Lasker Loses the Queen but She’s Just An Immaterial Girl

One of Emanuel Lasker’s farewells to chess was at Moscow 1925. The aging former world champion (1894-1921) would not appear in tournaments for another nine years. The winner at Moscow was Efim Bogoljubow with 13 wins, 5 draws, and 2 losses (15.5/20). He lost to Capablanca and drew with Lasker. Lasker was second with 10 wins, 8 draws, and 2 losses (14/20). He drew with Bogoljubow and Capablanca. One of Lasker’s losses seems to have resulted from receiving news during the game that a play he and his brother, Berthold, had written was going to be produced. In a winning position he made mistakes that helped to create Carlos Torre’s most famous win. Capablanca was behind Lasker with 9 wins, 9 draws, and 2 losses. One of Capablanca’s losses was to Ilyin Zhenevsky whose game with Lasker will be shown.
Ilyin Zhenevsky (1894-1941) played the white side of a Closed Sicilian against Lasker. The particular way the opening went, although not strange, has hardly been played. Lasker then spent some time thinking, and grabbed a pawn, which allowed his queen to be trapped. Kasparov called the queen sacrifice made by Lasker ahead of its time, but now a standard exchange. Of course, a player has to have quite a standard of play, even today, to make such a “standard exchange.” To make such an exchange when Lasker did meant that he was setting a standard.