Chess
His chess teacher in Breslau was Arnold Schottländer. In Berlin, he won the City Championship (1909) and wrote his first chess book titled Chess Strategy (Schachstrategie, 1911) which had many English and German editions.
Lasker published several books on American checkers, chess, and Go. He won five U.S. Open Chess Championships (1916, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921); this tournament was known at the time as the Western Open. His best result was his narrow 8½–9½ loss in a 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 games against Réti and Savielly Tartakower, both of whom were Top 10 in the world at the time according to the estimated rankings of the website Chessmetrics.com, drew Capablanca and drew a famous game against Emanuel Lasker. This game was truly extraordinary, as the former World Champion lost a pronounced advantage and was only able to hold the draw against Edward by demonstrating that the inferior side can hold the draw in certain types of endings of rook and knight pawn versus a lone knight. The game lasted 103 moves and changed endgame theory, as no one had demonstrated this particular draw before in theory or practice. Lasker was the only chess amateur in the very strong field of professionals.
His most famous game is probably the queen sacrifice and king hunt against Sir George Thomas. After Lasker checkmated him, Thomas said, "This was very nice." Lasker, who had yet to learn English, was touched by Thomas's sportsmanship after a spectator translated Thomas's remark into German for him. Lasker wrote that had he won the game against a leading Berlin amateur, his opponent would likely have told him, "You are just lucky! Had I played instead of, you would have been lost."
Although Lasker never won against Capablanca, he drew as Black against him at the 1924 New York tournament. Lasker was not usually so fortunate; for example, Capablanca once arrived one minute before he would have forfeited the game for late arrival, at New York 1915, and Lasker played the Riga variation of the Ruy Lopez with which he had some experience, but Capablanca found an advantageous continuation over-the-board.
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 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 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, Kepno, 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 and moved to Jarotschin, another Polish village, and Emanuel Lasker was that one's greatgrandson.
Read more about this topic: Edward Lasker
Famous quotes containing the word chess:
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