Champion Of Champions

I WAS musing the other day on the fact there have been 16 classical world chess champions - a figure ideal for organising a knockout tournament.
If the champions were seeded by chronological order, this is what the bracket would look like.

Round of 16
1. Steinitz
v-------------------------
16. Carlsen

8.Tal
v--------------------------
9.Petrosian

6. Botvinnik
v--------------------------
11. Fischer

13. Kasparov
v--------------------------
4. Alekhine

3. Capablanca
v--------------------------
14. Kramnik

5. Euwe
v--------------------------
12. Karpov

7. Smyslov
v--------------------------
10. Spassky

15. Anand
v--------------------------
2. Lasker

There are some mouthwatering match-ups, including the opening specialists Kasparov and Alekhine going head-to-head and the clash between champion-of-the-West Fischer and communist hero Botvinnik.
But how to decide the matches?
Just for fun, I am going to organise two-game mini-matches based on the players' games in ChessBase's 2020 Mega database.
In a 'game' each champion will make the move in any given position that he has played most often in Mega20.
When a position is reached which does not appear in a champion's repertoire, the game will be adjudicated by my main analysis engines Stockfish11 and Komodo11.01.
Whichever champion scores most over a two-game match will advance to the next round.
As I say, this is just for fun, but what else is there to do in lockdown?

Round of 16
Match One: Steinitz v Carlsen
Game One
Wilhelm Steinitz - Magnus Carlsen
Evans' Gambit
1.e4
Steinitz played 1.e4 in almost 80% of his games with the white pieces.
1...e5
Carlsen's reply is not so predictable, but the text has been more popular with him than 1...c5.
2.Nf3
Perhaps surprisingly this move is not the runaway winner. It appears 85 times in Steinitz's games, compared with 78 for 2.Nc3 and 65 for 2.f4.
2...Nc6 3.Bc4
Steinitz played this more than twice as often as 3.Bb5.
3...Bc5 4.b4!?
We have what is widely regarded as an archetypal 19th-century opening.
4...Bb6
This has been Carlsen's response both times he faced the Evans.
5.b5

Game One ends here as we have reached a position that does not appear in Carlsen's games

Both engines evaluate this position as better for Black. Averaging their two evaluations, once the evaluations become stable, gives Carlsen a score of +52 (in other words Black is 52 hundredths of a pawn better) - a great start with the black pieces.

Game Two
Magnus Carlsen - Wilhelm Steinitz
Spanish Cozio Deferred
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6!?
No Steinitz Defence - the great Czecho-Austro-American (Steinitz was born in Prague, then part of the Habsburgs' Austrian empire, but later became a US citizen) played Morphy's 3...a6 more frequently than he played his own defence, 3...d6.
4.Ba4 Nge7
A Steinitz favourite, beating out the Steinitz Defence Deferred: 4...d6. I guess 4...Nge7 is a Cozio Deferred.

Another short game, but again we have reached a position that does not occur in Carlsen's games

The engines again much prefer Carlsen's position, giving him an averaged score of +50.5, which adds up to a match score of +102.5 - a resounding victory.
So after one match the tournament bracket looks like this.

Round of 16                   Quarter-Finals
1. Steinitz
v-------------------------------Carlsen
16. Carlsen (+102.5)

8.Tal
v--------------------------
9.Petrosian

6. Botvinnik
v--------------------------
11. Fischer

13. Kasparov
v--------------------------
4. Alekhine

3. Capablanca
v--------------------------
14. Kramnik

5. Euwe
v--------------------------
12. Karpov

7. Smyslov
v--------------------------
10. Spassky

15. Anand
v--------------------------
2. Lasker