A Century of Chess: Lasker-Tarrasch 1908

The long-overdue match between Lasker and Tarrasch finally took place in 1908. They had been the two best players in the world since the early 1890s (with a brief interruption by Pillsbury). Tarrasch had been proposed for a world championship with Steinitz as early as 1892. He had declined citing professional obligations and, somewhat unjustly, regarded Lasker as having stolen a title that was rightfully his. A match between them was proposed in 1903 and collapsed when Tarrasch suffered an ice skating accident . After Tarrasch’s match victory over Marshall in 1905, and then a string of tournament successes culminating in Ostend in 1907, a match between the two of them became inevitable.

The match is now remembered as lopsided – demonstrating that Lasker was clearly the superior player, although with the excuse that Tarrasch was already past his prime. At the time it was seen very differently. It was the first true world championship in over a decade, featuring the two players who were clearly the best in the world, but even more than that, representing two contrasting styles of play. Tarrasch was the acme of classicism, espousing and practicing (to great effect) a ‘correct,’ logical style of play. Lasker was something else – a ‘wrong player,’ who often won through a logic of his own. As befitted a true prize fight, there was also acrimony between the two players – a tremendous clash of personalities, as become apparent in the long, bitter match negotiations between them, which culminated in a refusal to shake hands and in Tarrasch's famous opening line, "To you, Dr. Lasker, I shall address only two words, 'check' and 'mate.'" 

Tarrasch was a true bourgeois, punctilious and deeply pompous. “Like many Germans of the upper classes, he is correct in all things,” as Lasker wrote in a pre-match description. Lasker was a different breed, cosmopolitan, an itinerant, with a certain stylistic looseness that clearly bothered Tarrasch. Tarrasch felt that Lasker had more or less forfeited his title through his long absence from chess – seven years, between 1900 and 1907, when he played in only one major tournament. He disliked Lasker’s insistence on significant stakes for the match (which struck Tarrasch as incorrect, while for Lasker, living his somewhat vagabond lifestyle, the match stake must have been a crucial source of income). It may well have also bothered Tarrasch that Lasker, a German national, had abandoned Germany to live in the United Kingdom and the United States – a major sticking point in match negotiations was Lasker’s insistence on playing in the United States while Tarrasch refused to leave Germany.

All kinds of things have been written about Lasker’s play – he is supposed to have played psychologically and to have deliberately chosen inferior moves to unsettle an opponent. What is true is that he was comfortable in a wider variety of positions than anyone else in the classical period, and he made a point of pushing his opponents towards positions that ran counter to their nature. Tarrasch was the undisputed master of a certain type of classical position, featuring maneuvering, play across the board, and a strategic duel for the center leading eventually to an attack. In Game 1, Lasker steered the game straight out of the opening into a completely different type of position – a queenless middlegame where he readily outplayed Tarrasch.

In Game 2, having mishandled the opening, he took a chance, giving Tarrasch the possibility of an attack but also a chance to go wrong – and Tarrasch took the wrong choice, which led to a dangerous counter-attack.

As Lasker wrote, Tarrasch was completely unfazed by the two losses and won Game 3 without too much trouble.

But in the critical Game 4, Lasker found a new way to imbalance the position – with a risky-looking rook lift. As he wrote, the rook “bore the brunt of white’s attack,” but Lasker saw a move further than Tarrasch and broke his position. That game seemed to have the effect of sapping Tarrasch’s confidence.

Lasker wrote that Tarrasch played Game 5 “in a depressed state” and lost again. He failed to convert an advantageous ending in Game 6 and then in Game 7, with black, switched, somewhat inexplicably, from the Ruy Lopez, which had served him faithfully throughout his long career, to the French Defense, although he didn’t believe in the opening and the French ran completely counter to his strengths. Lasker won again easily – and these middle games, which were a shock to the spectators, serve as a rare instance in chess history where it’s possible to see a world-class player crack before your eyes (something similar happened to Fischer’s opponents during his run in the early ‘70s). Tarrasch – as self-confident a player who has ever lived – seemed to admit in his post-match notes that he was encountering a type of chess that he didn’t recognize or understand. But Tarrasch, to his credit, adjusted. “Step by step, I was playing better,” he wrote after the match. The latter half of the match featured a blistering exchange, in which Lasker and Tarrasch each exchanged a pair of victories – in both cases efficiently exploiting advantages in the endgame. With a win in the 13th game, Lasker added insult to injury - defeating Tarrasch in his beloved namesake defense.

Tarrasch seemed to have a late initiative, but Lasker held him with two draws and then scored a decisive eighth victory due to a bad Tarrasch blunder.