CHESMAYNE
amazing grace
Lasker Emanuel
Download 441 games of Emanuel Lasker
01 1868-1941.
The first player to achieve a 2700 Elo rating. He created new endgame
theory when he drew a match with a KT versus a PA and
RO. He proposed that play should
be stopped after 2.0 hours for a 0.5 hour recess/adjournment. His Ph.D dissertation of 1902 on ideal
numbers went on to become a cornerstone of 20th century algebra. He took 1st place at Breslau by accident (1899). Another player, needing a draw or win for
first place, had a won adjourned game.
After the adjournment he lost! It was discovered that one of
his PAs was knocked off the board between sealing and resumption of the game,
which would have given him a winning advantage! Lasker, who was considering giving up chess,
won the event and the title of national master and five years later became world champion!
02 Lasker’s Manual of Chess:
textbook for intermediate players which was first published in 1932 (translated
by the author).
A preview of Russian hegemony
in chess a half-century later, Moscow
[Moscú, 1896] is the venue
for Lasker’s easy ‘return match’ victory. The mating combination
in this game is spectacular, as if Lasker felt that winning was not
enough.
Biography by Bill Wall
Emanuel Lasker was born on 24
December, 1868 in Berlinchen in Brandenburg, Germany
(now part of Poland). His older brother, Berthold,
taught him chess when Emanuel was 11 years old.
Emanuel Lasker gained the German master title at Breslau
in 1889 when he won the event. Lasker
actually won the event by accident. One of
his opponents, needing just a draw to take first place and the master title, had a won position at the time of adjournment against
Lasker. After adournment, the sealed move was made and
Lasker’s opponent had lost a won game. It was later
discovered that one of his pawns was accidently knocked off the board between sealing and resumption of
the game, which would have given him a winning advantage. As a result, Lasker, who was
considering giving up chess, won the event and the title of master. Five years later he would be world champion.
In 1890 in Berlin
he defeated Curt von Bardeleben and Jacques Mieses in match play. In July, he and his brother tied for first
place in a tournament in Berlin.
Emanuel traveled to London
where he defeated Henry Bird in match play.
In 1891 Lasker traveled to London
to run a chess pavilion at a German exhibition. He stayed in London for the next two years.
In 1892 he took first place in a London
tournament ahead of Henry Blackburne.
He then defeated Blackburne with 5 wins and 3 draws in their individual
match play.
Lasker then traveled to the United States in the hopes of
playing Steinitz for the world championship.
In September, 1893 he won the New
York International, then defeated the American
champion Jackson Showalter with 6 wins, 1 draw, and 2 losses.
In May, 1894
Lasker began his match with William Steinitz in New York for the world championship and won
with 10 wins, 4 draws, 5 losses.
Emanuel Lasker had become the second world chess champion at age
25. He received $2,000 for his
efforts.
Lasker took 3rd
place behind Pillsbury and Tchigorin at Hastings
1895. Lasker almost died before this
event and was still recovering from typhoid fever.
After Hasings, Lasker wrote “Common Sense In Chess”, which
was published in 1896. The manuscript
came from a series of 12 lectures that Lasker gave in London.
In January, 1896 he won a four-master tournament in Saint Petersburg, ahead of Steinitz,
Pillsbury, and Tchigorin. Also in 1896,
he won at Nuremberg
with 12 wins, 3 draws, and 3 losses.
In November, 1896 the return Lasker-Steinitz world championship match
began in Moscow. Lasker once again defeated Steinitz with 10
wins, 5 draws and 2 losses.
In 1897 Lasker
entered Heidelberg
University, then
transferred to Erlangen
University in 1900,
receiving a PhD in mathematics in 1902.
His dissertation was on geometrical calculus and ideal numbers used in algebra. There is even a Lasker theorem
in the theory of vector spaces. He was
good friends with Albert
Einstein.
Lasker won the London 1899 tournament 4 points ahead of the rest of the
field, winning 18, drawing 7, and losing 1 game. His loss came from Henry Blackburne.
Lasker won the Paris 1900
tournament with 14 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss.
Lasker entered Cambridge Springs 1904 and tied for second with Janowski.
The event was won by Frank Marshall.
Lasker settled in the United
States and in November, 1904 started
“Lasker’s Chess Magazine”. He continued with his
magazine until 1909.
Lasker spent a lot of time at the ‘Manhattan Chess Club’ and played many
games with rising star Jose
Capablanca, who was attending school
in New York and a student at Columbia University. Capablanca learned much from the world
champion and later defeated him in the world championship match 15 years
later.
In 1906 the ‘Rice Gambit Association’ was formed and Lasker became its
secretary. In June, 1906 Lasker won the
19th New York
State Chess Championship.
After 10 years
of absence, the 7th World Chess Championship match was held in 1907
between Emanuel Lasker and Frank
Marshall in New York, Philadelphia,
Washington DC, Baltimore, and Memphis.
Lasker won with 8 wins and 7 draws.
In August, 1908 Lasker defended his world championship title against
Siegbert Tarrasch. The match was held
in Dusseldorf
and Munich. Lasker won with 8 wins, 5 draws, and 3
losses. This was the first introduction of seconds in
world championship play. For a time,
Lasker believed Tarrasch had hypnotic powers and wanted to play him in a
separate room. Lasker received 4,000
marks for his winnings.
In 1908 Lasker married for the first time and became a husband, father,
and grandfather all at once. His wife, a few years older than he, was already a
grandmother. She died two years
later.
In 1909 Lasker tied with Akiba Rubinstein at Saint Petersburg. Lasker won 13 games, 3 draws, and 2
losses. Later that year Lasker played
two exhibition matches against David Janowski, drawing the first one and
winning the second match in Paris.
These matches were not considered world championship matches. The match was sponsored by a rich painter,
Nardus, who paid Lasker 7,000 francs to play a match against Janowski.
In January, 1910 Lasker defended his title against Carl Schlechter in Vienna and Berlin. Lasker won the 10th and final
game to tie the match with one won, 8 draws, and one loss. If Schlecter had only drawn this 71 move
game, he would have been the world champion.
It was supposed to have been a 30 game match, but was whittled down to
10 games due to lack of funds. The
conditions of the match were never published, and it is not known if this was
for the world championship title. But
after the match, the rest of the world accepted it as a world championship
match and declared Lasker the winner.
Lasker received 1,000 marks for each game. Schlecter later starved to death after World
War I.
In November, 1910 Lasker again defended his title with a match against
David Janowski in Berlin. Lasker won with 8 wins and 3 draws. Lasker had played four world championship
matches in 4 years. After 11 years
without a world championship match, Lasker then staked his title 3 times in 13
months. It would be another 11 years
before another world championship match would take place.
In 1911 Lasker married for a second time to a widow of an industrialist.
Lasker’s next
tournament was Saint Petersburg
1914. Lasker won the event, 1/2 point
ahead of Jose Capablanca. Lasker was
paid an appearance fee of 4,000 roubles to participate in this event, the first
time a chess player received an appearance pay. Czar
Nicholas II conferred the title “Grandmaster of Chess” to
Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall after they took the top five places at Saint Petersburg.
Lasker was
planning to play Akiba Rubinstein for the next world championship match until
World War I broke out. Capablanca was
also challenging Lasker and wanted to play the winner of the Lasker-Rubinstein
match.
World War I prevented further play by Lasker. During the war, Lasker had invested his life
savings in German war bonds and lost it all.
He tried to breed pigeons, but all the pigeons he bought were male.
After the war he won a strong
tournament in Berlin
in 1918.
In 1920 Lasker actually resigned his title to Capablanca without playing
a match, but was given $11,000 to play a 24-game match with Capablanca in Havana. The prize fund
for the match was a record $25,000, with $13,000 going to Lasker.
In 1921 Lasker met Capablanca in Havana
for the world championship title. Lasker was 52 years old and Capablanca was 32
years old. Lasker lost the title match
after winning no games, drawing 10 games, and losing 4 games. Lasker had been world champion for 27 years,
337 days.
In 1923 Lasker won at Ostrava
(Mahrish-Ostrau), Czechoslovakia
with 8 wins and 5 draws.
In 1924 Lasker won the 1924 New
York International, ahead of Capablanca and Alexander
Alekhine. This was Lasker’s last tournament victory. From 1895 to 1924 Lasker had played in 10
major tournaments. He took first place
in 8 of those events, 2nd place in one event, and 3rd
place in one event. He had won 119
games, drawn 46, and lost 18 in 30 years of tournament play, scoring 78 percent
in world class tournament play.
Lasker continued to do well as he got older. He took 2nd in Moscow in 1925. He wrote “Lasker’s Manual Of
Chess” in 1926 (German edition) and 1927 (English edition).
Emanuel Lasker
returned to Berlin
in 1927 and started taking up bridge and go. He became an international
player and life master in bridge. He
was the team leader of the German team at the Bridge Olympics.
In 1933, Lasker and his wife were driven out of Germany and
their property confiscated because they were Jewish. Lasker went to England in 1933, the USSR in
1935, and finally, to New York
in 1937.
Lasker took 5th in Zurich in 1934, 3rd in Moscow
in 1935, 6th in Moscow in 1936, and 7th in Nottingham in 1936.
In October, 1937 Lasker moved to Manhattan,
New York and taught chess and
bridge. He spent his time writing philospohical articles and
a book on the community of the future.
On January 11, 1941
Emanuel Lasker died in Manhattan
as a charity patient at Mount Sinai
hospital. At about the same time, his
sister died in a Nazi gas chamber.
Lasker defended
his title 7 times in 26 years. His
calculated peak ELO rating is 2720. He won 52,
drew 44, and lost 16 world championship games, scoring 74 points in his 112
games. His winning percentage is the
highest of any world champion, with a score of 66 percent.
Lasker played over 700 tournaments and games, winning over 69 percent of
the time.
By Colin
Crouch; I was really excited to receive this book, as I knew Colin Crouch to be
a writer who does good research from his excellent, (but short), “Attacking
Technique”, 105 p.p. ICD (1996). The
title is a little imprecise, but he doesn’t disappoint here. This book is a careful study of 10 games of
2 great world chess champions of different era’s, Lasker, and Petrosian. Though they were as different as night and
day as players, they both had a unique ability to orient themselves in
difficult situations over the board, and take control of the game. After reading this book, you might feel that
you can do this too!