Steinits had a backward knight cutting off the 8th rank.  Suppose he had played Nc8b6 instead of Qd8e8 he would have evaded the mating attack.. Then White has Qg5f6 ch , K g7H6. White has no check except to h4 which is drawish on the next move and Black has defense by Q d8 H8.  Of course if instead White played

R f1f7 x he loses the rook because pawn cannot retake because Q is undefended

Likewise if Q is on h4 after the other check because the King goes back to c7

But comments years ago called Steinits the "Drawing Master"

Von Bardeleben says the internets.

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/steinitzvonbardeleben.html

Here's the game:

Correct. That's why Steinitz's combination against Von-What's-his-name became so famous. It was a beautiful game, but the legend has it that his opponent left the playing hall. Chess was very much an upper class male sport at the time, and several things occured (besides allowing checkmate, which is now somewhat disrepectful):

It was cowardice to decline a gambit at one point. Masters would arise and make a vocal announcement such as "I announce mate in 8" or "My oppoent is vanquished in Eight moves" or something like that, according to my teachers.

I think at this time it was standard practice to play until checkmate, for audience to see. Steinitz knew it was checkmate several moves before.

Avoiding checkmates does not require a constant level of perfection.  A true master of the game should simply avoid it.

well, you can't expect anyone to play on the same perfected level constantly. Everyone has their ups and downs..

I had a game that was almost exactly like that just now.  Or there were a lot of situations like this game.  But I didn't checkmate him like that the guy resigned when I put him in a position to capture his queen.  I am a low level but I hate when people just quit when they lose there queen.  I won plenty of times when they had a queen and I didn't.  Anyways that match looked like a pro was playing agaisnt me or something lol

maybe steinitz is surprised and overlooked this move, most of the masters don't let their opponents to mate them. ha ha ha , good game for white

When this game was played Steiniz had not been WCh.

He won WCh in 1886.  After this tournament he improved his game.

This game is really weak for Black.

I can't believe a world champion can get checkmated like this.