Who is The Longest Reigning World Chess Champion? A Mini Blog
Who is the longest reigning World Chess Champion? It’s not Bobby Fischer, Magnus Carlsen, or even Garry Kasparov, who himself reigned as champion for 15 years. The longest reigning World Chess Champion in history was a man by the name of Emanuel Lasker.
Emanuel Lasker ruled as the World Chess Champion for 27 years, (1894-1921) until Jose Raul Capablanca clenched the title in the 1921 World Chess Championship.
The match was played in March–April 1921. After four draws, the fifth game saw Lasker blunder with Black in an equal ending. Capablanca's amazing playing style allowed him to draw the next four games, without taking any unnecessary risks. In the tenth game, Lasker as white played a position with an Isolated Queen Pawn but failed to create the necessary activity and Capablanca reached a better ending, which he won. The eleventh and fourteenth games were also won by Capablanca, and Lasker resigned the match.
Emanuel Lasker was born on Christmas Eve 1868, at what is now Barlinek, Poland. He was born the son of a Jewish cantor. At the age of eleven he was sent to study mathematics abroad where he lived with his brother Berthold, who taught him how to play chess. Fun fact: Berthold was among the world's top ten players in the early 1890s. To earn quick money Emanuel played chess and card games for small bets at restaurants and coffee shops.
Lasker first beat Wilhelm Steinitz to win the world championship in 1894, and also rematched Steinitz for the title in 1896. But perhaps one of Emanuel Lasker’s greatest games came in 1934. Emanuel Lasker who was 66 at time was in Zurich to face Max Euwe who would one day become the World Chess Champion himself!
Sam Copeland's annotations on this game are quite interesting. https://www.chess.com/blog/SamCopeland/65-year-old-lasker-defeats-world-champion-to-be-euwe-best-of-the-30s-euwe-vs-lasker-1934
Max Euwe later commented, "It is not possible to learn much from him. One can only stand and wonder."
Emmanuel Lasker is still regarded as one of the strongest chess players in history. He retired in 1935.
In 1933 Lasker, who was a Jew and his wife Martha were forced to flee Germany. They first settled in the Soviet Union in 1935, and then the United States in 1937.
Lasker died of a kidney infection in New York City on January 11, 1941, at the age of 72, as a charity patient at the Mount Sinai Hospital. A funeral service for him was held at the Riverside Memorial Chapel. He was buried at historic Beth Olom Cemetery, Queens, New York.
Albert Einstein who was a good friend of Lasker’s later went on to say the following:
”Emanuel Lasker was undoubtedly one of the most interesting people I came to know in my later years. We must be thankful to those who have penned the story of his life for this and succeeding generations. For there are few men who have had a warm interest in all the great human problems and at the same time kept their personality so uniquely independent.”
An amazing chess player who led an amazing life!
I find it hard to believe that anyone will ever come close to beating Emanuel Lasker’s record in the future.
With the all the advanced players and all the advanced tools we have for studying chess nowadays, the World Chess Championship title will most likely never rest solely in the hands of one player for so long ever again.
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- @FA-18_SuperHornet2007
