Chess for Fun, Chess for Blood ... or Phlegm ... Whatever You Got.

Chess for Fun, the first half of Edward Lasker's book, is a good read for The Great Unwashed Masses of Chess.

Edward's tremendously relatable to the casual chess/beginner player.  He understands that "chess as a hobby" has merit on its own terms.   There are some really funny anecdotes involving his playing chess with various Top People, a virtuoso violinist, scientists, et cetera.  The fun for the violinist lay in 'figuring stuff out' rather than reading and studying.  As such, the violinist played some god-awful chess, but rather enjoyed the mental exercise.

For his part, Lasker enjoyed playing 'social chess' with a person who was having a lot of fun.

In the second half, Chess for Blood, Lasker has an eerily prescient conversation with Capablanca regarding "The Moderns" ... his comment was that, as a result of The Great War, the Young Players (14-17 at the start) basically had nothing to do but study chess.   As a result, their theory would be more current and beyond the capacity of the Established Masters to cope with at the tournament level.

Brought to mind a lot of comments here about Kasparov's return to competitive play.

Capablanca went on to win that tournament, by the way.

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