Emanuel Lasker [SEP] sport
Emanuel Lasker


good friend of Albert Einstein, who wrote the introduction to the posthumous biography "Emanuel Lasker, The Life of a Chess Master" from Dr. Jacques Hannak (1952). In this preface Einstein express his satisfaction at having met Lasker, writing: Poet Else Lasker-Schüler was his sister-in-law. Edward Lasker, born in Kempen (Kępno), Greater Poland (then Prussia), the German-American chess master, engineer, and author, claimed that he was distantly related to Emanuel Lasker. They
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Emanuel Lasker


1936 and seventh equal in Nottingham 1936. His performance in Moscow 1935 at age 66 was hailed as "a biological miracle". Joseph Stalin's Great Purge started at about the same time the Laskers arrived in the USSR. In August 1937, Martha and Emanuel Lasker decided to leave the Soviet Union, and they moved, via the Netherlands, to the United States (first Chicago, next New York) in October 1937. The next year Emanuel Lasker's patron, Krylenko, was removed from his office and executed.
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Emanuel Lasker


sponsored by the wealthy lawyer and industrialist Isaac Rice in order to test the Rice Gambit. Lasker narrowly lost the match. Three years later Lasker became secretary of the Rice Gambit Association, founded by Rice in order to promote the Rice Gambit, and in 1907 Lasker quoted with approval Rice's views on the convergence of chess and military strategy. In November 1904, Lasker founded "Lasker's Chess Magazine", which ran until 1909. For a short time in 1906 Emanuel Lasker was interested in the strategy game Go, but
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Emanuel Lasker


Sports Minister, was an enthusiastic supporter of chess. In the USSR, Lasker renounced his German citizenship and received Soviet citizenship. He took permanent residence in Moscow, and was given a post at Moscow's Institute for Mathematics and a post of trainer of the USSR national team. Lasker returned to competitive chess to make some money, finishing fifth in Zürich 1934 and third in Moscow 1935 (undefeated, ½ point behind Mikhail Botvinnik and Salo Flohr; ahead of Capablanca, Rudolf Spielmann and several Soviet masters), sixth in Moscow
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Edward Lasker


" magazine: "I did not discover that we were actually related until he (Emanuel Lasker) told me shortly before his death that someone had shown him a Lasker family tree on one of whose branches I was dangling." In a February 8, 1973 letter to Robert B. Long, Lasker explained their exact relationship:The genealogy, incidentally, indicates that the common forbear of Emanuel and myself was the son Samuel Lasker of the Rabbi of the Polish village Łask, whose name was originally Meier Hindels. However, later
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Emanuel Lasker


tournament (1½ points ahead of Capablanca) and finishing second at Moscow in 1925 (1½ points behind Efim Bogoljubow, ½ point ahead of Capablanca), he effectively retired from serious chess. During the Moscow 1925 chess tournament, Emanuel Lasker received a telegram informing him that the drama written by himself and his brother Berthold, "Vom Menschen die Geschichte" ("History of Mankind"), had been accepted for performance at the Lessing theatre in Berlin. Emanuel Lasker was so distracted by this news that he lost badly to
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Emanuel Lasker


Emanuel Lasker (December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Champion in history. In his prime, Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players ever. His contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately
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Emanuel Lasker


was not Lasker's only interest. His parents recognized his intellectual talents, especially for mathematics, and sent the adolescent Emanuel to study in Berlin (where he found he also had a talent for chess). Lasker gained his abitur (high school graduation certificate) at Landsberg an der Warthe, now a Polish town named Gorzów Wielkopolski but then part of Prussia. He then studied mathematics and philosophy at the universities in Berlin, Göttingen (where David Hilbert was one of his doctoral advisors) and Heidelberg. In 1895 Lasker published
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Berthold Lasker


Berthold Lasker was born Jonathan Berthold Lasker in Berlinchen (Barlinek, now West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland). He was the son of a Jewish cantor and grandson of a well regarded Rabbi. He had a brother who was 8 years younger, the later World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker. He attended the Friedrichwerdersches Gymnasium in Berlin and graduated in 1879 with the  Abitur. From 1881 until 1888 he studied medicine at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. During this time he shared his flat with his brother Emanuel whom he drew into playing chess
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Emanuel Lasker


and his own invention, Lasca. His books about games presented a problem that is still considered notable in the mathematical analysis of card games. Lasker was also a research mathematician who was known for his contributions to commutative algebra, which included proving the primary decomposition of the ideals of polynomial rings. His philosophical works and a drama that he co-wrote, however, received little attention. Emanuel Lasker was born on December 24, 1868 at Berlinchen in Neumark (now Barlinek in Poland), the son of a Jewish cantor
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Emanuel Lasker


Edward Bird (1890), Berthold Englisch (1890), Joseph Henry Blackburne (1892), Jackson Showalter (1892–93) and Celso Golmayo Zúpide (1893). Chessmetrics calculates that Emanuel Lasker became the world's strongest player in mid-1890, and that he was in the top ten from the very beginning of his recorded career in 1889. In 1892 Lasker founded the first of his chess magazines, "The London Chess Fortnightly", which was published from August 15, 1892 to July 30, 1893. In the second
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Emanuel Lasker


Bridge") in 1931. In October 1928 Emanuel Lasker's brother Berthold died. In spring 1933 Adolf Hitler started a campaign of discrimination and intimidation against Jews, depriving them of their property and citizenship. Lasker and his wife Martha, who were both Jewish, were forced to leave Germany in the same year. After a short stay in England, in 1935 they were invited to live in the USSR by Nikolai Krylenko, the Commissar of Justice who was responsible for the Moscow show trials and, in his other capacity as
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Emanuel Lasker


both played in the great New York 1924 chess tournament. In Michael Chabon's alternate history mystery novel, "The Yiddish Policemen's Union", the murdered man, Mendel Shpilman (born during the 1960s), being a chess enthusiast, uses the name "Emanuel Lasker" as an alias. The reference is clearly understood by the protagonist, Detective Meyer Landsman, because he has also studied chess. The following table gives Lasker's placings and scores in tournaments. The first "Score" column gives the number of points
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Edward Lasker


him with no handicap. Kitabatake arranged a game for Edward, Emanuel, and Emanuel's brother Berthold, against a visiting Japanese mathematician, and strong Go player. The Laskers took a nine-stone handicap, and played in consultation with each other, considering their moves deeply, but their opponent beat them effortlessly and without taking much time to think. After the game, Emanuel suggested to Edward that they travel to Tokyo to study Go. In 1911, Edward got a job at AEG. After a year at the company
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Emanuel Lasker


. At the age of eleven he was sent to Berlin to study mathematics, where he lived with his brother Berthold, eight years his senior, who taught him how to play chess. Berthold was among the world's top ten players in the early 1890s. To supplement their income Emanuel Lasker played chess and card games for small stakes, especially at the Café Kaiserhof. Lasker shot up through the chess rankings in 1889, when he won the Café Kaiserhof's annual Winter tournament 1888/89 and the "Hauptturnier A" ("
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World Chess Championship 1894


The fifth World Chess Championship was held in New York City (games 1-8), Philadelphia (games 9-11) and Montreal (games 12-19) between March 15 and May 26, 1894. Holder William Steinitz lost his title to challenger Emanuel Lasker, who was 32 years his junior. Reigning World Champion Steinitz publicly spoke of retiring; Emanuel Lasker challenged him, and he changed his mind. Initially Lasker wanted to play for $5,000 a side and a match was agreed at stakes of $3,000
19282724
Emanuel Lasker


is not possible to learn much from him. One can only stand and wonder." However, Lasker's pragmatic, combative approach had a great influence on Soviet players like Mikhail Tal and Viktor Korchnoi. There are several "Lasker Variations" in the chess openings, including Lasker's Defense to the Queen's Gambit, Lasker's Defense to the Evans Gambit (which effectively ended the use of this gambit in tournament play until a revival in the 1990s), and the Lasker Variation in the McCutcheon Variation of the French Defense
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Emanuel Lasker


, positional players gradually became common (Tarrasch, Schlechter, and Rubinstein stand out.) But, while Steinitz created a new school of chess thought, Lasker’s talents were far harder for the masses to grasp; hence there was no Lasker school. In addition to his enormous chess skill, Lasker was said to have an excellent competitive temperament: his rival Siegbert Tarrasch once said, "Lasker occasionally loses a game, but he never loses his head." Lasker enjoyed the need to adapt to varying styles and to the
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Emanuel Lasker


Lasker easily won the match 8–2 (seven wins, two draws, one loss). This victory was convincing for everyone but Janowski, who asked for a revenge match. Lasker accepted and they played a World Chess Championship match in Berlin in November–December 1910. Lasker crushed his opponent, winning 9½−1½ (eight wins, three draws, no losses). Janowski did not understand Lasker's moves, and after his first three losses he declared to Edward Lasker, "Your homonym plays so stupidly that I cannot even
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Edward Lasker


Edward Lasker (December 3, 1885 – March 25, 1981) was a German-American chess and Go player. He was awarded the title of International Master of chess by FIDE. Lasker was an engineer by profession, and an author of books on Go, chess and checkers. Born in Germany, he emigrated to the United States in 1914. He was distantly related to Chess World Champion Emanuel Lasker. Edward (then "Eduard") Lasker was born in Kempen (Kępno), Province of Posen (Greater
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Emanuel Lasker


saying: "Mr. Lasker, I have only three words to say to you: check and mate!" Lasker gave a brilliant answer on the chessboard, winning four of the first five games, and playing a type of chess Tarrasch could not understand. For example, in the second game after 19 moves arose a situation (see diagram) in which Lasker was a pawn down, with a and . At this point it appeared Tarrasch was winning, but 20 moves later he was forced to resign. Lasker eventually won
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Emanuel Lasker


Chess Bulletin" speculated that the conditions were not sufficiently unpopular to warrant resignation of the title, and that Lasker's real concern was that there was not enough financial backing to justify his devoting nine months to the match. When Lasker resigned the title in favor of Capablanca he was unaware that enthusiasts in Havana had just raised $20,000 to fund the match provided it was played there. When Capablanca learned of Lasker's resignation he went to the Netherlands, where Lasker was living at the time, to inform him that Havana would
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Lasker's Manual of Chess


Lasker's Manual of Chess () is a book on the game of chess written in 1925 by former World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker. The content of the book, as Lasker himself writes, is most influenced by the theories put forth by Steinitz, as well as Staunton's "The Chess-Player's Handbook". The book is divided into six sections: "The Elements of Chess", "The Theory of the Openings", "The Combination", "Position Play", "The Aesthetic Effect in
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Emanuel Lasker


second division" tournament) at the sixth DSB Congress (German Chess Federation's congress) held in Breslau. Winning the Hauptturnier earned Lasker the title of "master". The candidates were divided into two groups of ten. The top four in each group competed in a final. Lasker won his section, with 2½ points more than his nearest rival. However, scores were reset to 0 for the final. With two rounds to go, Lasker trailed the leader, Viennese amateur von Feierfeil, by 1½ points. Lasker
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Emanuel Lasker


a pawn down. In the seventh Lasker nearly lost because of a beautiful exchange sacrifice from Schlechter. In the ninth only a blunder from Lasker allowed Schlechter to draw a lost ending. The score before the last game was thus 5–4 for Schlechter. In the tenth game Schlechter tried to win tactically and took a big advantage, but he missed a clear win at the 35th move, continued to take increasing risks and finished by losing. Hence the match was a draw and Lasker remained World Champion. In 1911 Lasker received a
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Emanuel Lasker


soon returned to chess. He was introduced to the game by his namesake Edward Lasker, who wrote a successful book "Go and Go-Moku" in 1934. At the age of 42, in July 1911, Lasker married Martha Cohn (née Bamberger), a rich widow who was a year older than Lasker and already a grandmother. They lived in Berlin. Martha Cohn wrote popular stories under the pseudonym "L. Marco". During World War I, Lasker invested all of his savings in German war bonds,
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Emanuel Lasker


In Capablanca's opinion, no player surpassed Lasker in the ability to assess a position quickly and accurately, in terms of who had the better prospects of winning and what strategy each side should adopt. Capablanca also wrote that Lasker was so adaptable that he played in no definite style, and that he was both a tenacious defender and a very efficient finisher of his own attacks. Lasker followed Steinitz's principles, and both demonstrated a completely different chess paradigm than the “romantic” mentality before them. Thanks to Steinitz and Lasker
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Emanuel Lasker


Lasker in the list, deriding him as a "coffee-house player [who] knew nothing about openings and didn't understand positional chess". In a poll of the world's leading players taken some time after Fischer's list appeared, Tal, Korchnoi, and Robert Byrne all said that Lasker was the greatest player ever. Both Pal Benko and Byrne stated that Fischer later reconsidered and said that Lasker was a great player. Statistical ranking systems place Lasker high among the greatest players of all time. The book "
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Emanuel Lasker


style allowed him to easily draw the next four games, without taking any risks. In the tenth game, Lasker as White played a position with an isolated queen pawn but failed to create the necessary activity and Capablanca reached a superior ending, which he duly won. The eleventh and fourteenth games were also won by Capablanca, and Lasker resigned the match. Reuben Fine and Harry Golombek attributed this to Lasker's being in mysteriously poor form. On the other hand, Vladimir Kramnik thought that Lasker played quite well and the match
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Emanuel Lasker


. One of Lasker's most famous games is Lasker–Bauer, Amsterdam 1889, in which he sacrificed both bishops in a maneuver later repeated in a number of games. Similar sacrifices had already been played by Cecil Valentine De Vere and John Owen, but these were not in major events and Lasker probably had not seen them. Lasker was shocked by the poverty in which Wilhelm Steinitz died and did not intend to die in similar circumstances. He became notorious for demanding high fees for playing matches and tournaments, and he argued
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Emanuel Lasker


quarter of 1893 there was a gap of ten weeks between issues, allegedly because of problems with the printer. Shortly after its last issue Lasker traveled to the US, where he spent the next two years. Lasker challenged Siegbert Tarrasch, who had won three consecutive strong international tournaments (Breslau 1889, Manchester 1890, and Dresden 1892), to a match. Tarrasch haughtily declined, stating that Lasker should first prove his mettle by attempting to win one or two major international events. Rebuffed by Tarrasch, Lasker challenged the reigning
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Emanuel Lasker


took place. Lasker's difficulty in getting backing may have been caused by hostile pre-match comments from Gunsberg and Leopold Hoffer, who had long been a bitter enemy of Steinitz. One of the complaints was that Lasker had never played the other two members of the top four, Siegbert Tarrasch and Mikhail Chigorin – although Tarrasch had rejected a challenge from Lasker in 1892, publicly telling him to go and win an international tournament first. After the match, some commentators, notably Tarrasch, said Lasker had won mainly because Steinitz
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World Chess Championship 1910 (Lasker–Janowski)


Emanuel Lasker faced David Janowski in the second 1910 World Chess Championship. It was played from November 8 to December 8, 1910 in Berlin, Lasker successfully defending his title. Lasker and Janowski played two exhibition matches in 1909, the first drawn (+2 -2) and the second won convincingly by Lasker (+7 =2 -1). The longer 1909 match has sometimes been called a world championship match, but research by Edward Winter indicates that the title was not at stake. The first player to win eight games would be
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Emanuel Lasker


which lost nearly their entire value with the wartime and post-war inflation. During the war, he wrote a pamphlet which claimed that civilization would be in danger if Germany lost the war. In January 1920 Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca signed an agreement to play a World Championship match in 1921, noting that Capablanca was not free to play in 1920. Because of the delay, Lasker insisted on a final clause that allowed him to play anyone else for the championship in 1920, that nullified the contract with Capablanca if Lasker
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Emanuel Lasker


finance the match. In August 1920 Lasker agreed to play in Havana, but insisted that he was the challenger as Capablanca was now the champion. Capablanca signed an agreement that accepted this point, and soon afterwards published a letter confirming this. Lasker also stated that, if he beat Capablanca, he would resign the title so that younger masters could compete for it. The match was played in March–April 1921. After four draws, the fifth game saw Lasker blunder with Black in an equal ending. Capablanca's solid
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Wilhelm Steinitz


found that: Steinitz was further ahead of his contemporaries in the 1870s than Bobby Fischer was in his peak period (1970–1972); that Steinitz had the third-highest total number of years as the world's top player, behind Emanuel Lasker and Garry Kasparov; and that Steinitz placed 7th in a comparison of how long players were ranked in the world's top three. Between his victory over Anderssen (1866) and his loss to Emanuel Lasker (1894), Steinitz won all his "normal" matches, sometimes by
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Emanuel Lasker


Chess Championship 1908, first at Düsseldorf then at Munich. Tarrasch firmly believed the game of chess was governed by a precise set of principles. For him the strength of a chess move was in its logic, not in its efficiency. Because of his stubborn principles he considered Lasker as a who won his games only thanks to dubious tricks, while Lasker mocked the arrogance of Tarrasch who, in his opinion, shone more in salons than at the chessboard. At the opening ceremony, Tarrasch refused to talk to Lasker, only
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Emanuel Lasker


matches, which were accepted by all the leading players, including Lasker. Late in 1912 Lasker entered into negotiations for a world title match with Akiba Rubinstein, whose tournament record for the previous few years had been on a par with Lasker's and a little ahead of Capablanca's. The two players agreed to play a match if Rubinstein could raise the funds, but Rubinstein had few rich friends to back him and the match was never played. This situation demonstrated some of the flaws inherent in the championship system then being used
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Emanuel Lasker


lost a title match in 1920, and that stipulated that if Lasker resigned the title Capablanca should become World Champion. Lasker had previously included in his agreement before World War I to play Akiba Rubinstein for the title a similar clause that if he resigned the title, it should become Rubinstein's. A report in the "American Chess Bulletin" (July–August 1920 issue) said that Lasker had resigned the world title in favor of Capablanca because the conditions of the match were unpopular in the chess world. The "American
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Emanuel Lasker


the latter an active defence. The famous win against José Raúl Capablanca at St. Petersburg in 1914, which Lasker needed in order to retain any chance of catching up with Capablanca, is sometimes offered as evidence of his "psychological" approach. Reuben Fine describes Lasker's choice of opening, the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez, as "innocuous but psychologically potent". However, an analysis of Lasker's use of this variation throughout his career concludes that he had excellent results with it as White against top-class opponents
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Emanuel Lasker


, and sometimes used it in "must-win" situations. Luděk Pachman writes that Lasker's choice presented his opponent with a dilemma: with only a ½ point lead, Capablanca would have wanted to play safe; but the Exchange Variation's pawn structure gives White an endgame advantage, and Black must use his aggressively in the middlegame to nullify this. In Kramnik's opinion, Lasker's play in this game demonstrated deep positional understanding, rather than psychology. Fine reckoned Lasker paid little attention to the openings, but Capablanca
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Edward Lasker


match with Frank Marshall for the U.S. Championship in 1923; this result was achieved even after Lasker had to take a postponement while leading the match due to a severe kidney stone attack. For that, Lasker was invited to participate in the legendary New York 1924 chess tournament, a double round robin featuring such world class players as Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubov, Capablanca, Emanuel Lasker, and Réti. He finished tenth out of eleven players, but many of his games were competitive. For instance, he split with Alekhine, won
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Edward Lasker


the additional name Lasker was given to him to distinguish him from another Meier Hindels also living in Lask. Samuel Lasker moved to another Polish village, Kępno, in 1769, after it had been captured by Frederick the Great and became a German township, and I am the last descendant of his who was born there. He was the greatgrandfather of my greatgrandfather. His first-born son left Kepmen ["sic"-Kempen] and moved to Jarotschin, another Polish village, and Emanuel Lasker was that one's greatgrandson. If true
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Lasker versus Bauer, Amsterdam, 1889


The chess game between Emanuel Lasker and Johann Bauer played in Amsterdam in 1889 is one of the most famous on account of Lasker's sacrifice of both bishops to eliminate the pawn cover around his opponent's king, winning material and the game. The same sacrificial pattern was echoed in a number of later games, notably Nimzowitsch–Tarrasch, St Petersburg 1914; Miles–Browne, Lucerne 1982; and Polgar–Karpov, Seventh Essent 2003. The game against Bauer was played at the beginning of Lasker's career in the first
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Frank Marshall (chess player)


(scoring 13/15, ahead of World Champion Emanuel Lasker) and the U.S. congress in 1904, but did not get the national title because the U.S. champion at that time, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, did not compete. In 1906 Pillsbury died and Marshall again refused the championship title until he won it in competition in 1909. In 1907 he played a match against World Champion Emanuel Lasker for the title and lost eight games, winning none and drawing seven. They played their match in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C.
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Emanuel Lasker


was old (58 in 1894). Emanuel Lasker answered these criticisms by creating an even more impressive playing record. Before World War I broke out, his most serious "setbacks" were third place at Hastings 1895 (where he may have been suffering from the after-effects of typhoid fever), a tie for second at Cambridge Springs 1904, and a tie for first at the Chigorin Memorial in St Petersburg 1909. He won first prizes at very strong tournaments in St Petersburg (1895–96, "Quadrangular"),
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Joseph Henry Blackburne


½ point behind Emanuel Lasker and 2 points ahead of the third-placed player, Mason. Emanuel Lasker thought that Blackburne had more talent than Steinitz, but lacked the willpower and capacity for hard work needed for becoming world champion. Blackburne's match results are weaker. He was twice soundly beat by Steinitz, in 1862/3 (+1−7=2) and 1876 (+0−7=0); but in 1862 Blackburne had been playing chess for barely 3 years, and in 1876 Steinitz was playing at his life-time best and in the middle of
363639
Sport in Germany


the first two stages starting in Düsseldorf. Chess is a popular sport in Germany. There are about 84 Grandmasters and 242 International Masters in Germany. Emanuel Lasker was a famous German chess player who was World Chess Champion for 27 years. As recently as 2007, Germany hosted three events on golf's European Tour—the Deutsche Bank Players Championship of Europe, the Mercedes-Benz Championship and the BMW International Open. However, since 2010, the only European Tour event in Germany has been the BMW International Open. The Players
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Emanuel Lasker


shape and won the 13th and 14th games. Lasker struck back in the 15th and 16th, and Steinitz did not compensate for his losses in the middle of the match. Hence Lasker won convincingly with ten wins, five losses and four draws. Lasker thus became the second formally recognized World Chess Champion, and confirmed his title by beating Steinitz even more convincingly in their re-match in 1896–97 (ten wins, two losses, and five draws). Influential players and journalists belittled the 1894 match both before and after it
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Emanuel Lasker


Olom Cemetery, Queens, New York. His wife Martha and his sister, Mrs. Lotta Hirschberg, survived him. Lasker was considered to have a "psychological" method of play in which he considered the subjective qualities of his opponent, in addition to the objective requirements of his position on the board. Richard Réti published a lengthy analysis of Lasker's play in which he concluded that Lasker deliberately played inferior moves that he knew would make his opponent uncomfortable. W. H. K. Pollock commented, "It is no easy matter to
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Emanuel Lasker


the periods being compared, and ranks Lasker between fifth and second strongest of all time for peak periods ranging in length from one to twenty years. Its author, the statistician Jeff Sonas, concluded that only Kasparov and Karpov surpassed Lasker's long-term dominance of the game. By Chessmetrics' reckoning, Lasker was the number 1 player in 292 different months—a total of over 24 years. His first No. 1 rank was in June 1890, and his last in December 1926—a span of 36½ years. Chessmetrics also
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Emanuel Lasker


raise large purses prevented or delayed some eagerly awaited World Championship matches—for example Frank James Marshall challenged him in 1904 to a match for the World Championship but could not raise the stakes demanded by Lasker until 1907. This problem continued throughout the reign of his successor Capablanca. Some of the controversial conditions that Lasker insisted on for championship matches led Capablanca to attempt twice (1914 and 1922) to publish rules for such matches, to which other top players readily agreed. Lasker was also a mathematician. In his 1905 article on
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Berthold Lasker


behind Horatio Caro, at Berlin 1891. In June 1891, Lasker achieved his highest Elo rating of 2683. He took 10th at Berlin 1898/99 (Theodor von Scheve, Emil Schallopp and Caro won). In 1902, Lasker won the New York State championship. Together with his brother Emanuel, he wrote a drama called "Days of Mankind" in 1925. It contained deep philosophical symbolism, and the theme was "redemption for rationalists and rigid logic truth through the emotional powers of mysticism." Lasker died in 1928 only
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Lasker versus Bauer, Amsterdam, 1889


round of the 1889 Amsterdam tournament, Lasker's first high-level closed event. Lasker finished second with a 6/8 score, a point behind the winner Amos Burn, and ahead of James Mason and Isidor Gunsberg, among others. Bauer finished sixth of the nine participants with a score of 3½/8. A similar sacrifice occurred earlier in Burn–Owen, 1884, but in this case the sacrifice by John Owen was not correct and he lost the game. Nevertheless it may have been an inspiration for Lasker. White: Emanuel
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World Chess Championship 1910 (Lasker–Schlechter)


Emanuel Lasker faced Carl Schlechter in the 1910 World Chess Championship. It was played from January 7 to February 10, 1910 in Vienna and Berlin. The match was tied and Lasker retained his title. The winner would be the player with the best score after 10 games. The match was drawn, so Lasker retained the world title. The match is generally regarded as a World Championship match, but some sources have doubted this in view of its strange outcome. R.J. Buckley reported in the American Chess Bulletin that the ten-
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New York 1924 chess tournament


New York 1924 was an elite chess tournament held in the Alamac Hotel in New York City from March 6 to April 18, 1924. It was organized by the Manhattan Chess Club. The competitors included world champion José Raúl Capablanca and his predecessor Emanuel Lasker. Nine other top players from Europe and America were also invited. Emanuel Lasker met Alexander Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubow, Géza Maróczy, Richard Réti, Savielly Tartakower and Frederick Yates in Hamburg. They steamed with the "SS Cleveland" on February 28, 1924, and joined
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Emanuel Lasker


was an "even and fascinating fight" until Lasker blundered in the last game, and explained that Capablanca was 20 years younger, a slightly stronger player, and had more recent competitive practice. Lasker was in his early 50s when he lost the world championship to Capablanca, and he retired from serious match play afterwards; his only other match was a short exhibition against Frank James Marshall in 1940, which Lasker lost. After winning the Moravská Ostrava 1923 chess tournament (without a single loss), the New York 1924 chess
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World Chess Championship 1897


Emanuel Lasker defended the World Chess Championship for the first time in Moscow between November 6, 1896, and January 14, 1897. He faced William Steinitz, former World Champion whose title Lasker had taken in 1894. Lasker won by a score of +10 -2 =5, thus retaining his title. The match was a re-match from the 1894 championship (see Game Collection: 1894 World Chess Championship). The first player to win ten games would be champion. So on January 17, 1897, Lasker won with
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Emanuel Lasker


thought Lasker knew the openings very well but disagreed with a lot of contemporary opening analysis. In fact before the 1894 world title match, Lasker studied the openings thoroughly, especially Steinitz's favorite lines. He played primarily e4 openings, particularly the Ruy Lopez. He opened with 1.d4 relatively rarely, although his d4 games had a higher winning percentage than his e4 ones. With the Black pieces, he mainly answered 1.e4 with the French Defense and 1.d4 with the Queen's Gambit. Lasker also used the Sicilian Defense fairly often.
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Emanuel Lasker


World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz to a match for the title. Initially Lasker wanted to play for US $5,000 a side and a match was agreed at stakes of $3,000 a side, but Steinitz agreed to a series of reductions when Lasker found it difficult to raise the money. The final figure was $2,000, which was less than for some of Steinitz' earlier matches (the final combined stake of $4,000 would be worth over $495,000 at 2006 values). Although this was publicly praised as an act of sportsmanship
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Emanuel Lasker


Carlos Torre the same day. The play, however, was not a success. In 1926, Lasker wrote "Lehrbuch des Schachspiels", which he re-wrote in English in 1927 as "Lasker's Manual of Chess". He also wrote books on other games of mental skill: "Encyclopedia of Games" (1929) and "Das verständige Kartenspiel" (means "Sensible Card Play"; 1929; English translation in the same year), both of which posed a problem in the mathematical analysis of card
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Emanuel Lasker


champion. If the points are equal, the decision will be made by the arbiter." At the beginning, Lasker tried to attack but Schlechter had no difficulty defending, so that the first four games finished in draws. In the fifth game Lasker had a big advantage, but committed a blunder that cost him the game. Hence at the middle of the match Schlechter was one point ahead. The next four games were drawn, despite fierce play from both players. In the sixth Schlechter managed to draw a game being
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Emanuel Lasker


fundamental importance to modern algebra and algebraic geometry. Lasker held short-term positions as a mathematics lecturer at Tulane University in New Orleans (1893) and Victoria University in Manchester (1901; Victoria University was one of the "parents" of the current University of Manchester). However, he was unable to secure a longer-term position, and pursued his scholarly interests independently. In 1906 Lasker published a booklet titled "Kampf" ("Struggle"), in which he attempted to create a general theory of all
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Emanuel Lasker


competitive activities, including chess, business and war. He produced two other books which are generally categorized as philosophy, "Das Begreifen der Welt" ("Comprehending the World"; 1913) and "Die Philosophie des Unvollendbar" (sic; "The Philosophy of the Unattainable"; 1918). In 1896–97 Lasker published his book "Common Sense in Chess", based on lectures he had given in London in 1895. In 1903, Lasker played in Ostend against Mikhail Chigorin, a six-game match that was
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Emanuel Lasker


Meanwhile, in the United States Lasker tried to support himself by giving chess and bridge lectures and exhibitions, as he was now too old for serious competition. In 1940 he published his last book, "The Community of the Future", in which he proposed solutions for serious political problems, including anti-Semitism and unemployment. Lasker died of a kidney infection in New York on January 11, 1941, at the age of 72, as a charity patient at the Mount Sinai Hospital. He was buried at historic Beth
11958745
Akiba Rubinstein


in 1906 at just 33. In the pre-FIDE era, the reigning world champion handpicked his challenger, and Emanuel Lasker demanded a high sum of money that Rubinstein could not produce. In the St. Petersburg tournament in 1909, he had tied with Lasker and won his individual encounter with him. However, he had a poor showing at the 1914 St. Petersburg tournament, not placing in the top five. A match with Lasker was arranged for October 1914, but it did not take place because of the outbreak of World
16947126
Albin Countergambit, Lasker Trap


The Lasker Trap is a chess opening trap in the Albin Countergambit, named after Emanuel Lasker, although it was first noted by Serafino Dubois . It is unusual in that it features an underpromotion as early as the seventh move. 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. e3? 4... Bb4+ 5. Bd2 dxe3! (see diagram) 6. Bxb4?? 6... exf2+ 7. Ke2 fxg1=N+! (see diagram) 8. Ke1 Qh4+ 9. Kd2
18311848
Hugh Myers


between Karpov and Kasparov, and was instrumental in helping Campomanes secure reelection in 1986. Myers was born in Decatur, Illinois on January 23, 1930. At age 10, he learned to play chess from "Lasker's Manual of Chess", a famous treatise by former world champion Emanuel Lasker. The book had a lasting influence on him, including Lasker's "encouragement regarding the openings, 'the ground trodden above is yet rather new, and you may explore it as well as anyone else.' " After his
20315038
Else Lasker-Schüler


Schüler was born in Elberfeld, now a district of Wuppertal. Her mother, Jeannette Schüler (née Kissing) was a central figure in her poetry, and the main character of her play "Die Wupper" was inspired by her father, Aaron Schüler, a Jewish banker. In 1894, Else married the physician and occasional chess player Jonathan Berthold Lasker (the older brother of Emanuel Lasker, a World Chess Champion) and moved with him to Berlin, where she trained as an artist. On August 24, 1899 her
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Emanuel Lasker


on Steinitz' part, Steinitz may have desperately needed the money. The match was played in 1894, at venues in New York, Philadelphia, and Montreal. Steinitz had previously declared he would win without doubt, so it came as a shock when Lasker won the first game. Steinitz won the second game, and maintained the balance through the sixth. However, Lasker won all the games from the seventh to the eleventh, and Steinitz asked for a week's rest. When the match resumed, Steinitz looked in better
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Emanuel Lasker


, five days a week. Capablanca objected to the time limit, the short playing times, the thirty-game limit, and especially the requirement that he must win by two games to claim the title, which he regarded as unfair. Lasker took offence at the terms in which Capablanca criticized the two-game lead condition and broke off negotiations, and until 1914 Lasker and Capablanca were not on speaking terms. However, at the 1914 St. Petersburg tournament, Capablanca proposed a set of rules for the conduct of World Championship
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Emanuel Lasker


Champion Vladimir Kramnik said, "He realized that different types of advantage could be interchangeable: tactical edge could be converted into strategic advantage and vice versa", which mystified contemporaries who were just becoming used to the theories of Steinitz as codified by Siegbert Tarrasch. Max Euwe opined that the real reason behind Lasker's success was his "exceptional defensive technique" and that "almost all there is to say about defensive chess can be demonstrated by examples from the games of Steinitz and Lasker", with the former exemplifying passive defence and
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Emanuel Lasker


considers him the strongest 67-year-old in history: in December 1935, at age 67 years and 0 months, his rating was 2691 (number 7 in the world), well above second-place Viktor Korchnoi's rating at that age (2660, number 39 in the world, in March 1998). Lasker founded no school of players who played in a similar style. Max Euwe, World Champion 1935–1937 and a prolific writer of chess manuals, who had a lifetime 0–3 score against Lasker, said, "It
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Berthold Lasker


shared 1st with Siegbert Tarrasch, and took 2nd, behind Curt von Bardeleben, there. In 1883, he tied for 1st-4th and took 4th (playoff) - Hermann von Gottschall won. In 1887, he tied for 5-6th (Max Harmonist won). Tarrasch called Lasker a "very genius player, whose strength rarely accorded due value in a tournament because of his nervousness.“. His best achievement was a tie for 1st place with his brother, Emanuel Lasker, at Berlin 1890. He took 2nd,
16648000
José Raúl Capablanca


, and Capablanca won with 10½ points out of 11, one point ahead of Kostić. In January 1920, Emanuel Lasker and Capablanca signed an agreement to play a World Championship match in 1921, noting that Capablanca was not free to play in 1920. Because of the delay, Lasker insisted that if he resigned the title, then Capablanca should become World Champion. Lasker had previously included in his agreement before World War I to play Akiba Rubinstein for the title a similar clause that if he resigned the title, it should become
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Emanuel Lasker


won both of his final games, while von Feierfeil lost in the penultimate round (being mated in 121 moves after the position was reconstructed incorrectly following an adjournment) and drew in the last round. The two players were now tied. Lasker won a playoff and garnered the master title. This enabled him to play in master-level tournaments and thus launched his chess career. Lasker finished second in an international tournament at Amsterdam, ahead of Mason and Gunsberg. In spring 1892, he won two tournaments in London, the
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Emanuel Lasker


by 10½−5½ (eight wins, five draws, and three losses). Tarrasch claimed the wet weather was the cause of his defeat. In 1909 Lasker drew a short match (two wins, two losses) against Dawid Janowski, an all-out attacking Polish expatriate. Several months later they played a longer match in Paris, and chess historians still debate whether this was for the World Chess Championship. Understanding Janowski's style, Lasker chose to defend solidly so that Janowski unleashed his attacks too soon and left himself vulnerable.
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Emanuel Lasker


. The start of World War I in summer 1914 put an end to hopes that Lasker would play either Rubinstein or Capablanca for the World Championship in the near future. Throughout World War I (1914–1918) Lasker played in only two serious chess events. He convincingly won (5½−½) a non-title match against Tarrasch in 1916. In September–October 1918, shortly before the armistice, he won a quadrangular (four-player) tournament, half a point ahead of Rubinstein. Despite his superb playing results, chess
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Emanuel Lasker


that players should own the copyright in their games rather than let publishers get all the profits. These demands initially angered editors and other players, but helped to pave the way for the rise of full-time chess professionals who earn most of their living from playing, writing and teaching. Copyright in chess games had been contentious at least as far back as the mid-1840s, and Steinitz and Lasker vigorously asserted that players should own the copyright and wrote copyright clauses into their match contracts. However, Lasker's demands that challengers should
11958761
Nicholas MacLeod


6th American Chess Congress, won by Max Weiss and Mikhail Chigorin, losing a world-record 31 games while winning 6 and drawing 1. He finished 2nd at Quebec 1890. He was the only player to beat Emanuel Lasker in an 18-board simultaneous exhibition at Quebec on November 26, 1892. Lasker won 15, drew 2, and lost 1, to MacLeod. It may have been Lasker's worst loss, as he was two queens down. He was Minnesota Champion in 1899, and won the second Western Chess Association
14955992
Edward Lasker


some experience, but Capablanca found an advantageous continuation . Chessmetrics.com estimates his peak strength as 2583, a good Grandmaster by modern standards. The site also estimates his ranking as ranging between 18th in the world and 28th in the world for the nine-year period 1917–26. Lasker lived on the Upper West Side of New York City until his death in 1981. He was friends with former World Champion Emanuel Lasker. Edward wrote in his memoirs of the New York 1924 tournament as published in the March 1974 edition of "Chess Life
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José Raúl Capablanca


, though he conceded fewer draws than any of the next six finishers in the event. Capablanca was now recognized as a serious contender for the world championship. In 1911, Capablanca challenged Emanuel Lasker for the World Chess Championship. Lasker accepted his challenge while proposing 17 conditions for the match. Capablanca objected to some of the conditions, which favored Lasker, and the match did not take place. In 1913, Capablanca won a tournament in New York with 11/13, half a point ahead of Marshall. Capablanca then finished second to
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Mikhail Botvinnik


Botvinnik achieved only a tie for 5th–6th places, with 5/9. He wrote that, in London after the tournament, Emanuel Lasker said his arrival only two hours before the first round began was a serious mistake and that he should have allowed ten days for acclimatization. Botvinnik wrote that he did not make this mistake again. Botvinnik placed first equal with Flohr, ½ point ahead of Lasker and one point ahead of José Raúl Capablanca, in Moscow's second International Tournament, held in 1935. After consulting Capablanca and Lasker, Krylenko
11206601
Emanuel Lasker


played inferior moves to confuse opponents. Recent analysis, however, indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified many of them. Lasker knew contemporary analyses of openings well but disagreed with many of them. He published chess magazines and five chess books, but later players and commentators found it difficult to draw lessons from his methods. Lasker made contributions to the development of other games. He was a first-class contract bridge player and wrote about bridge, Go,
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Emanuel Lasker


reply correctly to Lasker's bad moves." Lasker himself denied the claim that he deliberately played bad moves, and most modern writers agree. According to Grandmaster Andrew Soltis and International Master John L. Watson, the features that made his play mysterious to contemporaries now appear regularly in modern play: the g2–g4 "Spike" attack against the Dragon Sicilian; sacrifices to gain positional advantage; playing the "practical" move rather than trying to find the best move; counterattacking and complicating the game before a disadvantage became serious. Former World
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Emanuel Lasker


commutative algebra, Lasker introduced the theory of primary decomposition of ideals, which has influence in the theory of Noetherian rings. Rings having the "primary decomposition property" are called "Laskerian rings" in his honor. His attempt to create a general theory of all competitive activities were followed by more consistent efforts from von Neumann on game theory, and his later writings about card games presented a significant issue in the mathematical analysis of card games. However, his dramatic and philosophical works have never been highly regarded. Lasker was a
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1904 Cambridge Springs International Chess Congress


The 1904 Cambridge Springs International Chess Congress was the first major international chess tournament in America in the twentieth century. It featured the participation of World Champion Emanuel Lasker, who had not played a tournament since 1900 and would not play again until 1909. After the tournament Lasker moved to America and started publishing "Lasker's Chess Magazine", which ran from 1904 to 1907. However, that was not the only chess magazine spawned by the tournament. The Daily Bulletins produced by Hermann Helms proved so popular that Helms started the "
17888996
José Raúl Capablanca


the 1911 San Sebastian tournament, which he won ahead of players such as Akiba Rubinstein, Aron Nimzowitsch and Siegbert Tarrasch. Over the next several years, Capablanca had a strong series of tournament results. After several unsuccessful attempts to arrange a match with the then world champion Emanuel Lasker, Capablanca finally won the title from Lasker in 1921. Capablanca was undefeated for eight years from 10 February 1916 to 21 March 1924, a period which included the world championship match with Lasker. Capablanca lost the title in 1927 to Alexander Alekhine,
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Siegbert Tarrasch


' challenger Mikhail Chigorin (+9−9=4) after leading most of the way. He also won four major tournaments in succession: Breslau 1889, Manchester 1890, Dresden 1892, and Leipzig 1894. However, after Emanuel Lasker became world chess champion in 1894, Tarrasch could not match him. Fred Reinfeld wrote: "Tarrasch was destined to play second fiddle for the rest of his life." For example, Lasker scored much better against mutual opponents, e.g. vs. Chigorin, Tarrasch had +2 over 34 games while Lasker scored +7 in
1309442
Norman T. Whitaker


simultaneous exhibitions against World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker and future world champion Jose Raul Capablanca. Lasker was in Philadelphia to play part of his World Chess Championship 1907 match against Frank Marshall; Lasker won that match. While not of competitive significance, these achievements by Whitaker boosted his confidence and spurred his further development as a rising talent. While attending the University of Pennsylvania, which he represented successfully in intercollegiate team play, Whitaker also represented the United States against England in two transatlantic cable university challenge matches, winning his 1909 game and drawing
17378894
Bird's Opening


Nxe5 4.d4 intending 5.e4, rather than 3.Nf3 g5! when Black stands well. After the normal 2...d6 3.exd6 Bxd6, White must play 4.Nf3, avoiding 4.Nc3 Qh4+ 5.g3 Qxg3+ 5.hxg3 Bxg3 checkmate. Then Black again has two alternatives: 4...g5 to drive away White's knight, and 4...Nf6, threatening 5...Ng4 and 6...Nxh2! Future world champion Emanuel Lasker introduced 4...g5 in the game Bird–Lasker, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1892, so it is known as "Lasker
20763624
Ponziani Opening


, called the opening the "Ponziani Opening", as did his successor, Emanuel Lasker, in "Lasker's Manual of Chess". Similarly, Frank Marshall in "Chess Openings", the authors of "Modern Chess Openings" (Second Edition 1913), and Siegbert Tarrasch in "The Game of Chess" (1931, English translation 1938) called it "Ponziani's Opening". William Cook in "The Chess Players' Compendium" (Fifth Edition 1910) called it "Ponziani's Game", while
6261557
Chess theory


a premature attack against one's opponent in an equal position could be repelled by skillful defence, and so a player's best bet was to slowly maneuver with the goal of accumulating small advantages. Emanuel Lasker in "Lasker's Manual of Chess" and Max Euwe in "The Development of Chess Style" outlined theories that they attributed to Steinitz. Leading player and theorist Aron Nimzowitsch's influential books, "My System" (1925), "Die Blockade" (1925) (in German), and "Chess Praxis
475418
Wilhelm Steinitz


focus on his theories and writings, and Emanuel Lasker was more explicit: "He was a thinker worthy of a seat in the halls of a University. A player, as the world believed he was, he was not; his studious temperament made that impossible; and thus he was conquered by a player ..." As a result of his play and writings Steinitz, along with Paul Morphy, is considered by many chess commentators to be the founder of modern chess. Lasker, who took the championship from Steinitz, wrote
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Emanuel Lasker


the match was originally to be a 30 game affair and Schlechter would have to win by a two game margin. They note that the Austrian chess historian Micheal Ehn has established, based on the Viennese sources, that Lasker agreed to forgo the plus two provision in view of the match being subsequently reduced to only 10 games. For proof Ehn quoted Schlechter's comment printed in Allgemeine Sportzeitung (ASZ) of December 9, 1909 "There will be ten games in all. The winner on points will receive the title of world
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Emanuel Lasker


games; "Brettspiele der Völker" ("Board Games of the Nations"; 1931), which includes 30 pages about Go and a section about a game he had invented in 1911, Lasca. In 1930, Lasker was a special correspondent for Dutch and German newspapers reporting on the Culbertson-Buller bridge match during which he became a registered teacher of the Culbertson system. He became an expert bridge player, representing Germany at international events in the early 1930s, and wrote "Das Bridgespiel" ("The Game of
11958741
Emanuel Lasker


Warriors of the Mind" places him sixth, behind Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Fischer, Mikhail Botvinnik and Capablanca. In his 1978 book "The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present", Arpad Elo gave retrospective ratings to players based on their performance over the best five-year span of their career. He concluded that Lasker was the joint second strongest player of those surveyed (tied with Botvinnik and behind Capablanca). The most up-to-date system, Chessmetrics, is rather sensitive to the length of
11958756
Sicilian Defence


the Four Knights Variation. The Sveshnikov Variation was pioneered by Evgeny Sveshnikov and in the 1970s. Before their efforts, the variation was called the Lasker–Pelikan Variation. Emanuel Lasker played it once in his world championship match against Carl Schlechter, and Jorge Pelikan played it a few times in the 1950s, but Sveshnikov's treatment of the variation was the key to its revitalization. The move 5...e5 seems anti-positional as it leaves Black with a backwards d-pawn and a weakness on d5. Also, Black
18788808
Ruy Lopez, Exchange Variation


, generally avoiding piece exchanges. The variation was introduced into grandmaster play by Emanuel Lasker, and later invigorated with new ideas by Bobby Fischer. The Exchange Variation can be a powerful psychological weapon. Black is forced to play actively, which is psychologically difficult if all one needs is a draw. Lasker's famous win against Jose Raul Capablanca in the St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament is an example of this. With a lead in the tournament, Capablanca was intent on simplifying the game to obtain a draw, but faced with the
4562301
World Chess Championship


Emanuel Lasker ("Lasker's Chess Magazine", May 1908) dated his reign from 1866, and in the early 1950s Reuben Fine followed their example. On the other hand, many recent commentators divide Steinitz's reign into an "unofficial" one before he beat Zukertort again in 1886 and the first "official" world championship from that time onwards; Steinitz had insisted that the contract for the 1886 match must specify that the match was "for the Championship of the World" ("Chess Monthly", January 1886
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