Some Observations On Lasker's Approach To Chess. An Addition and A Bonus game.

Afternoon everyone.

Back with some more insights into Lasker and some wonderful chess.

This week I noted that a pair of books that I had mentioned quite a while ago has become available for pre-order.

https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/emanuel-lasker/  

O.K. Ignore the fact that I am on the cover!! For reasons of space my rather large 'foreword' was cut. . That's life! Business is business.

So I was able to post the material here :- https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/some-observations-on-laskers-approach-to-chess  . and you got it for free!! Happy days!

If you haven't read it already I would suggest that you take a look now - it will help you to understand the approach in annotating the first game in this blog.

So, I annotated about 20 games for that article, and thought that  I would present one that I left out today. The critical position has been much discussed. It was a must win game for Lasker on his comeback - he was trailing Reti by 1/2 point and needed to win in order to win the tournament. Lasker had a good record in must win games, and this one is a great illustration of the points I make in that article.

It also had a great effect on Reti's famous view of Lasker, in 'Masters of the Chessboard', which resulted in many lazy copiers talking rubbish about Lasker deliberately playing bad moves. He didn't! Utter tosh!!

Let's not write another article on that and get to the game!

As said, Reti

was leading  the tournament and Lasker needed to win with Black. A fascinating and wonderful battle which teaches you a lot about Lasker.

As a side note, apart from games like that one, Lasker was capable of playing fantastically strong chess when the opportunity presented itself. The next year he utterly destroyed Reti in a perfectly played, and impressively powerful, game.

And a bonus. The other side of Lasker was that he needed to make money from chess. This next game is from an engagement at the Philadephia club after his match with Marshall. Like Blackburne, he understood the value of being an entertainer, and in this neglected game he gives full rein to his imagination. 

The game was annotated by the wonderful Walter Penn Shipley(  I MUST do a post on him at some point. fascinating chess figure.)

in the Philadephia Inquirer and the American Chess magazine.

If you haven't got it, I can recommend the lovely John Hilbert's book on him.

One of the White allies was a very strong player. Mordacai Morgan. Picture via findagrave.com

Enjoy the game!!