Emanuel Lasker

My first book was written by Lasker in Classical notation. Can't recall the name of it.  Was hard for me to follow at my age at the time.  Great player, he was, though.

Capablanca and Lasker did play for the world championship in 1921 (after previously failing to come to terms for a potential match in 1911) Cap won 9-5, though I'm sure Lasker was past his prime by then...

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=54111

By 1920, Lasker recognized Capablanca's prowess, and resigned the title to him, saying, "You have earned the title not by the formality of a challenge, but by your brilliant mastery."² Capablanca, having felt robbed of his chance to win the title in the traditional fashion, convinced Lasker to play, but Lasker did so only on condition that his resignation be accepted, and he be regarded as the challenger. Lasker's resignation was not widely recognized at the time, nor today, therefore this match is generally regarded as the one in which the title changed hands.

In Havana, from March 15 to April 28, 1921, the match took place. Whomever you regard as the challenger, the winner was Capablanca, who prevailed without a single loss, +4 -0 =10. Four games down, with at most 10 more to play, Lasker resigned the match prematurely after Game 14, citing ill health, and Capablanca became the third World Chess Champion.

I get the feeling that Capablanca had most likely been better than Lasker for several years before he officially won the title in 1921, and that Lasker may have been dodging him a bit. 

Well, why not a match vs Reti? 

Lasker was 52 then...

That's a little old to be competing for the world title isn't it?

....And then later on Alekhine refused to give Cap a rematch after Alekhine won the title from him in 1927.  Poor Capablanca, I think he could have easily added another ten years as world champ to his resume if given the chance.  

Sorry for the thread hijack. 

 Agreed.

But Lasker had a tremendous performance at Moscow 1935 against the world's elite. He was 66 years old. Only Smyslov and Korchnoi had managed playing that well in that age after him.

That's awesome.

yes i consider Lasker as one of the best players of chess after me.

Yeah, those classical guys just can't compete with the modern mind. We is clever.

 I'm a bit lost here. Why would Capa be upset? This isn't an obscure opening.

Maybe, but Lasker was better in New York 1924, when he was 55 years old and won well ahead of Capablanca in a very strong tournament. Lasker scored a better result also the next times they faced each other, in Moscow 1925, and in Moscow 1935 (when he was 66 years old). This was more than 40 years after he won the World Championship, and one year later he won against the reigning World Champion Euwe. Between 1926 and 1934 Lasker hadn't played at all for eight years, but still he was capable of scoring such results, and that in spite of now being on "the wrong" side of 65.

In 1914 Lasker had beaten Capablanca when winning S:t Petersburg, and after that he only played two events before the match seven years later. In 1916 he scored +5 -0 =1 in a match against Tarrasch and in 1918 he won a tournament ahead of Rubinstein, Schlechter and Tarrasch, so his results 1914-18 were good even if he played very little.

Lasker lost clearly in 1921 and an often mentioned explanation or excuse has been that he had resigned the title, didn't want to play, didn't prepare, and only showed to pick up a big paycheck, but Capa was of course the much better player in the match. It was Lasker's only event during a period of five years, but in 1923 he started playing again and won Mährich-Ostrau. His strongest opponents according to Chessmetrics were #3 Rubinstein and #4 Bogoljubow. Lasker finished 4-5 points ahead of them in only 13 rounds, and then a year later he was far ahead of Capa and Alekhine in New York. If not for the match in 1921 a case could have been made that Lasker maybe was the strongest player in the world from some years before 1894 to some years after 1924.