Edward Lasker

This article is about the chess player. For the politician see Eduard Lasker .

Edward Lasker, New York 1924
Association	German Empire (until 1914) United States (from 1914)
Born	December 3, 1885 Kempen , Province of Posen , German Empire
Died	March 25, 1981 New York
title	International champion (1963)
Best Elo rating	2583 (August 1924) ( historical rating )

Edward Lasker (* 3. December 1885 in Kempen , Posen as Eduard Lasker , † 25. March 1981 in New York ) was a German American electrical engineer and chess - and Gospieler .

Life path

Eduard Lasker studied at the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg (today's TU Berlin ). He was a trained mathematician and engineer in mechanical engineering . For professional reasons he first moved to London . In 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War , Lasker emigrated to the USA and found work as an electrical engineer in Chicago . Edward Lasker, as he was now called, had several inventions to show, including the electrically operated breast pump for pumping breast milk.

Lasker was in a relationship with the chess player Mona Karff for many years .

Eduard Lasker was the uncle of the cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and the journalist Renate Lasker-Harpprecht .

Chess player and go player

Arnold Schottländer was Lasker's chess teacher in his youth in Breslau . In Berlin he took third place in the tournament for the championship of Berlin in 1909 . In 1911 he published his first (and to this day best known) chess book Chess Strategy in 1st edition. This book is considered a standard work and was reissued in 1945 in a revised version under the title Modern Chess Strategy . In 1914 he won the championship of the City of London Chess Club.

Between 1916 and 1921 he was five times winner of the US Open Championship in chess before he received US citizenship in 1921. In 1923 he lost a competition for the championship of the United States against defending champion Frank James Marshall with 8.5–9.5 (+4 = 9 −5). In 1924 he took part in the double-round international tournament in New York , historically considered one of the most significant. In 1954 he won a national championship tournament in Mexico City as a guest player . Lasker was President of the Marshall Chess Club and served on the board of this club until his death.

Lasker, who peaked in chess in the 1920s but never became a professional player, wrote some chess and Go books that are still very popular. According to his own statement, he was largely related to the world chess champion Emanuel Lasker . Because of the similarity of names, games by Edward were occasionally accidentally ascribed to Emanuel in chess publications.

In 1963, the World Chess Federation FIDE awarded Lasker the title of International Master . He died in New York at the age of 95. Edward Lasker's highest historical rating of 2583 he reached in August 1924. In 2017 he was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame .

In the USA, Edward Lasker was considered to be the first popularizer of the Go game, which he played with Felix Dueball , the best German go player , during his time in Berlin , and in which he was the best player in the New World for many years.

Lot

Edward Lasker won a game through one of the most famous combinations in chess history. On October 29, 1912 he played in the City of London Chess Club against the master George Alan Thomas with the white pieces. Lasker played - initiated by a queen sacrifice - a multi-pass magnetic mat , in which the black king moved from the last to the first row within 7 moves. In the end, Lasker had the choice of using long castling or a checkmate with the king to checkmate and opted for the latter.

Dutch defense

1. d2 – d4 e7 – e6 2. Ng1 – f3 f7 – f5 3. Nb1 – c3 Ng8 – f6 4. Bc1 – g5 Bf8 – e7 5. Bg5xf6 Be7xf6 6. e2 – e4 f5xe4 7. Nb3xe4 b7 – b6 8. Nf3 – e5 0–0 9. Bf1 – d3 Bc8 – b7 10. Qd1 – h5 Qd8 – e7?

Lasker - Thomas London 1912   a b c d e f G H   8th 8th 7th 7th 6th 6th 5 5 4th 4th 3 3 2 2 1 1   a b c d e f G H   Position after Black's 10th move

After this mistake, White wins forced through a spectacular queen sacrifice. Black's moves are now forced until mate on move 18.

11. Qh5xh7 + !! Kg8xh7 12. Ne4xf6 + Kh7 – h6

This procedure is enforced. If the king went to h8, White would checkmate with 13.Ne5 – g6.

13. Ne5-g4 +

The black king is now chased across the board and ends up on the white back row.

13.… Kh6 – g5 14. h2 – h4 + Kg5 – f4 15. g2 – g3 + Kf4 – f3 16. Bd3 – e2 +

16. 0–0 or Ke1 – f1 won one move faster (the threat of 17. Ng4 – h2 checkmate is impossible), but then there would be no strange mate on the 18th move.

16.… Kf3 – g2 17. Rh1 – h2 + Kg2 – g1 18. Ke1 – d2 mate (often 18. 0–0–0 is given instead).

a b c d e f G H   8th 8th 7th 7th 6th 6th 5 5 4th 4th 3 3 2 2 1 1   a b c d e f G H   Mate position

The prehistory of the game has been reconstructed using various contemporary sources. Accordingly, on October 26, 1912, Lasker had given a simultaneous performance (+15 = 3 −2) at the Lion de Belfort in Paris and in the following two days fought a three-game duel against Frédéric Lazard , which he won with two wins and one draw . After a break, he took the train to London on October 29, where he rested until around 4 p.m. There Lasker visited the City of London Chess Club , where the game was played on the first evening.

Often the first nine moves were given in different order, for example 1. d2 – d4 f7 – f5 2. e2 – e4 f5xe4 3. Nb1 – c3 Ng8 – f6 4. Bc1 – g5 e7 – e6 5. Nc3xe4 Bf8 – e7 6. Bg5xf6 Be7xf6 7. Ng1 – f3 0–0 8. Bf1 – d3 b7 – b6 9. Nf3 – e5 Bc8 – b7. It could not be clarified why Lasker never stated the actual order of the opening moves, although he had verifiably written down the notation in his notebook.

Works

• Chess Strategy (1911)
• Chess and Checkers: the Way to Mastership (1919)
• Go and Go-Moku (1934)
• Chess for Fun and Chess for Blood (1942)
• Modern Chess Strategy (1945)
• The Adventure of Chess (1949)
• Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters (1951)
• The Game of Chess: The Strategy and Tactics of Expert Play for Amateurs of all Classes (1972)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Thomas W. Ennis: Dr. Edward Lasker is dead at 95 . New York Times, March 26, 1981
2. ↑ Dr. Lasker clinches first place in chess . New York Times, March 6, 1954, p. 19.
3. ↑ For example, the game against Thomas mentioned here, see article about it in: Edward Winter : Chaos in a Miniature. chesshistory.com, accessed November 8, 2015 . 
4. ↑ Edward Lasker's historical Elo ratings on chessmetrics.com (English)
5. ↑ Edward Lasker on worldchesshof.org, accessed on March 30, 2017 (English)
6. ↑ Scan of the game notation from Lasker's notebook by Edward Winter
7. ↑ Hanspeter Suwe: Castling in the game of chess . In: König und Turm , issue November 29, 2010.
8. ↑ Game on 365chess.com

Web links

Commons : Edward Lasker  - Collection of Images

• Edward Lasker in Sensei's Library (Go Lexicon)
• Books by Edward Lasker
• Literature by and about Edward Lasker in the catalog of the German National Library