Russian chess master Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin was born on 12 November 1850 in Gatchina. He started playing chess relatively late, he was already 16 years old when a teacher taught him to play. His peak World Ranking was 2nd (in 17 different months between October 1889 and September 1897). From 1889 to 1905 he was considered to be one of the best 10 chess players of the world. According to Chessmetrics his highest rating is 2797.

He participated in his first international tournament in 1881 in Berlin, where he placed equal third with Szymon Winawer behind Johannes Zukertort and Joseph Henry Blackburne. In the 1883 Chess World Championship he finished fourth behind Steinitz and Blackburne. Chigorin never played in Candidate Tournaments or World Championship Matches, but after placing equal first with Max Weiss in the 1889 New York tournament, defending world champion Wilhelm Steinitz challenged him to a match where the stake was the world championship title.

The match took place in Cuba in 1889. According to the rules it was a 20 games match, and the winner had to gain at least 10 ½ points. In case of a deuce, the defending champion could keep his title. Chigorin started better, after the 7th game he was leading to 4-3, but after the 10th game Steinitz was standing 6-4, and finally in the 17th game Steinitz reached the 10 ½ points ending the game to 10 ½ - 6 ½ and thus defended his world champion title. (Wiki)

Interesting facts:

Several opening and opening variations were named after him, for example the Chigorin version of the Ruy Lopez and the Chigorin Defence of the Queen’s Gambit. A lot of his fellow countrymen consider him to be the ‘father of Russian chess’. The science fiction novel ‘The Squares of the City’ (1965) was based on his famous match with Steinitz in 1892.

He died in Lublin on 25 January 1908 of diabetes.