The Luzhin Defense

I've often played a Lu zhing defense.

One doesn't just jump out of a high rise window. Why on earth would Bardeleben do that. If he was alone at the time and had dizzy spells---maybe he was opening the window for fresh air and fell out. Maybe he walked out of a tournament in the middle of a game and his opponent was pissed and snuck up to his room and pushed him out the window. Maybe he was high on dope and thought he could fly. If we put our heads together we could solve this mystery! And others. Like why didnt Schlechter draw that last game against Lasker?? Or perhaps we could discover who was crazier, Fischer, Rubinstein or Morphy. Or did Kasparov really cheat Judit? Did Keres throw all those games to Botvinnik in 48'? Spread out---SPREAD OUT---start beating the bushes. If you find any clues report back to headquarters.  

Our word for today is "defenestration". Use it everyday in everyway and you will own this word!

Schlecter didn't draw Lasker because he had two win the match by two wins in order to be champion.  If he had drawn Lasker then Lasker would have remained champion.

Blake, if you could prove that you would solve a 100 yr old mystery. Wheres your proof?

While it wasn't the best movie, I enjoyed it. I'll have to see about picking up a copy of the book soon to read too.

In reference to Schlecter having to win the match by two games to claim the championship.  There is no direct proof since the conditions of the match were never made public.  We do know that Lasker insisted on such a clause (that the challenger must win by two games) in his match with Capablanca, and the match was almost aborted because of Lasker's instance.

 Good information---I tend to think like you, but it wouldn't hold up in a court room. By the way, do you know why we know about the (win by two games clause) between Lasker and Capablanca? Capablanca published it in the newspapers which pissed Lasker off so much that he didn't talk to Capablanca for ten years!

If there was a two game clause between Lasker and Schlechter---Schlechter never talked about it. Maybe he didnt have the backbone Capa had. The world champion had a lot of pull in the chess world and nobody wanted to upset the champ. Capablanca experienced this with Alekhine after th 27' championship. Alekhine let the promoters know that if they invited Capablanca to a tournament that Alekhine was playing in---Alekhine would withdraw. That cost Capa a lot of tournaments.