Lasker's 27 year reign

Well, in view of batgirl's quotes, obviously Tarrasch did not, and the views of the "world tournament champion" Pillsbury or Rubinstein or Capablanca are somewhat open to question, but anyway, that does not change the fact that there probably would have needed to be more regular world championships for anyone to know for sure who was strongest.

This, again, is somewhat fraught, as one cannot discount sour grapes as a motivation for Lasker's contemporaries questioning his legitimacy as world champion.

I still believe that the best measure of his greatness is that he changed the way that chess was played. That some of his opponents accused him of deliberately playing inferior moves is an indication of how far ahead of them he actually was. As per Reb's original post, I agree that the 27 year reign is misleading and would add that it actually detracts from, rather than enhances, arguments about how good he actually was: people become fixated on the the manner in which he held the title for so long.

Yeah, I agree.  The pre-FIDE period saw many champions shying away from matches against their chief rivals, so at least that is one thing we can be thankful to FIDE for.  Hopefully, we'll be able to avoid further schisms from here on in.

Yeah, I remember that book. Hannak really makes Lasker look like a genius in that book. Isnt that the book where Hannak talks about Lasker starting a chicken ranch and trying to mate two roosters.  Could anyone be that stupid? I'll have to admit I enjoyed the book but realize its not the best biography of Lasker.

Chessmetrics rank Lasker as #1 for the first time in 1890. More than 45 years later he won against World Champion Euwe, and around the same time he also lost against Alekhine for the first and only time in his career. I don't think he ever finished behind Tarrasch or Capablanca in a tournament even when they were at their best, also in 1935 he was ahead of the latter, 20 years younger player, when he himself was close to 70. Lasker's only bad result in 45 years was the match in 1921 when he played to get money after already having resigned the title. But a few years later he was far ahead of Capablanca again, in New York 1924.

Lasker was probably more interested in mathematics and philosophy than in chess, as compared to players like Steinitz or Fischer that ate, slept and thought of nothing but chess. He shouldn't be judged as a player by the 27 years being "artificial". He was maybe good enough to win a title match both in 1889 and 1936, a period close to 50 years. It's almost impossible to overestimate Lasker in my opinion. Only Kasparov is in the same league.

Fischer didn't think that a world champion should play in Lasker's style. Lasker played the man/opponent and Fischer believed you should play the board and not the man.... Lasker was known to make second rate moves in order to make the position as unpleasant as possible for his opponent and Fischer thought this beneath a WC and I believe this is why he thought less of Lasker. 

My "problem" is not so much with Lasker as with his fans that always throw his " 27 year reign" into the argument as proof of his greatness. Subtract 20 years of that reign due to him not defending the title ( no matter how good his reasons may be ) and a 7 year reign isnt nearly so impressive. Another thing...... Steinitz was recognized as the world's best player 20 years before he won the title of World Champion but because of the technicality that the title of World Champion didnt oficially exist yet these 20 years arent included at all in his reign. If they were he would be the one who held the title longest and given that he defended his title on a much more regular basis than Lasker did I think he is more deserving of the distinction. There were matches Lasker should have played : Pillsbury, Tarrasch earlier than he did, rematch for Schlecter, Rubinstein, Capablanca earlier than he did and I believe surely he would have lost at least one of those matches and his reign wouldnt have been 27 years. You point out that even his opponents conceded that he was better and most of the world also believed he was better in defense but wasnt he an overwhelming favorite against Schlecter and he nearly lost ?  Wasnt Alekhine an overwhelming favorite to beat Euwe in their first match, but he lost ? So, to recap ..... I feel Steinitz is cheated out of a distinction that should be his , imo and its hard for me to respect a 27 year reign from a champion that doesnt defend his title for 20 of those years. 

Yes, Fischer always tried to play "correctly" and accurately, and Lasker was crafty and a master psychologist. Both were great fighters, but Lasker was a much more well rounded and intelligent person. In my humble opinion at their peaks Fischer was stronger, but overall Lasker was as great because of his longevity.  

 I think you are mis-reading chessmetrics. Laskers first tournament win came in 1889---the minor tournament at Breslau. The winner of the major tournament at Breslau was Tarrasch. In fact Tarrasch was on a roll. He won four major tournaments in a row --- Breslau 1889, Manchester 1890, Dresden 1892, Leipzig 1894. Lasker, in 1890, would not have made any list of top players. However, he did  share first prize with his brother Berthold in a minor tournament in Berlin. Hey! a win is a win!

I'm going to run this up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. How many of you think Fischer used psychology?

I've no idea when Lasker first was good enough to beat Steinitz. In 1894 they were different class so it must have been some time before that, and in 1889-93 Lasker won all his matches (something like a dozen of them), some against decent players like Mieses (going +5 in 8 games) and Blackburne (+6 in 10 games). In 1889 he was far ahead of Gunsberg in Amsterdam, and Gunsberg wasn't beaten too badly by Steinitz in their title match around that time (-2 in 19 games). But maybe 1889 is a couple of years too early for him to have beaten Steinitz, who was a great Champion.

 Oh, I think he did. He played every game to win and his uncompromising fighting spirit put great psychological pressure on his opponent. He talked about crushing their will. But I don't think he was a psychological player like Tal and Lasker were. Fischer tried to play correctly and did not create murky complications to try to trick or outplay his opponent (or put them in time pressure).

According to Kramnik the difference between Lasker and Steinitz in 1894 was the same as the difference between a 2700 and a 2400 player today:

"By the way, it is significant that the World Chess Championship in 1894 (not to mention the return) was a total mismatch.

My impression is that two completely different players in terms of insight met over the board. In present day Elo, we would say that a player with a rating of 2700 played against another rated 2400"

"In my opinion, when Lasker was stripping Steinitz of his title, he was head and shoulders above all the others. Since that time chess history has not seen such a yawning gap"

http://kramnik.com/eng/interviews/getinterview.aspx?id=61

 I doubt seriously if he was head and shoulders above Tarrasch. Tarrasch was in a zone at this time much like Alekhine in the early 30's and Fischer in the early 70's.

there wasnt a big gap between him and Pillsbury or Chigorin either

It is a very interesting read, and he doesn't sound too positive about Tarrasch's play in spite of all those tournament wins:

"At the time Lasker was fighting for the title, Tarrasch's play was not impressive"

"I was not impressed with Tarrasch's play. He had imaginative ideas but like all players of that time he was prone to rigidity. And Lasker was not, that's why he stood out"

Well, I do have the same doubts as raul72. Tarrasch won everything the years before 1894, Lasker's gap being the biggest in the history of the game already then, I don't know about that one.

I didn't realise that there were so many "Lasker fanboys" around to generate this thread.  But okay, I still think that given the basic play every 3 years scheme that has been in play for so many years @ the championship level (as we discussed early on in this thread) the number of years that the match wasn't defended isn't such a big deal.  Lasker did, btw, play some non title matches didn't he?

But, to address your main point; it may be true that Steintz gets short shrift because of the lack of the "official" tag of champion but not from me.  His reign was outstanding and impressive.  However so was laskers. 

Regarding Schlecter, and again I'm picking up most of this from Andy Soltis' book "why lasker matters", Schlecter was the most well prepared player of his era as well as by FAR the most active.  If he was a big underdog that had to do more with both the lasker mystic and schlecter's quiet style of play rather than some objective measure of Schlecter's strength. 

Finally the notion that "lasker played the man" rather than the board may have a grain of truth to it.  If you look at Lasker's career he gets better and better the more he plays a particular opponent.    This idea that he used "psychology" is based basically (again soltis here) on the use of this buzz word that was hot at the time by first Reti ( a big Lasker detractor) and then picked up by many others.  Soltis goes through great pains to debunk the MYTH that lasker used psychology (like playing intentionally bad moves) to beat opponents.  At one point Soltis remarks that if Lasker really could have played "bad" moves and beated the GMs of his day his real rating would have been more like 3000.  It's a fair point he makes there. 

A great example of this nonsense about lasker using psychology is the famous Lasker v Capa game where lasker plays the exchange variaton of Ruy "forcing" Capa to play for a win in a game where he really just wanted to draw.  Soltis points out, and rightly so, that this line had been Lasker's "go to" variation for decades and he'd used it in crucial game after crucial game.  No psychology except that he was incredibly good at playing that variation and black almost had great difficulty of overcoming white's simple but effective stratedgy.

So, to psychology I say BAH HUMBUG.  I also say lasker was an amazing player and way ahead of his time.  Tarrasch accused him of using "witch craft' and "mind control".  Sound familier?  That's the kind of thing the soviets were saying about fischer in Iceland.

But didn't Lasker also chose the exchange variation because he knew Capa only needed a draw, and if black pays passively in this variation and doesn't use the two bishops white is in the drivers seat? In addition I think Lasker liked complications, because he was usually superior in dealing with them. I think Lasker didn't purposely play "bad" moves, but didn't he play some provocative ones, especially if he had an inferior position and there was no other way of creating chances? I remember that famous game with Tarrasch. By the way I am a huge Lasker fan and think you can make a good argument that he was the greatest player of all time.

Well, I would certainly call that psychology! Lasker knows Capa will play for the draw and win the tournament. But he plays a variation where you must play aggressively or lose. Capablanca played timidly and was demolished. I would love someone to post that game with good annotation. Kasparov played a similar game against Karpov in a championship match. He had to win the last game to draw the match and retain the title. And he did. There may be several such games scattered through chess history.

 Kasparov used psychology by not playing forcing lines, but keeping the game fluid and open to maneuvering. He was hoping that Karpov would agonize over his moves, feel pressured, and use a lot of time. That's pretty much what happened.