by
Isaak and Vladimir Linder
Foreword by Andy Soltis
Game Annotations by Karsten Müller
2010
Russell Enterprises, Inc.
Milford, CT USA
Emanuel Lasker
Second World Chess Champion
by Isaak and Vladimir Linder
© Copyright 2010
Isaak Linder and Vladimir Linder
Russell Enterprises, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any manner or form whatsoever or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-888690-60-6
Published by:
Russell Enterprises, Inc.
PO Box 5460
Milford, CT 06460 USA
http://www.russell-enterprises.com
info@russell-enterprises.com
Translated from Russian by Jim Marfia
Editing and Proofreading by David Kaufmann, Hanon Russell
Cover design by Janel Lowrance
Printed in the United States of America
Signs and Symbols
Foreword by Andy Soltis
Publisher’s Note
A Word About the Authors by Yuri Averbakh
Prologue
Chapter 1: Life
Childhood and Adolescence
Family
Personality
Mathematician
Teacher
Dissertation
Philosopher
Einstein and Lasker
Politics
Curiosities
Humor
England
Holland
Russia
USA
Chapter 2: Matches, Tournaments and Opponents
Alekhine
Berlin Tournaments, 1890, 1918
Bird
Bird-Lasker Matches, 1890, 1892
Blackburne
Blackburne – Lasker Match, 1892
Cambridge Springs Tournament, 1904
Capablanca
Charousek
Chigorin
Chigorin – Lasker Match, 1903
Consultation Games
Duras
Hastings Tournament, 1895
Janowsky
London Tournaments, 1892 (2) and 1899
Maróczy
Marshall
Matches
Matches for the World championship
Lasker – Steinitz, 1894
Lasker – Steinitz, 1896/97
Lasker – Marshall, 1907
Lasker-Tarrasch, 1908
Lasker-Schlechter, 1910
Lasker – Janowsky, 1910
Lasker – Capablanca, 1921
Mieses
Mieses – Lasker Match, 1889/90
Moravska-Ostrava Tournament, 1923
Moscow Tournaments – 1925, 1935 and 1936
New York Tournaments – 1893, 1924
Nottingham Tournament, 1936
Nuremberg Tournament, 1896
Paris, 1900
Pillsbury
“Ratings” and Statistics
Rubinstein
St. Petersburg – 1895/96, 1909, 1914
Schlechter
Showalter – Lasker Match 1893
Simultaneous Exhibitions
Steinitz
Tarrasch
Teichmann
Torre
Tournaments
Zürich, 1934
Chapter 3: Chess Works – His Games and Discoveries
Aesthetics
Aphorisms
Attack
Combinations
Defense
Endgame
Endgame Studies
Famous Games
Losses
Middlegame
Neo-Romanticism
Opening Discoveries
Playing Style
Psychology
Reforming Chess
Chapter 4: Writer and Journalist
Journalistic Efforts
Common Sense in Chess
How Viktor Became a Chess Master
Lasker’s Chess Magazine
The Alekhine-Bogoljubow Return Match for the World championship, 1934
My Match with Capablanca
Popular Table Games
The Beginnings of Chess Knowledge
Works
Lasker’s Manual of Chess
Chapter 5: Impervious to Time
Epilogue
Literature
The World Champions Talk about Lasker
Lasker Memorials
Significant Dates in the Life and Work of Emanuel Lasker
Additional Crosstables
Lasker’s Tournament Record
Lasker’s Match Record
Bibliography
Player Index
Game Index
Opening Index
List of Other eBooks
1-0 White wins
0-1 Black wins
½-½ Draw agreed
+ check
# mate
! a strong move
!! a brilliant/unobvious move
? a weak move, an error
?? a grave error
!? a move worth consideration
= an equal position
+= White stands slightly better
± White has a clear advantage
+– White has a winning position
=+ Black stands slightly better
∓ Black has a clear advantage
–+ Black has a winning position
(D) see the next diagram
When he began his My Great Predecessors series in 2003, Garry Kasparov adopted a literary device: After telling the story of a world champion, Kasparov quoted what the champions successors had to say about him. Kasparov said he did this because it “has become customary.”
Perhaps so. But it became customary only after it was used in Kings of the Chess World (2001) by Dr. Isaak Linder and Vladimir Linder. This book is arguably the finest work of chess history in more than 30 years. One of the Kings chapters has been improved and transformed into the book you are reading.
You may not be familiar with the authors because the Linders, father and son, have been published mainly in Russian and German, and only a fraction of their vast contribution to chess literature has been translated into English. Other chess historians know them for their meticulous approach to the craft. They know Isaak Linder in particular for his personal ties to some of the great figures he’s written about. For example, during the memorial service for Vasily Smyslov at the Central Chess Club in Moscow in early 2010 he recalled playing Smyslov in Soviet junior events back in the 1930s. A photo survives of Dr. Linder playing Emanuel Lasker in a 1935 simul in Moscow. And he is probably the only historian to appear in a chess movie. In 1986 he was a consultant on the Cuban-Soviet movie Capablanca. When the film’s director needed someone to play the role of one of Capa’s frequent opponents, Rudolf Spielmann, he chose Dr. Linder for the part. I remember seeing a still photo of him from the film when my wife Marcy and I were warmly welcomed as guests at the Linders home in Moscow several years ago.
It should not be surprising that the life of Emanuel Lasker gets such a fine treatment from two native Russian-speakers. Many details of the second world champion’s life appear here for the first time, particularly relating to his play in six great international tournaments and a world championship match in Russia, and his two years residence in Moscow (1935-37). But Russia was only one of the many way-stations that Lasker called home on his career path. He lived for long stretches in Germany, England, and America. He even represented the United States at St. Petersburg 1909 and played under the Soviet sickle-and-hammer flag at Nottingham 1936. Lasker was welcomed all over the chess world, despite the Fischer-like fees he demanded, in an era when many other masters played for chump change. Thanks to his travels and wide-ranging interests, Lasker became an excellent linguist. He wrote some of his finest works in English and, as the Linders point out, knew enough Russian to give a short talk in 1936 about the studies of A.A. Troitsky.
Sorting out the facts of Lasker’s life is a lot more complicated than it may seem. For example, there’s no doubt that he played two full-scale matches with David Janowsky. But what were the conditions of those matches? Several sources claim that both were world championship contests. No, the Linders point out, only the 1910 match was for the title. And of course there is the mysterious 1910 match with Carl Schlecter. The Lasker-Schlechter contract has never been found and, in light of the way the two players conducted themselves in the final, dramatic game, there has been an unending debate about exactly what was in the minds of the two players. The Linders’ account provides rich detail and draws conclusions: They cite evidence that there was no “two-point clause, ” the much-rumored-about contract provision that would have required Schlechter to win the final game in order to secure the title. The Linders also endorse Louis Blair’s secret clause theory that in the event of losing the match, Lasker was entitled to a quick rematch.
This book overthrows a widely held view concerning Lasker and the opening: He is often recalled as an anti-theoretician who cared nothing about the first 10 moves of a game and just followed the simplistic guidelines that he outlined in Common Sense in Chess. According to this myth, Lasker was about a 2800 player in the middlegame and endgame but only about an 1800 player in the opening. This is nonsense. No one so backward in one aspect of chess could have competed so well against super-booked-up opponents like Alexander Alekhine, let alone remain one of the world’s top five players for more than 30 years.
In truth, Lasker was an openings pioneer, as the Linders show. We take for granted basic moves such as 6. Bd2! in the MacCutcheon Variation of the French Defense, yet it was Lasker who showed its strength. The same goes for the Center Counter Defense with 6. h3!, the From’s Gambit with 4...g5 and numerous other lines that have never been given the name they deserve, the “Lasker Variation.”
Lasker’s creativity in chess went beyond the games he played. His literary accomplishments, including a considerable output as a newspaper columnist and magazine writer and editor, rival that of any world champion. I suspect many readers have never heard of his book on the 1934 Alekhine-Bogoljubow world championship match, for example. (I didn’t until I got my copy of Kings of the Chess World.) In addition, this book provides evidence that Lasker’s creativity in compositions exceeds that of any of his great successors. The “White to play and win” study, with just a king, rook and one pawn apiece that he composed in 1890 at age 21, is perhaps the finest composition ever from a world champion. If that were his only contribution to chess and he had not given us the Lasker-Bauer brilliancy or had not beaten Capablanca in the Exchange Lopez at St. Petersburg or had not written Common Sense in Chess, etc. he would still be remembered today. This book will also be revelatory to most readers when it comes to Lasker’s non-chess interests, such as his books, like Popular Board Games (1931), his invention of the strategy game Laska and his devotion to contract bridge at a time when that game was just beginning.
Finally, it should be noted that Lasker’s chess games have been analyzed so extensively before that there doesn’t seem to be anything new to say about them. But this book improved on the original Kings of the Chess World chapter by adding annotations from Karsten Müller. They are remarkably enlightening. Müller found stunning defensive as well as attacking resources. See, in particular Games 6, 23, 26, 32, 33, 43, 48 and 65. They do justice to the second world champion.
Andy Soltis
New York
June 2010
This book originally appeared in Russian, part of the massive historical tome published in 2001, Korolyi Shakhmatnovo Mira (Kings of the Chess World). By the time we had the pleasure of meeting with Isaak Linder and his son Vladimir in Moscow in March 2008, the original single-volume work of almost one thousand triple-column, small-font, large-format pages had been split into individual books, one for each world champion. We quickly reached an agreement with the Linders to bring out these books in what would become in English The World Chess Champion Series.
The first in the series was about José Raúl Capablanca, the great Cuban world champion. This book on Lasker is the second in the series.
With the permission and encouragement of the authors, we made some changes to the original Russian edition. The original contained a fine selection of Lasker’s games. We brought in German grandmaster Karsten Müller to provide refreshing new notes to these classic games. American grandmaster Andy Soltis, who has himself written about Lasker, contributed a new Foreword. And crosstables of minor matches played by Lasker, not included in the original edition, were also added. Finally, we created indexes of the players, games and openings, and included more complete information in the headers of each game and game fragment.
There is a tendency for modern-day chessplayers either to ignore or fail to appreciate the great masters of the past. We hope this series helps to change that.
The creative union of the Linders, father and son, came about in the late 1980s, when together they created a trilogy about three world champions, Capablanca, Lasker, and Alekhine (in that order) as part of the Geniuses of Chess series by the Sportverlag publishing house of Berlin (1988-1992). Since that time, their “trophy wall” has grown to include a number of other co-authored projects. There is the unusual documentary/artistic book, The Two Lives of Grandmaster Alatortsev (1994), and also the creation of a popular chess encyclopedia, printed both in Germany (1996) and in Russia (2003), as well as the fundamental work Korolyi Shakhmatnovo Mira [Kings of the Chess World], published by Bolshaya Rossyiskaya Entsiklopedia and Terra-Sport (2001).
I can boldly state that the formation of this union took place right before my eyes, for I have known the senior Linder, Isaak Maksovich, for nearly 70 years! We began playing together in the Young Pioneers’ Stadium in the mid-30s. I met Volodya when we prepared the Chess encyclopedia for the BCE, which would be 20 years ago.
At the authors’ request, I have edited a few of their recent voluminous works, and I must admit to being bowled over by the breadth of their conceptions! Very few people would be capable of taking such large swaths of chess history and recasting them into such an unusual literary form. How have they been able to put their ideas into concrete form?! Above all, because they have a system for dividing up the work. The elder takes charge of the historical approach, and the analytical duties; the son handles the literary decorations and the statistical basis of their works. As a reader, I can say that the results are a delectation for chess gourmets.
Shortcomings? Well, you know the old saying: The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything. This new series of books by Isaak and Vladimir, The World Chess Champion Series, is a reworked, corrected and filled-out edition of Kings of the Chess World, broken up into 14 separate volumes, from Steinitz to Kramnik. It is a panoramic, epic-length mural of the chess struggle on the topmost level from the end of the 19th through the beginning of the 21st centuries.
Yuri Averbakh
Moscow
April 2010
In 2000, we completed work on the encyclopedic Kings of the Chess World, published jointly by the Great Russian Encyclopedia and the Terra Sport Publishing House. The format we chose, that of a story-like description of the world champions, drawn against a background of their epochs in encyclopedic style, met with the approval of our chess public. At the same time, a request was also made that in the future, for ease of use, this fundamental one-volume publication might be separated into a number of individual books, and that, if possible, each champion might receive his own volume.
Since then, how many new facts, details and nuances in the life and creativity of these kings, past and present, have been uncovered in the 21st century. One need only mention the publication of the work by the Polish historians Domansky and Lissovsky on Zukertort (Warsaw, 2002), leading to a re-examination of the “adventurous” life of one of the great chessplayers of the 19th century. Or the materials from the conference in Potsdam 2001, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the death of the second world champion, Emanuel Lasker, shedding new light on many aspects of his work. Or the appearance of the Chigorin Collection (SP Books, 2000), dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the founder of the Russian Chess School. And there is the incomparable work of the 13th world champion, Garry Kasparov, My Great Predecessors (Moscow, 2003), already translated into many languages, and now itself the object of continual scrutiny in the pages of the worldwide chess press.
All this time, we too were collecting new material about the main heroes of our work and their opponents, hoping in time to fill out our work in this new format, while simultaneously correcting some unfortunate errors in the chess material.
Naturally, this new work forced us to take a somewhat different approach to laying out the material about the champions and their opponents. We used new and additional sources when describing strong tournaments or important players. And of course, we had the opportunity to enrich each volume with new games, illustrations, and recently published new material we had found.
The first book in the English-language version of this series, José Raúl Capablanca, Third World Chess Champion, appeared a few months ago. We are now pleased to bring chess fans the second in the series, Emanuel Lasker, Second World Chess Champion. It is our hope that this new World Chess Champion Series will gain the attention of both fans and experts of the art of chess.
Emanuel Lasker was a great chess fighter, thinker and researcher. He possessed great playing strength, retaining the title of world champion for 27 years. Even after relinquishing his title, he played at the highest level, winning strong international tournaments at Moravska-Ostrava 1923 (when he was 54) and New York 1924, taking second place at Moscow 1925, and finishing among the prize-winners at Moscow 1935 (when he was 66).
Lasker learned to play chess when he was 12 years old; by 26, he already understood its “common sense” – something that many never learn in their whole lifetime. In his case, it was probably because for Lasker, the philosopher and doctor of mathematics, chess and life were inseparable. In the chess struggle, he saw a model for the life of man. For him, the chess pieces had soul and character; he had a refined feeling for what each might achieve in a given concrete situation.
Lasker viewed chess not only as a battle of honor, but as a struggle for truth. “On the chessboard, lies and dishonesty have no place.” Lasker’s words still resonate, and can serve as a “battle-cry” for every young chessplayer even today. For millions of beginners, his famous Manual of Chess has been a guide not only to chess, but life. Lasker, a seeker of knowledge, always sought to share what he had learned.
Lasker was a citizen of the world. Born in Germany, he lived for long periods in England, the United States, and Russia. And everywhere he went, he showed what was “reasonable, good and unchanging, ” giving lectures on chess, publishing books, chess journals and newspaper articles, giving numerous simultaneous exhibitions, and simply socializing with chess masters and amateurs alike.
Every world champion who followed him, wittingly or unwittingly, cultivated in himself a part of the great Lasker, then developed it. José Raúl Capablanca – “defensive skill and endgame mastery;” Alexander Alekhine – “deep treatment of the questions of chess struggle;” Max Euwe – “tactical alertness;” Mikhail Botvinnik – “skillful preparation for upcoming events;” Vassily Smyslov – “enormous energy for the battle;” Mikhail Tal – “knowing how to win hopeless games;” Tigran Petrosian – “logic and mathematics;” Anatoly Karpov – “practical universality;” Garry Kasparov – “skill at exploiting the opponent’s psychological weaknesses.”
Summing up these elements, we come to our major conclusion: Emanuel Lasker was the first in history to achieve a universal style. This was a style of the future, which is why the second world champion would not be understood by many of his contemporaries, who believed that he had no “style” at all.
Lasker’s legacy, his games, his writings, his personality, will live as long as chess is played – and beyond!
Isaak Linder,
Vladimir Linder
Moscow April 2010
Emanuel Lasker
Student of the Philosophical Faculty
at Berlin University
Childhood and Adolescence
Emanuel Lasker was born on December 24, 1868, in the small German village of Berlinchen (today, Barlinek, Poland), located about five or six hours’ travel from Berlin, the capital of Prussia.
In 1994, Polish historians discovered a Jewish registry in the archives of the Governor-General of Gorczow (Landsberg). This registry recorded the births in Barlinek between 1847 and 1874. Entry number 158 reads: “...To the wife, Rosalie, née Israelson, of a worker at this town’s synagogue, Michaelis Aaron Lasker, 24 December, 1868, at 3:00 in the afternoon, a birth occurred, bringing into the world a male child, to whom they gave the name, ‘Immanuel.’ Registered in Berlinchen, 29 December, 1868.” Later, his parents would change the spelling to Emanuel, and his father would adopt the name Adolf.
Emanuel was the second of four children; he had an older brother Berthold, and two younger sisters Theofilie and Amalie. From childhood, he displayed unusual mathematical abilities, such as multiplying double-digit numbers in his head. As was customary, he studied the Talmud, which both his grandfather, the rabbi of the small town of Lessen, and father, cantor of Berlinchen, knew well. His father was proud of being a cantor, boasting to his wife Rosalie and his four children that his was a most honorable profession – for had not the great musician Johann Sebastian Bach also been cantor of the Protestant church in Leipzig? Unfortunately, prestigious though this work might have been, it brought precious little financial reward; in fact, there was barely enough to make ends meet. But Adolf Lasker’s optimism, gentle humor, and kind heart were a blessing to his family, and he tried to ensure that his children had a wide-ranging education.
Lasker’s older brother Berthold went to Berlin, first for high school, and then university medical school. Faced with dire poverty, he earned a living by occasional tutoring, but more often by winning a few pfennigs at cards or at chess in the “Tea Salon” in the central city. Sometimes he might end the evening an entire mark to the good. When word of his “earnings” reached home, his father decided that the time had come to send his younger son Emanuel to Berlin as well. Thus, at 11 years of age, Lasker bade farewell to quiet Berlinchen, with its wondrous lakes and woods, its cheery marketplaces and farewell to his first school, where he had been considered one of the brightest students. It was, in fact, a farewell to childhood.
Lasker passed all his exams brilliantly; accepted into one of Berlin’s high schools, he was placed in a class two years ahead of his actual age. However, he did not study there long. Within a few months, he fell ill with the measles, and was brought to the hospital. Berthold, not knowing any other way to help his brother pass the time in the ward, began teaching him to play chess. For the first three years of the ensuing brotherly competition, Lasker generally lost. With great determination, he began to study the game, especially after obtaining a copy of Jean Dufresne’s chess manual. (A thirst for revenge may also have had something to do with his determination.)
After his recovery, Lasker began visiting the “Tea Salon” along with Berthold. There he could see for himself how chess was played at the master level, which contributed to the rapid growth of his own ability. There, too, he first met Siegbert Tarrasch, then a student; when they first played against each other, Tarrasch was stronger. Lasker later said, “I played two games against him, receiving the odds of a knight. One ended in a draw; in the other, I overlooked the loss of a rook, and lost. Two more games, at no odds, yielded a different result: once again, I lost one game, but this time I won the other. We played that game in the ‘Tea Salon.’ I remember it well. Tarrasch offered the Muzio Gambit, I accepted, and won.”
When Lasker’s diversion became known back in Berlinchen, his mother’s reaction was swift and decisive. She sent him to the small town of Landsberg to ensure that he completed his studies and fulfill her dream of seeing him a professor of mathematics. In Landsberg, Lasker found only one suitable partner for chess: a student of mathematics named Kevitz, who later wrote that Lasker’s combinative abilities were already exceptionally well-developed. He advised Lasker not to spend too much time on chess, once he became a student.
In the spring of 1888, Lasker finished school, and entered the university as a philosophy major. Berthold, having finished his own studies by that time, moved to Elberfeld to set up a medical practice. Emanuel took up his brother’s chess practice in Berlin, where he could be found, more and more often, in the “Tea Salon” or in the Café Kaiserhof, the gathering place of the strongest chessplayers of that time. The 19-year old Lasker had apparently begun thinking more and more seriously about chess. It seemed an attractive model for his view of life as a “struggle, ” a clash of personalities. He was also developing attitudes toward life, attitudes that reflected his distinctive breadth of knowledge and the depth of his philosophical worldview. Everything contributed to this development: his education, which required heavy mental labor in the most varied of directions – theosophy, ethics, poetry, history, natural history; his amazing mathematical abilities; his romanticism and love for nature; his mother’s legacy of decisiveness and independence. In short, within a year he began his conquest of the chess world not as a naïve youth, but as a mature man.
In the winter of 1888-89, Lasker scored his first tournament victory, in the Kaiserhof Café championship, winning every game. This result encouraged him; it also helped him financially. The victory – and subsequent success – attracted friends and supporters, whose numbers grew every month. One supporter was Jakob Bamberger, the father of his future wife, who sent him ten marks every month. By June 1889, Lasker had earned the rank of master by winning the adjunct tournament of the German Chess League in Breslau. Soon after, Lasker was invited to his first international tournament, in The Netherlands. His success in Amsterdam launched his chess career.
Family
Lasker did not marry until he was 42. Certainly his lifestyle seemed to preclude marriage; he traveled continually from country to country, as required by the increasing number of tournaments, matches, and guest appearances, and he spent long periods of time “buried” in his mathematical or philosophical labors. But for a while he was also preoccupied with concern for the material well-being of his parents and sisters. Then, too, for whatever reason, there just didn’t seem to be any serious relationships in his life. Not until 1902, when returning from the defense of his dissertation in Berlin, did he meet the woman who would win his heart.
Martha Kohn (née Bamberger) wrote in her reminiscences, published in Jacques Hannak’s book (1952), that they met by accident at the home of Ludwig Metzger, one of the editors of the Berliner Lokalanzeiger. Metzger’s hospitable wife loved to host evening gatherings where well-known artists, writers and musicians would be in attendance. As an employee of this newspaper, Martha attended more than once. One night, her hostess said that she wanted to introduce her to an unusual man, recently returned from America, where he had won a match for the world championship of chess – and that, in addition, he was a professor of mathematics, and a lecturer at Manchester University. Martha answered categorically, “Your enthusiastic recommendations of this person rouse in me nothing but deep ingratitude. I understand nothing of mathematics, and I think chess must be terribly boring. No, my dear, he is not for me and my tastes, and so I would not be to his taste, either.”
Martha and Emanuel in their Moscow apartment. 1936.
She had hardly finished these words, when Emanuel Lasker appeared, walked up to the hostess, and was introduced to Martha. She thought him withdrawn. But soon she saw that he was not at all a “dry mathematician, ” but instead a man of wide-ranging knowledge, whose interests extended to many of the spiritual spheres.
The home of Martha and her husband Emil was also a gathering place for well-known writers and artists, and soon Lasker became one of their sought-after guests.
One day, just before leaving for his next tournament in America, Lasker presented Martha, of whom he had frequently spoken, to his mother, with these words, “It is my hope that these two beings, whom I love more than anything on earth, should become friends!”
Such was Lasker’s first profession of love for Martha! When the two women were left alone, Martha spoke from her heart: “Honored lady – he really does not know me all that well; if he did, he would not have presented me to his mother, but to the devils themselves!” To which Rosalie Lasker’s confident response was, “Oh, Emanuel knows exactly what he’s saying; if he says it, then that’s what he thinks!”
Martha was born in Berlin on November 19, 1867, the daughter of a future banker. Interestingly, her father, Jakob Bamberger, a lover of chess, would offer Lasker material support in the latter part of the 1880s. At that time, Martha was a student, and did not know Lasker; and by 1886, she was married to Emil Kohn, the owner of a piano factory. They had one daughter, Lotta. Some time later, Martha’s husband fell grievously ill, and became bedridden for many years.
Even at a distance, Lasker remained devoted. As he wrote in one of his letters to her: “I need only to think of Europe, for your face to appear before me. For me, Europe and your self are one and the same...”
Martha’s husband died in 1910; in July of 1911, nine years after their first meeting, she and Lasker were married.
With Martha, Emanuel achieved genuine happiness. By nature elegant, deeply poetic, gifted with humor and unpredictable, Martha was astonishingly similar in nature to the equally complex Lasker. All the best that he achieved in later years, until the end of his days, Lasker owed in great part to his life’s true partner. He acknowledged this in the dedication to his Manual of Chess, published fifteen years later: “To my dear wife, who has shared with me my cares and labors, and made me deal with everything in life, together with her, with a sense of humor.”
Martha Lasker was a talented writer and poetess, whose verses were published under the pseudonym “Lia Marco.” Under her pen-name also appeared a number of novellas, describing with a sharp wit the daily life of a great chessplayer. In one of them, “Why Madame Lasker Always Accompanies Her Husband, ” she reproduced a letter she received before the Moscow International Tournament of 1935. In it, Lasker informs her of his invitation to Moscow: “And one further joy – you, my dear wife, will be present as well. The Moscow tournament committee has shown complete understanding of how necessary it is that I remain in good spirits, and immediately was so kind as to grant my request. So be ready, my old co-worker, who has traveled the world with me, and in difficult circumstances has always been my true comrade. With you by my side, I need never lose confidence. Even at the ends of the earth, I always feel at home. You are my shield against the inanities of life, allowing me to concentrate upon my work of creation. You are my experienced adjutant. I can speak with you, and through you (when I myself have not the time). You know the requirements of my stomach; you know what is bad for it, and what will make me feel poorly. You are what I need!! And it is BECAUSE you don’t play chess!! You don’t ask, while doing what is necessary, about the difficult position of my pinned bishop, or threatened pawn! You are there heroically to forestall my deadly recourse to the poisonous cigar, and then give me one when it is time for me to think. Overcoming your own internal resistance, you offer me the poisonous cup of black coffee, when it seems to you that my eyelids are drooping. And finally, that which I value above all else, and that which seems to contradict most vehemently your sense of righteousness: during the tournament, you take into account that in these moments, I am likely to be most grouchy, and yet you take no offense at it!!
“In Moscow, you must say, ‘Ni-chevo, ’ [Russian for “nothing”] if I inadvertently offend you. You’ll have to say, ‘Ni-chevo, ’ if after nine years’ absence from the board, I am not immediately back to the level of the younger generation, and find myself losing the occasional game. But then, you may say, khara-sho, ’ [Russian for “good”] if I put together a good game! For in Moscow, I shall be an old young man. Always remember that. There – now you’ve already learned two Russian words, which shall be as important a part of your luggage as your fur coat and warm woolens.”
After reprinting this letter, Martha turned to her readers and added: “Well, now you know why I must always be with him.”
Martha went with Lasker also when, after the rise of Hitler, he left Germany and relocated to London; when, two years after that, they went to Moscow; and when, in 1937, they moved to the United States, where her daughter and grandchildren lived.
After arriving in America, Martha shared with Lasker all the difficulties of his later years, brought on by material want and illness. After Lasker’s death, in January 1941, Martha, who would not survive him long, told the great player’s friends, “The world of chess has lost much; I have lost all.”
Personality
A man of medium height, of unhurried movements, with a perpetual cigar in his mouth and a pleasant smile – this is how Emanuel Lasker’s contemporaries remembered the second world champion. But at the chessboard, he seemed transformed: his opponents saw before them a man of a passionate, indefatigable, willful nature, which age could not temper. At the Second Moscow International Tournament (when Lasker was in his 67th year), Rudolf Spielmann openly acknowledged, “Lasker is a consolation to every aging grandmaster. He’s fifteen years older, and yet much younger than I am. Despite his advancing years, he fights with the energy and freshness of a 20-year old. I admire him!”
All who knew Lasker noted his irreproachable behavior towards his colleagues and opponents, the absence of so much as a hint of superiority, his tact, and what one may call his wisdom in varied circumstances. He found a way to make peace twice with Capablanca, in 1914 and 1925; and the Cuban would later write that between the two, relations went beyond simply normal – they became friends. Lasker was also on good terms with Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, and the future world champion, Mikhail Botvinnik.
“Nothing human is alien to me”: England, 1936.
(The woman at the far right is Vera Menchik.)
Professionally, Lasker spent his time primarily on chess, which offered him not only moral satisfaction, but also the means of making a living. By character, he was a passionate fighter, prepared to accept any challenge. But at the same time, he knew how to use the power of reason, the power of philosophical consideration to “make his own kind of music.” This explains his firm refusal of what were at times very tempting offers to play in strong tournaments, and his strong and principled position on resolving several questions having to do with world championship matches.
Lasker combined his participation in tournaments and matches with an active social life and scientific work – he worked for the chess press, annotated matches for the world championships, made guest appearances, gave simultaneous exhibitions and games, and lectured. At times, he would immerse himself in mathematical and philosophical research, demonstrating exceptional depth and originality in his deductions and conclusions. He made many friends, not just among chessplayers, but also among the learned and the artists. In Moscow, he played chess with the director of the Institute of Mathematics, the academician Ivan Vinogradov, and with the violinist David Oistrakh; while in New York, he often met and had friendly conversations with the great physicist, Albert Einstein.
Lasker was a many-sided individual, and could quite deservedly quote the words of the ancient Latin proverb, Nil humanum mihi alienum puto [Nothing human is alien to me]. He loved the theater, music, artistic literature; he was an interesting and witty conversationalist, and quite approachable in society. Jacques Hannak in his book gives the recollections of a female acquaintance of Lasker, a singer at the opera theater of the Wiesbaden resort, where he went to rest in 1902, after defending his dissertation. Having made friends with the director of the theater, Lasker sometimes played chess with him, and attended his productions regularly. And at one of these, the singer’s colleagues drew her attention to the fact that, in the swans’ chorus of the opera (Beautiful), one of the singers had a long beard and was wearing the costume over his suit – Emanuel Lasker! He had done it to amuse the young singer. She recalled, “In those days, he was quite interested in theater, and was quite happy to be given a role in the background of some production.”
Martha’s memoirs, retained in the RGALI (the Russian State Archives of Literature and Art) in Moscow (lot 1525, ed. khr. 1, No. 225, pp. 98-108), reveal another side of Lasker’s personality, his attraction to nature. After his return from America and marriage, he settled in a beautiful country place, an hour’s journey from Berlin. Here, he acquired a house, a garden and a dog. He planted potatoes, battled the rural children at croquet, made up riddles for them, breathed in the clean air – and wrote the philosophical work, Das Begreifen die Welt (1913).
Nor did he forget the places of his early youth. “Lasker, ” Martha wrote, “loves his birthplace, the village of Berlinchen in Neumark. In this little spot, there is a great gray-blue lake. Reeds grow on the shore, and the lake is surrounded by evergreen and broad-leafed trees. Lasker frequently recalls this peaceful lake, on whose shores he spent his childhood.
Emanuel Lasker loved spending time in nature.
His house in Thyrow is still standing.
“I recall one incident in America. We were visiting Niagara Falls. Thundering streams, the embodiment of gigantic strength, came bursting out on all sides, falling away into bottomless depths. Upon seeing this colossal work of nature, my husband unexpectedly said to me, ‘Now admit it – my Berlinchen lake is much prettier!’”
And another fragment from Martha’s memoirs, this one concerning the “farm life” of the champion: “How does Lasker occupy himself? He plants trees in his garden, and plays with the children, who immediately see him as a friend. He loves nature, and feels better in the wooded glades and alpine slopes than in a salon, dressed in black surcoat and high collar.”
But in the 20th century, amid a rushing stream of the most varied events – political, educational, and chess – Lasker had little time to enjoy the beauties of nature and the peace and quiet of country life. Living in Berlin, London, New York and Moscow, he felt at home in modern civilization, presenting himself as a model sportsman, thinker, a student and a worker in culture.
Mathematician
From his earliest years, Lasker had a passionate love of mathematics, and showed an extraordinary ability for it. Throughout his life he devoted much time to independent mathematical research. After many years of study at the Universities of Berlin, Heidelberg and Göttingen, he wrote his dissertation, which he defended in 1902 in Erlangen. It was a solid discovery, still acknowledged in academic circles. In the Mathematical Encyclopedia (Moscow 1982, v. 3, p 206), there is a special article on “Lasker’s Ring, ” defined as a commutative ring, in which every ideal can be written as an intersection of a finite number of primary ideals. It also has an entry for “Lasker’s Module.”
Early in 1936, the Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences selected Emanuel Lasker as an honorary member. I.M. Vinogradov, who headed the Institute at that time, in an interview almost fifty years later (64 1982/24), said: “I have fond memories of my acquaintance with the great chessplayer and thinker, Emanuel Lasker. After the Second Moscow International Tournament of 1935, he remained a resident of the Soviet Union, and worked with us for some time at the Institute. Emanuel Lasker was preoccupied with solving a problem in mathematics, and I had a chess sparring partner I could never have dreamed of. We played a lot of games.”
Lasker gave a lot of his work over to the Institute. As master F. I. Duz-Khotimirsky said later, when Lasker left the USSR in the autumn of 1937, “He asked me to look after one of his latest efforts in mathematics, which was being edited at the Academy of Sciences.”
Teacher
Besides popularizing chess through the press, Lasker spent many long years promoting the game through lectures, conversations, and publishing books and articles. Whether the second world champion was talking about the rules and philosophy of the chess struggle, or about details of the game’s development, or about the contributions made by gifted masters, he presented his ideas in a way that the general public found understandable and entertaining. His first set of lectures, given in London in 1895, and later published in book form as Common Sense In Chess, remains popular and influential to this day. (A new English-language edition has recently been released, using English algebraic notation for the first time, and adding many diagrams.) Before World War I he traveled the globe promoting chess, giving lectures in the USA, Latin America, Germany, Russia, and other countries.
In June 1910 he gave two lectures in Buenos Aires, one devoted to Paul Morphy, and the other to Wilhelm Steinitz. Later published in one of the capital city’s newspapers, they were filled with deep insights about the basis of chess skill, about the major directions of chess creativity, and about the place of chess in history. Lasker explained that in contrast to those chessplayers whose brilliant moves sprang out of a “sudden inspiration, ” the American master, the genius Morphy, was the first to build his play upon an objective analysis of the position. Speaking of Steinitz, Lasker emphasized that he was the first great master of defense: “His name will forever be linked with the general, or philosophical, theory of defense, because he was the first to understand its significance.”
Lasker’s work with chessplayers in Argentina helped increase both their mastery and the growth in popularity of chess in their country. So it was no accident that a decade and a half later the world championship match between Capablanca and Alekhine was played in Buenos Aires, or that Argentina hosted the first world chess Olympiad held on the South American continent, in 1939.
Lasker was also known to have had good relations with the young Soviet talents during his life in Moscow in 1935-37. In his letter from Copenhagen of October 1, 1936, to a one V. Yeremeev, Lasker talked about the results of the Nottingham tournament, and about his future plans: “I intend to go back to work in Moscow on both chess and mathematics; and I shall be happy to meet once again with masters Kan, Alatortsev, Riumin, Lilienthal, Panov, and Grigoriev, to do some work with them...”
Lasker’s books, published in Moscow and Leningrad during the 1920s and 1930s, retained their usefulness even into the postwar years, remaining the best advice on learning to play chess. In the 1960s the newspaper 64, in the column “Learn To Play Right, ” printed a whole series of articles based on his Manual of Chess; these articles covered attack, defense, combinations, the endgame, etc., all under the heading, “Lasker Teaches.” The sixth world champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, wrote the foreword to the sixth Russian edition of Lasker’s Manual of Chess, published in 1980, saying that this book “would be useful to every serious student of chess who would be interested in its past.” And in 2001, despite the thousands of excellent chess publications, the book went through its 7th Russian edition.
“Lasker Teaches”
This is the headline, under which 64 magazine printed, in 1968, a chapter from the Manual of Chess.
Dissertation
In January 1902, Lasker successfully (or, as the official news had it, “with great distinction”) defended his dissertation at Erlangen University (Germany), receiving his degree as a Doctor of Mathematics and Philosophy, on the theme “On Series at Convergence Boundaries” (“Über Reihen auf der Convergenzgrenze”). His mathematical researches were based upon his studies at the universities of Berlin, Göttingen, and Heidelberg, which were then the most powerful learning centers of Germany. The dissertation represented the fruits of long hours of thought and research by Lasker, who had presented reports on an analogous theme as early as 1893 in the United States (New Orleans) and in 1901 in England (Manchester).
Philosopher
Lasker wrote two significant philosophical works, Kampf (Struggle, 1913) and The Philosophy of the Unattainable (Die Philosophie des Unvollendbaren, 1919). In them, Lasker expressed “a lively interest in all the problems that bedevil mankind, ” as Albert Einstein wrote. But Einstein also noted that “experiencing, as a great chessplayer, an enormous mental tension, he could never completely free himself from the spirit of the game, even when occupied with other problems.”
Still, Lasker remained convinced that chess offered an ideal preparation for, and symbol of, struggle in the widest sense of the word. In his Leningrad lecture of February 18, 1924, he noted that the way the pieces moved symbolized not only warfare, but also other forms of struggle, such as an argument, a diplomatic negotiation, a lawsuit, or the conflicts inherent in any organizational effort. But, he argued, chess also served as an excellent means of preparing a person for the struggles he or she would face in a variety of circumstances. “Life, ” said Lasker, “is full of struggle: one person struggling against another, the struggle between the individual and his surroundings; even the spiritual life of each disparate individual is unthinkable without struggle.”
And since in those years Lasker believed that chess would exhaust itself in short order – this he also laid out in the book, My Match with Capablanca (1922), where he forecast a “draw death for chess” – so the epilogue to his lecture would have been quite natural for that time. In it, he held that chess was called upon to enrich the theory of struggle:
“It is the historical mission of chess, in my view, to:
Lasker’s Philosophy:
“Life Is Struggle”
1. Incorporate itself into this new and fruitful theory of struggle;
2. Render this theory understandable to the great mass of people, after which chess can quietly expire...
Someday, when chess will have long since been buried, we can read the following words on its tombstone:
‘The chess struggle made our life’s struggle easier’.”
Soon, Lasker began to regard the future of chess more optimistically, and no longer predicted the “draw death of chess.” Instead, he continued to assert that the cultural and historical benefit of chess for humanity consisted chiefly in its representation of struggle.
But if the entire multi-faceted nature of games – and of chess, in particular – inspired Lasker’s philosophy of struggle, then the theory of struggle served as the basis for his other powerful work, the Philosophy of the Unattainable (1919). Its basic idea was based upon a combination of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and axioms from the theory of games. In Lasker’s own words: “the uniqueness of the struggle for existence is general and substantive, for all life on Earth.” Einstein found this “a most original work.” The famous German educator, Professor Georg Klauss, published an essay titled “Emanuel Lasker, Game Theory’s Predecessor” in the FIDE Bulletin (Prague, 1965, No. 2). In it he argues that Lasker’s Philosophy of the Unattainable “contains a whole array of thoughts, which today, after the birth of mathematical game theory, are of particular interest.” Klauss further asserts that many of the concepts Lasker develops in this work “form a genuine bank of cybernetic ideas.”
In the days of tribulation brought on by the outcome of the match with Capablanca, Lasker expressed the hope that his Philosophy of the Unattainable and his mathematical “theory of modules and ideals” would outlive his chess glory.
Einstein and Lasker
In his later years, Lasker met and had frequent friendly conversations with the great German physicist, Albert Einstein (1879-1955). In 1952, Einstein wrote a foreword to Hannak’s book, Emanuel Lasker: Biography of the World Champion, in which he described the second world champion as both a gifted individual and a deep thinker: “I met Lasker at the home of one of my old friends, and we became close acquaintances, exchanging thoughts and evaluating various problems while taking walks together. More than once, in our conversations, it fell to me to take the role of listener, since it was more in Lasker’s nature to lay out his own ideas than to listen to those of others.