World Champion
1894 – 1921 |
For the club player no World
Champion is as difficult to appreciate as Dr.Emanuel Lasker the second World Chess
Champion. Surprisingly there are few books about Lasker available to the club player. This
article aims to give the club player a guide to his life, playing style and achievements.
Although Lasker’s career started over a century ago his influence
on the development of the modern game would be difficult to overstate.
In terms of achievement, Lasker’s career beggars parallel, it
started in Germany in the 1880’s and in the space of a few short years he notched up
a string of first prizes and match wins in both Europe and the USA. Lasker then challenged
and thrashed an admittedly ageing William Steinitz (1836 – 1900)to become World
Champion in 1894. Lasker was twenty-six years old.
At the time the chess world put Lasker’s win down to Steinitz age
and failing strength, little did they realise that Lasker would dominate the game for much
of the next three decades.
All told Lasker held the title for a stunning twenty-seven years (the
longest reign ever) losing it in to the Cuban Jose Raul Capablanca in 1921. After
twenty-seven years as World Champion, most players would have been content to rest on
their laurels, not Lasker, he wasn’t finished and arguably his greatest achievement
still lay ahead of him, winning the great tournament at New York in 1924.
Lasker was not just active in chess, long periods of his time were
spent pursuing mathematics and philosophy. During Lasker’s reign as World Champion he
sometimes spent years away from the board and when he did play he demanded financial
reward befitting a World Champion.
While no World Champion’s career can be put down entirely to good
fortune Lasker appears to have enjoyed more than most. In crucial games throughout his
whole career Lasker triumphed, seemingly against all the odds, but that is the magic of
Lasker.
Much of this luck came from his ability to wind up the tension at the
board, Lasker understood that you not only had to play the board but, on occasion, the
man. This was one of the great contributions of Lasker to the sport of chess.
Lasker won many games, which his opponent’s claimed were from lost
positions, but he did this tournament after tournament, year after year, decade after
decade, he was awesome.
Because he played actively over five decades Lasker’s style did
evolve and change. Few experts agree on Lasker’s style, but for the club player you
only need to know that he was a brilliant strategical player who also happened to be a
fabulous tactician.
Like all great players Lasker could play any type of position, however
the classic course of a Lasker game was to concede some small concession to an opponent,
exchange off either one or two minor pieces and then play a game of manoeuvre where he did
not necessarily stand better but in which he could keep the position balanced. When his
opponent could not maintain the balance, either by over-pressing or playing too passively,
Lasker would have them. Although famed for his defence Lasker was equally brutal in his
treatment of opponents who overpressed or played passively.
An important part of Lasker’s play, which the club player can
learn from, was that Lasker had confidence in his abilities, confidence is an important
part of chess, you must believe you can win and you must be willing to fight. He would
enter into complications confident that he would be get through them with as much skill as
his opponent, time after time he did more than that and won.
Because there is a blend of both strategy and tactics in Lasker’s
games they are instructive for the club player. Lasker’s games appear like symphonies
with many phases.
Style aside what is clear is that decade after decade Emanuel Lasker
took on very best and won, notching up magnificent tournament victories.
Play
What Your Opponent Feels Uncomfortable with. |
Some experts claim Lasker would deliberately play into positions that
although objectively unfavourable, practically they did not suit his opponent’s
style. Needless to say the club player should think very carefully about any attempt at
emulating this strategy.
Whether this is true is of course unknown, it is true however that
Lasker often played inferior positions and won them. Lasker understood that playing a good
position can pose players mental problems, there can be a tendency to relax, and in the
face of dogged defensive play a player’s head can go down, even if he still has an
advantage.
Lasker famously wrote that an advantage or even an initiative was not
the same as a win and the club players can learn from him that they should never relax if
they are winning or give up if you stand badly. He believed that a player prepared to
defend accurately will almost certainly have an opportunity to come back into the game.
Of course Lasker also played positions which should have been to the
liking of his opponents, but he still won. He outplayed Rubinstein in rook and pawn
endgames, he out combined Marshall, and he successfully beat off attacks by Alechine.
For sheer determination, tension, fighting spirit, dogged defence and
resourcefulness Lasker’s games rank amongst the most entertaining and instructive
ever played.
Club players can learn from Lasker’s example throughout his career
about the will to win above all sheer willpower. He was a great fighter, a man who never
gave up either on the chessboard or in life.
Winner |
St.Petersburg
1914 |
In 1914, already twenty years into his reign as World Champion Lasker
travelled to St.Petersburg and despite going in to the final eight rounds 1.5 points
behind Capablanca, Lasker scored an amazing 7.5 from against Capablanca, Tarrasch,
Marshall, and Alechine. Undoubtedly one of the greatest ever runs in Chess history. This
cannot be put down to luck.
His most famous game (and a good candidate for the most famous
game of all time) was played in this tournament against Capablanca, Lasker, a point
behind, needed to win at all costs. What he chose to do stunned everyone at the time, he
played for the exchange of queens at move four followed by a questionable advance on the
kingside. It was unorthodox, it was risky, but it was pure Lasker and the result was that
he scored a crushing victory against his young rival.
Had Lasker not won this game his legend would have not have been quite
the same. But he did and it is a stunning example of fighting, tension filled chess.
After a couple of decades other masters noticed certain patterns were
discernible in Lasker’s games, while it was quite possible to get an advantage in the
opening against him, many of them found that converting the advantage into a full point
was beyond them.
So strange did Lasker’s play appear one player, Reti, claimed that
Lasker deliberately played badly just to upset his opponents. While this
famous observation may not be entirely true Lasker did appear to play a lot of second and
even third class moves, but these were playable continuations, and they threw his
opponent’s, who never knew what he was going to do.
Lasker of course had his unhappy moments as well, chief of these was
the loss of his title to Capablanca in Havana in 1921. He resigned the match and the title
while the score was –4 = 10. Lasker acknowledged that Capablanca was the best player
in the world.
After losing the World title Lasker accepted an invitation to play at
New York in 1924, all of the World’s best were there, including the World Champion
Capablanca and Alexander Alechine. But at 55 years of age Emmanuel Lasker triumphed again,
losing only one game (to Capablanca) but winning the tournament with 16/20 ahead of
Capablanca 14 ½ and Alechine 12. This was Lasker’s last really great triumph, but
you guessed it he wasn’t finished yet.
Lasker was not invited to New York 1927, some say at Capablanca’s
insistence. Capablanca could maybe forgive Lasker for wining St.Petersburg 1914, but he
must have wondered what he had to do to finish ahead of Lasker when the old guy turned up
at New York. Although Capablanca had a plus score against Lasker he never finished ahead
of Lasker in any of the tournaments in which they both competed.
Lasker retired from active play in 1926, but he still contributed to
chess and settled down to write one of the classics of chess literature
‘Lasker’s Manual Of Chess’. Published first in German and then re-written
in English by Lasker himself, this book has been admired by Alechine, Kotov, Purdy and
Kortchnoi among others. It is written for average players and one of the very few books
which explains in depth the principles of Steinitz theory.
With the rise of the Nazi’s Lasker, a Jew, had to flee from
Germany, many men would have given up on life but not Lasker, considering his financial
situation he returned to chess at age 65 when he accepted an invitation to play at Zurich
in 1934. In the first round he sat down opposite Max Euwe, who two years later defeated
Alechine to become World Champion.
The game turned out to be a classic of the Lasker legend, Euwe got an
advantage out of the opening however, like many before him Euwe was to discover that
getting an advantage and managing to keep it were two different things when your opponent
was Dr.Emanuel Lasker.
Lasker pushed Euwe back and then traded his queen for R+P+N and a
centralised position and after some powerful manouvering Euwe’s king ended up in a
mating net. Under any circumstances this would be regarded as a memorable game, but in
terms of the occasion and as an example of Lasker’s genius, no chess fan should be
unaware of this game.
Lasker was active in chess for over forty years, an extraordinary
length of time to play at the very top, his last great achievement was in 1935 at age 67
he was an unbeaten third in Moscow (+6=3) behind Botvinnik and Flohr.
After leaving Germany Lasker lived first in Moscow and then in New York
where he died aged seventy-three.
Although born in 1868 Lasker provides a link between 19th
and 20th Century having played against World Champions Steinitz, Capablanca,
Alechine, Euwe and Botvinnik and other famous names such as Chigorin, Pilsbury, Tarrasch,
Schlecter, Rubinstein, and Nimzowich amongst others.
Was he the greatest? Some people certainly think so, but whether he was
or not he is one of the few chess personalities that the club player can learn from, his
example, his games, and his writings.
Lasker’s contribution to chess was in the words of Garry Kasparov
"Absolutely Phenomenal"
Club players are notoriously reluctant to play through old games but
Lasker’s games are instructive and they are well worth the small effort involved. For
the club player unfamiliar with Lasker they should check out games at all phases of his
career.
His games from New York 1893, matches against Steinitz, Marshall and
Tarrasch (1908) - where Lasker had some terrible positions in and are great examples of
wins from ‘bad positions’. His games from St.Petersburg 1914 show great
determination to win. His games from the 1924 New York tournament are highly regarded as
models of fighting practical tournament chess, especially instructive is his endgame
against Bogolyubov which follows a strategical course that club player’s will find
stunning.
As an example of a typical Lasker game, here is Lee v Lasker New York
1893, typical of his style of play, wide, strategic and direct.
A game from the tournament where Lasker scored (+13=0-0)
Lee,F - Lasker,E
Ruy Lopez Berlin Defence (C65)
New York R6, 1893
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 Lasker always had a love of this Berlin variation. 4.d3
d6 5.Nbd2 Be7 6.Nf1 a6 7.Ba4 b5 8.Bb3 d5 9.Qe2 0-0 10.c3 a5 11.Bg5 Be6 12.Bxf6 Bxf6
13.exd5 Bxd5 14.Bxd5 Qxd5 15.Qe4 Qd7 16.Ne3 Rfe8 17.0-0 g6! 18.Qd5!? Lee wants to
exchange queens at all costs, this was not a wise policy against Lasker Red8 19.Qxd7
Rxd7 20.Rfd1 Rad8 21.Ne1 Bg5 22.Kf1 f5! 23.Ke2 Rb8! A typical Lasker continuation, the
d3 pawn can be defended, he therefore leaves it, to widen the play, something that
Lasker's games show time and time again. 24.Rab1 Bf6 25.N3c2 Kf7 26.Nf3 Re8 27.Nd2 Nd8
28.Nb3 a4 29.Nd2 Ne6 30.g3 Red8 31.Nf3 g5 32.Nb4 g4 33.Ne1 c5 34.Nbc2 f4 35.Na3 f3+ 36.Kf1
e4 37.Nxb5 exd3 38.Na3 Ng5 39.Nc4 Ne4 40.h4 h5 41.Nb6 Rb7 42.Nc4 d2 43.Nc2 Nxc3 44.Ra1
Nxd1 45.Rxd1 Bxb2 46.N2e3 Bc3
White Resigned 0-1
Pillsbury,H - Lasker,E
St.Petersburg, 1895
A famous combinational game, experts and computers are still finding
lines where Pillsbury could have defended, and Lasker could have won differtly, but over
the board Pillsbury couldn’t solve the problems Lasker set him.
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 c5 5.Bg5 cxd4 6.Qxd4 Nc6 7.Qh4 Be7
8.0-0-0 Qa5 9.e3 Bd7 10.Kb1 h6 11.cxd5 exd5 12.Nd4 0-0 13.Bxf6 Bxf6 14.Qh5 Nxd4 15.exd4
Be6 16.f4 Rac8 17.f5 Rxc3 18.fxe6 Ra3 19.exf7+ Rxf7 20.bxa3 Qb6+ 21.Bb5 Qxb5+ 22.Ka1 Rc7
23.Rd2 Rc4 24.Rhd1 Rc3 25.Qf5 Qc4 26.Kb2 Rxa3 27.Qe6+ Kh7 28.Kxa3 Qc3+
White Resigned 0-1
Tarrasch,S - Lasker,E
World Championship Match 1908
Game 2
An example of a win from a truly terrible position.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 d6 5.d4 Bd7 6.Nc3 Be7 7.Re1 exd4
8.Nxd4 0-0 9.Nxc6 Bxc6 10.Bxc6 bxc6 11.Ne2 Qd7 12.Ng3 Rfe8 13.b3 Rad8 14.Bb2 White has
a lovely game, Lasker’s response is to gamble with a move even he annotated as
"Unsatisfactory" Ng4?! 15.Bxg7! Nxf2 Tarrasch now wins a pawn, however he
should ignore the pawn and mount an attack on the black king. 16.Kxf2 Kxg7 17.Nf5+ Kh8
18.Qd4+ f6 19.Qxa7
Lasker, a pawn down with an objectively lost position, what happened
next? Well from now to the end of the game Lasker slowly but surely creates a position
where the extra QS pawn has no importance. 19…Bf8 20.Qd4 Re5 21.Rad1 Rde8 22.Qc3
Qf7 23.Ng3 Bh6 24.Qf3 d5 25.exd5 Be3+ 26.Kf1 cxd5 27.Rd3 Qe6 28.Re2 f5 29.Rd1 f4 30.Nh1 d4
31.Nf2 Qa6 32.Nd3 Rg5 33.Ra1 Qh6 Lasker’s position does not look so bad now 34.Ke1
Qxh2 35.Kd1 Qg1+ 36.Ne1 Rge5 37.Qc6 R5e6 38.Qxc7 R8e7 39.Qd8+ Kg7 40.a4 f3 41.gxf3 Bg5 0-1
Crushing.
Lasker,E - Capablanca,J
St.Petersburg 1914
His most famous game
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.d4 exd4 6.Qxd4 Qxd4 7.Nxd4 Bd6
8.Nc3 Ne7 9.0-0 0-0 10.f4 Re8 11.Nb3 f6 12.f5 b6 13.Bf4 Bb7 14.Bxd6 cxd6 15.Nd4 Rad8
16.Ne6 Rd7 17.Rad1 Nc8 18.Rf2 b5 19.Rfd2 Rde7 20.b4 Kf7 21.a3 Ba8 22.Kf2 Ra7 23.g4 h6
24.Rd3 a5 25.h4 axb4 26.axb4 Rae7 27.Kf3 Rg8 28.Kf4 g6 29.Rg3 g5+ 30.Kf3 Nb6 31.hxg5 hxg5
32.Rh3 Rd7 33.Kg3 Ke8 34.Rdh1 Bb7 35.e5 dxe5 36.Ne4 Nd5 37.N6c5 Bc8 38.Nxd7 Bxd7 39.Rh7
Rf8 40.Ra1 Kd8 41.Ra8+ Bc8 42.Nc5 1-0
Alekhine,A - Lasker,E
New York, 1924
Brilliant punishment of an opponent who overpresses.
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 Nbd7 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bf4 c6 7.e3 Nh5
8.Bd3 Nxf4 9.exf4 Bd6 10.g3 0-0 11.0-0 Re8 12.Qc2 Nf8 13.Nd1 f6 14.Ne3 Be6 15.Nh4 Bc7
16.b4 Bb6 17.Nf3 Bf7 18.b5 Bh5 19.g4 Bf7 20.bxc6 Rc8 21.Qb2 bxc6 22.f5 Qd6 23.Ng2 Bc7
24.Rfe1 h5 25.h3 Nh7 26.Rxe8+ Rxe8 27.Re1 Rb8 28.Qc1 Ng5 29.Ne5 fxe5 30.Qxg5 e4 31.f6 g6
32.f4 hxg4 33.Be2 gxh3 34.Bh5 Rb2 35.Nh4 Qxf4 36.Qxf4 Bxf4 0-1
Euwe,M - Lasker,E
Zurich 1934
Lasker’s out of retirement game.
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Nbd7 5.e3 c6 6.Nf3 Be7 7.Qc2 0-0 8.a3
Re8 9.Rc1 dxc4 10.Bxc4 Nd5 11.Bxe7 Qxe7 12.Ne4 N5f6 13.Ng3 c5 14.0-0 cxd4 15.Nxd4 Nb6
16.Ba2 Rb8 17.e4 Rd8 18.Rfd1 Bd7 19.e5 Ne8 20.Bb1 g6 21.Qe4 Ba4 22.b3 Bd7 23.a4 Nd5 24.Bd3
Rbc8 25.Bc4 Bc6 26.Nxc6 bxc6 27.Rd3 Nb4 28.Rf3 Rc7 29.h4 Rcd7 30.h5 Qg5 31.Re1 Rd4 32.hxg6
hxg6 33.Qe2 Rd2 34.Qf1? Nc2! Going forward, even at the cost of having to give up his
queen 35.Ne4 Qxe5! This is forced 36.Nf6+ Qxf6 37.Rxf6 Nxf6 38.Rc1 Ne4 39.Be2
Nd4 40.Bf3 Nxf2 41.Qc4 Nd3 42.Rf1 Ne5 43.Qb4 Nexf3+ 44.gxf3 Ne2+ 45.Kh2 Nf4+ 46.Kh1 R2d4
47.Qe7 Kg7 48.Qc7 R8d5 49.Re1 Rg5 50.Qxc6 Rd8 0-1
More Lasker Links
1894:
Lasker-Steinitz World Championship
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Lasker
- A biography
Lasker Emanuel
Photo Gallery: Lasker
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