Lasker Learns From Blackburne.

            Francis Joseph Lee      Henry Earnest Atkins     Reginald Price Michell

Isidor Gunsberg             William Ward              Joseph Henry Blackburne  

The Photograph given above is included, not just because it is an interesting historical document, but it includes Lee and Blackburne. It was taken during round 7 of the B.C.F Championships of 1908, in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

In a couple of kamalakanta's posts, most recently here,  https://www.chess.com/blog/kamalakanta/rubinstein-and-tal--partners-in-crime

he points out that even great players learn from their predecessors. Well , of course they do!! Chess is a knowledge based game. However, one pair of games has always stuck in my mind as a particularly clear example. I Don't believe it has ever been pointed out before.

 Way back in 1892 - 93, Lasker was publishing a wonderful, albeit shortlived, magazine called 'The London Chess Fortnightly'. It is a wonderful source which has been overlooked - probably due to it's rarity- in many historical researches. However, a couple of years ago, the chess historian and publisher Vlastimil Fiala published it through 'Moravian Chess'. His site is www.moravian-chess.cz 

Ok, Having already seen the first game quoted in another source, my view that Lasker may have studied it was confirmed by finding it on pages 37 - 38 of the magazine.

The notes I give are from that source.

Over 30 years later, the lesson bore fruit in one of Lasker's most famous games, which is also one of the first of his that I studied. I still love the game, even after over 40 years!! It is a timeless masterpiece, built around a lesson learned from a forgotten masterpiece. I give the comment at the critical juncture from the source where I first saw it - Richard Reti's Masters of the Chessboard. In my first English edition, from which I have transcribed verbatim, it is on pages 85 - 90.