exciting as watching two engines play and it came down to rapid games, but it just shows how good those guys are. 
     There have been worse championship matches. Let's not forget the days when the world championship matches involved Kramnik or Ruslan Ponomariov or Rustam Kasimdzhanov. Then there was the 1984 Karpov-Kasparov match. 
     While some of the championship matches in the days of yore may have been worse and the games badly played by today's standards, their saving grace was that the games were at least exciting and, if not exciting, interesting. 
     In 1928, Efim Bogoljubow challenged Alekhine to a world title match which began September 6, 1929. Alekhine won the first game, but Bogoljubov evened the score in game 4. After that it was all Alekhine who won 11-5 with 9 draws.
     Alekhine's next title defense was also against Bogoljubow, but it was regarded as little more than an exhibition by all, including Alekhine himself. He won 8-3 with 15 draws. 
     In 1907 Frank Marshall played a match against Emmanuel Lasker for the title and got beaten badly, losing 8 games and winning none. Lasker also defeated Tarrasch 8-3 with 5 draws in 1908. 
     Then in 1910, Lasker thrashed David Janowsky 8-0 with only three draws. Janowsky had been successful in the London tournament of 1899 which had proven to be an interesting tournament in which 18 of the world's best players had participated including World Champion, Emanuel Lasker and the former champion, Wilhelm Steinitz. 
     Of those invited, missing were Tarrasch who declined citing his medical practice as being of a higher priority. Charousek wanted to play, but illness which later proved fatal prevented him.  Amos Burn arrived, but left the first day because he was dissatisfied with the arrangement of the tournament and he didn't like the way he was treated and vowed that he would never again take part in any competition under the management of the British Chess Club. 
     Lasker won at London with a 4-1/2 point lead ahead of Janowsky, Pillsbury and Maroczy. After London, Janowsky challenged Lasker to a match for £400 a side. Lasker accepted the challenge but the negotiations broke down when they couldn't agree on the terms. 
     Then in 1909, the two played an exhibition match in Paris that was drawn with two wins apiece. Mark Weeks speculated that this could have been a setup in which Lasker wanted to raise the hopes of Janowsky's financial backers, enticing them to finance a longer match. See his conclusions HERE. 
     Janowsky's wealthy backer was an interesting fellow named Leo Nardus, son of an antique dealer and a Dutch impressionist painter, art dealer, collector and financier, accomplished sportsman and opera enthusiast. He was selected in 1912 at the Stockholm Olympic Games for the Netherlands sword team and won the bronze medal. He was also a fairly decent amateur chess player and a great patron of the game. Nardus was a good friend of Marshall whom he even defeated once in a tournament. 
     The result of the exhibition match left Nardus enthusiastic, so he proposed a match for the world championship, but Lasker had already accepted a challenge from Carl Schlechter which didn't get played until 1910. 
     Lasker and Janowsky played a second exhibition match in Paris in 1909, and Janowsky got beaten badly 7-1 with 2 draws.   Nevertheless, they signed an agreement for a title match in autumn 1910, provided that Lasker retained his title in his upcoming match against Schlechter which he did. 
     Janowsky thought he could win and prepared for the match for several weeks in Ostend. He claimed that he studied hundreds of Lasker's games and came to the conclusion that Lasker had worse positions in most games and his opponents only lost because they played for a win prematurely. According to Janowsky he was going to demonstrate to the world that "Lasker's game was not chess, but dominoes." 
     During their title match, Lasker characterized Janowsky: "Independently he searches for the beautiful, ingenious, deep and hidden. Sadly, he goes too far therein. He pays not the slightest attention to ordinariness. In fact, this gives his play a special appeal, at the same time it is also his weak spot." 
     Their world championship match was held November-December 8 of 1910 in Berlin. Nardus donated a prize of 5,000 francs for the first to score 8 wins, draws not counting. At the time this match was played not too many people were interested because they didn't think Janowsky had much of a chance. Also, there wasn't much press coverage because Lasker had secured the copyright for the games, so they couldn't be printed without charge. A leading chess periodical of the day criticized the quality of the games, claiming that Nardus' sponsorship was the only thing grandmasterly about the contest. 

     In the first game Lasker won a 22 move miniature when Janowsky blundered a piece on the 19th move. Game two saw Janowsky on the attack when the game was adjourned after 33 moves, but it ended in a draw. 
     Game 3 was a marathon game which had to be adjourned four times and was finally drawn after 101 moves.  Lasker won game 4 and in game 5 (the featured game below) he had a close call being lost after 11 moves, but Janowsky let Lasker off the hook. 
     Janowsky's play in game 5 has been universally criticized, but looking at the game with Stockfish suggests that over the board with the clock ticking, things could have have gotten quite murky and I am less inclined to be quite so harsh on him for missing the best line. 
     Game 6 was drawn after two adjournments. Lasker won game 7. Game 8 was adjourned twice; Janowsky reached a favorable position and refused to take a draw by perpetual check and ended up losing. He also lost game 9 following an adjournment. 

     Deciding he needed a rest, Janowsky took a day off, but it didn't help. When play resumed he lost games 10 and 11 and the match was over. 
     My impression is that although the bald recitation of 8 wins and 3 draws for Lasker makes it sound like Janowsky was outclassed to the point that the match shouldn't even have taken place, with a little better luck he could have finished with a credible score. 
     Janowsky gets a bad rap, but while not official by any means, Chessmetrics puts him at number one in the world for 5 different months between the May 1904 rating list and the September 1904 rating list. By the time he played Lasker he had slipped to 14th place, but being number 14 in the world is not a bad place to be.