INTRODUCING EMANUEL LASKER

Dr. Emanuel Lasker (born in 1868), the 2nd World Chess Champion, is Germany's greatest ever chessplayer. He was a brilliant mathematician as well, university professor, and a good friend of Albert Einstein.

The current World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, considers Lasker to be much stronger than his predecessor Wilhelm Steinitz, saying that if Steinitz was a 2400 strength player, then Lasker was 2700 strength. Lasker continued to develop positional chess play, and he was a big part of bringing chess into the modern era. He also began to professionalize chess by getting appearance fees to play, something Fischer would take to the next level.

Lasker became World Champion by defeating Steinitz in a match in 1894. He held the world title for an amazing 27 years straight, before finally losing to the next World Champion Jose Raoul Capablanca. Even after he lost the title, Lasker's longevity as a top player was astonishing: He won the New York 1924 tournament at the age of 55!

Lasker was known as a psychological player. He was known to purposely not always play the best move if he thought a different move would cause his opponent more problems psychologically. He was from the school that one should "play [against] the man (or woman!), not the board!"

Lasker was also an author. His most famous chess work was Lasker's Manual of Chess. He died in New York in 1941.


To see a complete biography of Lasker, see Wikipedia here.

To see Lasker's games on ChessGames.com, click here.