[blind-chess] Annotated Game #066: Alexander Alekhine - Emanuel Lasker, St. Petersburg 1914
- From: "Roderick Macdonald" <rjmacdonald@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Blind-Chess Mailing List" <blind-chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 12:50:03 -1000
Annotated Game #066:
Alexander Alekhine - Emanuel Lasker, St. Petersburg 1914
Adapted and Condensed from
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
Contents:
++1. Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine
++1.A Biography
++1.A1 Early life
++1.A2 Early chess career (1902-1914)
++1.A3 Top-level grandmaster (1914-1927)
++1.A3a World War I and post-revolutionary Russia
++1.A3b 1920-1927
++1.B World Chess Champion, first reign (1927-35)
++1.B1 1927 title match
++1.B2 Rematch offered, never finalized
++1.B3 Defeats Bogolyubov twice in title matches
++1.B4 Anti-Bolshevik statements, controversy
++1.B5 Dominates rivals
++1.C Loss of the World title (1935-1937)
++1.D World Chess Champion, second reign (1937-46)
++1.D1 1937-1939
++1.D2 World War II (1939-1945)
++1.D3 His final year
++1.E Assessment
++1.E1 Playing strength and style
++1.E2 Influence on the game
++1.E3 Accusations of "improving" games
++1.E4 Accusations of anti-Semitism
++1.F Notable chess games
++1.G Writings
++1.H Summary of results in competitions
++1.H1 Tournament results
++1.H2 Match results
++1.H3 Chess Olympiad results
++2. Emanuel Lasker
++2.A Life and career
++2.A1 Early years 1868-1894
++2.A2 Chess competition 1894-1918
++2.A2a Match against Steinitz
++2.A2b Successes in tournaments
++2.A2c Matches against Marshall and Tarrasch
++2.A2d Matches against Janowski
++2.A2e Match against Schlechter
++2.A2f Abortive challenges
++2.A3 Academic activities 1894-1918
++2.A4 Other activities 1894-1918
++2.A5 Match against Capablanca
++2.A6 1921 - end of life
++2.B Assessment
++2.B1 Chess strength and style
++2.B2 Influence on chess
++2.b3 Work in other fields
++2.C Friends and relatives
++2.D Publications
++2.D1 Chess
++2.D2 Mathematics
++2.D3 Other games
++2.D4 Philosophical
++2.E Quotations
++2.E1 By Lasker
++2.E2 About Lasker
++2.F Notable games
++2.G Tournament results
++2.H Match results
++3. Alexander Alekhine - Emanuel Lasker, St. Petersburg 1914
++1. Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine
World Champion 1927-1935 & 1937-1946
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine (October 31, 1892 - March 24,
1946) was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered
one of the greatest chess players ever.
By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess
players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the
tournaments in which he played. In 1927, he became the fourth World
Chess Champion by defeating Capablanca, widely considered
invincible, in what would stand as the longest chess championship
match held until 1985.
In the early 1930s, Alekhine dominated tournament play and won two
top-class tournaments by large margins. He also played first board
for France in five Chess Olympiads, winning individual prizes in
each (four medals and a brillancy prize). His tournament record
became more erratic from the mid-1930s onwards, and alcoholism is
often blamed for his decline. Alekhine offered Capablanca a rematch
on the same demanding terms that Capablanca had set for him, and
negotiations dragged on for years without making much progress.
Meanwhile, Alekhine defended his title with ease against Bogoljubov
in 1929 and 1934. He was defeated by Euwe in 1935, but regained his
crown in the 1937 rematch. His tournament record, however, remained
uneven, and rising young stars like Keres, Fine, and Botvinnik
threatened his title. Negotiations for a title match with Keres or
Botvinnik were halted by the outbreak of World War II in Europe in
1939.
Alekhine stayed in Nazi-occupied Europe during the war, where he
played in tournaments which were organized by the Nazis. Anti-
Semitic articles appeared under his name, although he later claimed
they were forged by the Nazis. Alekhine had good relationships with
several Jewish chess players, and his fourth wife was Jewish. After
the war, Alekhine was ostracized by players and tournament
organizers because of the anti-Semitic articles. Negotiations with
Mikhail Botvinnik for a world title match were proceeding in 1946
when Alekhine died in Portugal, in unclear circumstances.
Alekhine is known for his fierce and imaginative attacking style,
combined with great positional and endgame skill. He produced
innovations in a wide range of chess openings. Statistical rating
systems differ about his strength relative to other players, giving
him rankings between fourth and eighteenth in their "all-time"
lists. Although Alekhine was declared an "enemy of the Soviet
Union" after making anti-Bolshevik statements in 1927, in the 1950s
he was posthumously rehabilitated and acclaimed as one of the
founders of the "Soviet School of Chess", which dominated the game
after World War II. He is highly regarded as a chess writer and
theoretician, giving his name to Alekhine's Defense and several
other opening variations, and also composed a few endgame studies.
There is strong evidense that Alekhine "improved" the published
scores of some of his games, although in one case he may not have
been responsible for the misrepresentation.
++1.A Biography
++1.A1 Early life
Alekhine was born into a wealthy family in Moscow, Russia on
October 31, 1892. His father Alexander Ivanovich Alekhine was a
landowner and Privy Councilor to the conservative legislative
Fourth Duma. His mother, Anisya Ivanovna Alekhina (born
Prokhorova), was the daughter of a rich industrialist. Alekhine was
first introduced to chess by his mother, an older brother, Alexei,
and an older sister, Varvara
(Barbara).
++1.A2 Early chess career (1902-1914)
The tables at the end of this article give details of Alekhine's
results.
Alekhine in 1909
Alekhine's first known game was from a correspondense chess
tournament that began on December 3, 1902, when he was ten years
old. He participated in several correspondense tournaments,
sponsored by the chess magazine Shakhmatnoe Obozrenie, in
1902-1911. In 1907, Alexander played his first over-the-board
tournament, the Moscow chess club's Spring Tournament. Later that
year, Alexander tied for 11th-13th in the club's Autumn Tournament;
his older brother, Alexei, tied for 4th-6th place. In 1908,
Alexander won the club's Spring Tournament, at the age of fifteen.
In 1909, he won All-Russian Amateur Tournament in Saint Petersburg.
For the next few years, he played in increasingly stronger
tournaments, some of them outside Russia. At first he had mixed
results, but by the age of sixteen he had established himself as
one of Russia's top players. He played first board in two friendly
team matches: St. Petersburg Chess Club vs. Moscow Chess Club in
1911 and Moscow vs. St. Petersburg in 1912 (both drew with Eugene
Znosko-Borovsky). By the end of 1911, Alekhine moved to St.
Petersburg, where he entered the Imperial Law School for Nobles. By
1912, he was the strongest chess player in the St. Petersburg Chess
Society. In March 1912, he won the St. Petersburg Chess Club Winter
Tournament. In April 1912, he won the 1st Category Tournament of
the St. Petersburg Chess Club. In January 1914, Alekhine won his
first major Russian tournament, when he tied for first place with
Aron Nimzowitsch in the All-Russian Masters Tournament at St.
Petersburg. Afterwards, they drew in a mini-match for first prize
(they both won a game). Alekhine also played several matches in
this period, and his results showed the same pattern: mixed at
first but later consistently good.
++1.A3 Top-level grandmaster (1914-1927)
In April-May 1914, another major St. Petersburg 1914 chess
tournament was held in the capital of the Russian Empire, in which
Alekhine took third place behind Emanuel Lasker and Jose Raul
Capablanca. By some accounts, Tsar Nicholas II conferred the title
of "Grandmaster of Chess" on each of the five finalists (Lasker,
Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall). Chess historian
Edward Winter has questioned this, stating that the earliest known
sources that support this story are an article by Robert Lewis
Taylor in the June 15, 1940 issue of The New Yorker and Marshall's
autobiography My 50 Years of Chess
(1942). Alekhine's surprising success made him a serious contender
for the World Chess
Championship. Whether or not the title was formally awarded to him,
"Thanks to this performance, Alekhine became a grandmaster in his
own right and in the eyes of the audiense." In July 1914, Alekhine
tied for first with Marshall in Paris.
++1.A3a World War I and post-revolutionary Russia
In July-August 1914, Alekhine was leading an international Mannheim
tournament, the 19th DSB Congress (German Chess Federation
Congress) in Mannheim, Germany, with nine wins, one draw and one
loss, when World War I broke out. Alekhine's prize was 1,100 marks
(worth about 11,000 euros in terms of purchasing power today).
After the declaration of war against Russia, eleven "Russian"
players (Alekhine, Bogoljubov, Bogatyrchuk, Flamberg, Koppelman,
Maliutin, Rabinovich, Romanovsky, Saburov, Selezniev, Weinstein)
were interned in Rastatt, Germany. In September 14, 17, and 29,
1914, four of them (Alekhine, Bogatyrchuk, Saburov, and Koppelman)
were freed and allowed to return home. Alekhine made his way back
to Russia (via Switzerland, Italy, London, Stockholm, and Finland)
by the end of October 1914. A fifth player, Peter Romanovsky, was
released in 1915, and a sixth, Flamberg, was allowed to return to
Warsaw in 1916.
When Alekhine returned to Russia, he helped raise money to aid the
Russian chess players who remained interned in Germany by giving
simultaneous exhibitions. In December 1915, he won the Moscow Chess
Club Championship. In April 1916 Alekhine won a mini-match against
Alexander Evensohn with two wins and one loss at Kiev, and in
summer he served in the Union of Cities (Red Cross) on the Austrian
front. In September, he played five people in a blindfold display
at a Russian military hospital at Tarnopol. In 1918, Alekhine won
a "Triangular tournament" in Moscow. In June of the following year,
Alekhine was briefly imprisoned in Odessa's death cell by the
Odessa Cheka, suspected of being a spy. He was charged with links
with White counter-intelligense, after the Russians liberated the
Ukraine from German occupation. Rumors appeared in the West that
Alekhine had been killed by the Bolsheviks.
++1.A3b 1920-1927
The table at the foot of this article gives details of Alekhine's
results.
When conditions in Russia became more settled, Alekhine proved he
was among Russia's strongest players. For example, in January 1920,
he swept the Moscow City Chess Championship (11/11), but was not
declared Moscow Champion because he was not a resident of the city.
Also in October 1920, he won the All-Russian Championship in Moscow
(+9 -0 =6); this tournament was retroactively defined as the first
USSR Championship. His brother Alexei took third place in the
tournament for amateurs.
In March 1920, Alekhine married Alexandra Batayeva. They divorced
the next year. For a short time in 1920-1921, he worked as an
interpreter for the Communist International (Comintern) and was
appointed secretary to the Education Department. In this capacity,
he met a Swiss journalist and Comintern delegate, Anneliese Rueegg
(Annalisa Ruegg), who was thirteen years older than him, and they
married on March 15, 1921. Shortly after, Alekhine was given
permission to leave Russia for a visit to the West with his wife,
from which he never returned. In June 1921, Alekhine abandoned his
second wife in Paris and went to Berlin.
In 1921-1923 Alekhine played seven mini-matches. In 1921, he won
against Nikolay Grigoriev (+2 -0 =5) in Moscow, drew with Richard
Teichmann (+2 -2 =2) and won against Friedrich Saemisch (+2 -0 =0),
both in Berlin. In 1922, he won against Ossip Bernstein (+1 -0 =1)
and Arnold Aurbach (+1 -0 =1), both in Paris, and Manuel Golmayo
(+1 -0 =1) in Madrid. In 1923, he won against Andri Muffang (+2 -0
=0) in Paris.
From 1921 to 1927, Alekhine won or shared first prize in about two-
thirds of the many tournaments in which he played. His least
successful efforts were: a tie for third place at Vienna 1922
behind Akiba Rubinstein and Richard Reti; and third place at the
New York 1924 chess tournament behind ex-champion Emanuel Lasker
and world champion Jose Raul Capablanca (but ahead of Frank James
Marshall, Richard Reti, Giza Marsczy, Efim Bogoljubov, Savielly
Tartakower, Frederick Yates, Edward Lasker and Dawid Janowski).
Technically, Alekhine's play was mostly better than his
competitors', even Capablanca's, but he lacked confidense when
playing his major rivals.
Alekhine's major goal throughout this period was to arrange a match
with Capablanca. He thought the greatest obstacle was not
Capablanca's play, but the requirement under the 1922 "London
rules" (at Capablanca's insistense) that the challenger raise a
purse of US $10,000, of which the defending champion would receive
over half even if defeated (US $10,000 in 1927 would be worth about
$391,000 in 2006 Alekhine in November 1921 and Rubinstein and Aaron
Nimzowitsch in 1923 challenged Capablanca, but were unable to raise
the $10,000. Raising the money was Alekhine's preliminary
objective; he even went on tour, playing simultaneous exhibitions
for modest fees day after day. In New York on April 27, 1924,
Alekhine broke the world record for blindfold play when he played
twenty-six opponents (the previous record was twenty-five, set by
Gyula Breyer), winning sixteen games, losing five, and drawing five
after twelve hours of play. He broke his own world record on
February 1, 1925 by playing twenty-eight games blindfold
simultaneously in Paris, winning twenty-two, drawing three, and
losing three.
In 1925, he became a French citizen and entered the Sorbonne
Faculty of law. Although sources differ about whether he completed
his studies there, he was known as "Dr. Alekhine" in the 1930s. His
thesis was on the Chinese prison system. "He received a degree in
law in Saint Petersburg in 1914 but never practiced."
In October 1926, he won in Buenos Aires. From December 1926 to
January 1927, Alekhine beat Max Euwe 5.5-4.5 in a match. In 1927,
he married his third wife, Nadiezda Vasiliev (nee Fabritzky)
(Nadejda Fabritzky, Nadezhda Vasilieff), another older woman, the
widow of the Russian general V. Vasiliev (Vassilieff).
++1.B World Chess Champion, first reign (1927-35)
++1.B1 1927 title match
Capablanca, from whom Alekhine won the World Chess Championship in
1927. Prolonged negotiations for a return match came to nothing.
In 1927, Alekhine's challenge to Capablanca was backed by a group
of Argentinian businessmen and the president of Argentina, who
guaranteed the funds, and organized by the Club Argentino de
Ajedrez (Argentine Chess Club) in Buenos Aires. In the World Chess
Championship match played from September to November 1927 at Buenos
Aires, Alekhine won the title, scoring +6 -3 =25. This was the
longest formal World Championship match until the contest in 1984
between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. Alekhine's victory
surprised almost the entire chess world, since he had never
previously won a single game from Capablanca. After Capablanca's
death Alekhine expressed surprise at his own victory, since in 1927
he did not think he was superior to Capablanca, and he suggested
that Capablanca had been over-confident. Capablanca entered the
match with no technical or physical preparation, while Alekhine got
himself into good physical condition, and had thoroughly studied
Capablanca's play. According to Kasparov, Alekhine's research
uncovered many small inaccuracies, which occurred because
Capablanca was unwilling to concentrate intensely. Vladimir Kramnik
commented that this was the first contest in which Capablanca had
no easy wins.
++1.B2 Rematch offered, never finalized
Immediately after winning the match, Alekhine announced that he was
willing to give Capablanca a return match, on the same terms that
Capablanca had required as champion -- the challenger must provide
a stake of US $10,000, of which more than half would go to the
defending champion even if he was defeated. After Capablanca's
death, Alekhine wrote that Capablanca's demand for a $10,000 stake
was an attempt to avoid challenges. Negotiations dragged on for
several years, often breaking down when agreement seemed in sight.
Their relationship became bitter, and Alekhine demanded much higher
appearance fees for tournaments in which Capablanca also played.
Grandmaster Robert Byrne wrote that Alekhine consciously sought
lesser opponents for his subsequent championship matches, rather
than giving Capablanca another chance.
++1.B3 Defeats Bogolyubov twice in title matches
Although he never agreed terms for a rematch against Capablanca,
Alekhine played two world title matches with Bogoljubow, an
official "Challenger of FIDE", in 1929 and 1934, winning handily
both times. The first was held at Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Berlin,
The Hague, and Amsterdam from September through November 1929.
Alekhine retained his title, scoring +11 -5 =9. From April to June
1934, Alekhine faced Bogoljubow again in a title match held in
twelve German cities, defeating him by five games (+8 -3 =15). In
1929, Bogoljubow was forty years old and perhaps already past his
peak.
++1.B4 Anti-Bolshevik statements, controversy
After the world championship match, Alekhine returned to Paris and
spoke against Bolshevism. Afterwards, Nikolai Krylenko, president
of the Soviet Chess Federation, published an official memorandum
stating that Alekhine should be regarded as an enemy of the
Soviets. The Soviet Chess Federation broke all contact with
Alexander Alekhine until the end of the 1930s. His older brother
Alexei, with whom Alexander Alekhine had had a very close
relationship, publicly repudiated him and his anti-Soviet
utterances shortly after, but Alexei may have had little choice
about this decision. In August 1939, Alexei Alekhine was murdered
in Russia.
++1.B5 Dominates rivals
Alexander Alekhine dominated chess into the mid-1930s. His most
famous tournament victories were at the San Remo 1930 chess
tournament (+13 =2, 3= points ahead of Nimzowitsch) and the Bled
1931 chess tournament (+15 =11, 5= points ahead of Bogoljubov). He
won most of his other tournaments outright, shared first place in
two, and the first tournament in which he placed lower was Hastings
1933-34 (shared second place, .5 point behind Salo Flohr). In 1933,
Alekhine also swept an exhibition match against Rafael Cintron in
San Juan (+4 -0 =0), but only managed to draw another match with
Ossip Bernstein in Paris (+1 -1 =2).
From 1930 to 1935, Alekhine played on board one for France at four
Chess Olympiads, winning: the first brilliancy prize at Hamburg in
1930; gold medals for board one at Prague in 1931 and Folkestone in
1933; and the silver medal for board one at Warsaw in 1935. His
loss to Latvian master Hermanis Matisons at Prague in 1931 was his
first loss in a serious chess event since winning the world
championship.
In the early 1930s, Alekhine travelled the world giving
simultaneous exhibitions, including Hawaii, Tokyo, Manila,
Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the Dutch East Indies. In July
1933, Alekhine played thirty-two people blindfold simultaneously (a
new world record) in Chicago, winning nineteen, drawing nine and
losing four games.
In 1934 Alekhine married his fourth wife, Grace Freeman (nie
Wishard), sixteen years his senior. She was the American-born widow
of a British tea-planter in Ceylon, who retained her British
citizenship to the end of her life and remained Alekhine's wife
until his death.
++1.C Loss of the World title (1935-1937)
Max Euwe took Alekhine's world title in 1935 but lost it in their
1937 return match.
In 1933, Alekhine challenged Max Euwe to a championship match.
Euwe, in the early 1930s, was regarded as one of three credible
challengers (the others were Capablanca and Salo Flohr). On October
3, 1935 the world championship match began in Zandvoort, the
Netherlands. Although Alekhine took an early lead, from game
thirteen onwards Euwe won twice as many games as Alekhine. The
challenger became the new champion on December 15, 1935 with nine
wins, thirteen draws, and eight losses. This was the first world
championship match that officially had seconds: Alekhine had the
services of Salo Landau, and Euwe had Giza Maroczy. Euwe's win was
a major upset and is sometimes attributed to Alekhine's alcoholism.
Flohr, who also assisted Euwe during the match, thought
overconfidense caused more problems than alcohol for Alekhine in
this match, and Alekhine himself had previously said he would win
easily. Later World Champions Vasily Smyslov, Boris Spassky,
Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov analyzed the match for their own
benefit and concluded that Euwe deserved to win and that the
standard of play was worthy of a world championship.
In the eighteen months after losing the title, Alekhine played in
ten tournaments, with uneven results: tied for first with Paul
Keres at Bad Nauheim in May 1936; first place at Dresden in June
1936; second to Flohr at Podebrady in July 1936; sixth, behind
Capablanca, Mikhail Botvinnik, Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky, and
Euwe at Nottingham in August 1936; third, behind Euwe and Fine, at
Amsterdam in October 1936; tied for first with Salo Landau at
Amsterdam (Quadrangular), also in October 1936; in 1936/37 he won
at the Hastings New Year tournament, ahead of Fine and Erich
Eliskases; first place at Nice (Quadrangular) in March 1937; third,
behind Keres and Fine, at Margate in April 1937; tied for fourth
with Keres, behind Flohr, Reshevsky and Vladimir Petrov, at Kemeri
in June-July 1937; tied for second with Bogoljubow, behind Euwe, at
Bad Nauheim (Quadrangular) in July 1937.
++1.D World Chess Champion, second reign (1937-46)
Alekhine around 1945
++1.D1 1937-1939
Max Euwe was quick to arrange a return match with Alekhine,
something Jose Raul Capablanca had been unable to obtain after
Alekhine won the world title in 1927. Alekhine regained the title
from Euwe in December 1937 by a large margin (+10 -4 =11). In this
match, held in the Netherlands, Euwe was seconded by Reuben Fine,
and Alekhine by Erich Eliskases. The match was a real contest
initially, but Euwe collapsed near the end, losing four of the last
five games. Fine attributed the collapse to nervous tension,
possibly aggravated by Euwe's attempts to maintain a calm
appearance. Alekhine played no more title matches, and thus held
the title until his death.
1938 began well for Alekhine, who won the Montevideo 1938 chess
tournament at Carrasco (in March) and at Margate (in April), and
tied for first with Sir George Alan Thomas at Plymouth (in
September). In November, however, he only tied for 4th-6th with
Euwe and Samuel Reshevsky, behind Paul Keres, Reuben Fine, and
Mikhail Botvinnik, ahead of Capablanca and Flohr, at the AVRO
tournament in the Netherlands. This tournament was played in each
of several Dutch cities for a few days at a time; it was therefore
perhaps not surprising that rising stars took the first three
places, as the older players found the travel very tiring.
Immediately after the AVRO tournament, Botvinnik, who had finished
in third place, challenged Alekhine to a match for the world
championship. They agreed on a prize fund of US $10,000 with two-
thirds going to the winner, and that if the match were to take
place in Moscow, Alekhine would be invited at least three months in
advance so that he could play in a tournament to get ready for the
match. Other details had not been agreed when World War II
interrupted negotiations, which the two players resumed after the
war.
Keres, who had won the AVRO tournament on tiebreak over Fine, also
challenged Alekhine to a world championship match. Negotiations
were proceeding in 1939 when they were disrupted by World War II.
During the war Keres' home country, Estonia, was invaded first by
the USSR, then by Germany, then again by the USSR. At the end of
the war, the Soviet government prevented Keres from continuing the
negotiations, on the grounds that he had collaborated with the
Germans during their occupation of Estonia.
Alekhine was representing France at first board in the 8th Chess
Olympiad at Buenos Aires 1939 when World War II broke out in
Europe. The assembly of all team captains, with leading roles
played by Alekhine (France), Savielly Tartakower (Poland), and
Albert Becker (Germany), plus the president of the Argentine Chess
Federation, Augusto de Muro, decided to go on with the Olympiad.
Alekhine won the individual silver medal (nine wins, no losses,
seven draws), behind Capablanca (only results from finals A and B -
separately for both sections - counted for best individual
scores). Shortly after the Olympiad, Alekhine swept tournaments in
Montevideo (7/7) and Caracas (10/10).
At the end of August 1939, both Alekhine and Capablanca wrote to
Augusto de Muro regarding a possible world championship rematch.
Whereas the former spoke of a rematch as a virtual certainty, even
stating that the Cuban was remaining in Buenos Aires until it came
about, the latter referred at length to the financial burden in the
aftermath of the Olympiad. Supported by Latin-American financial
pledges, Jose R. Capablanca challenged Alexander Alekhine to a
world title match in November. Tentative plans not, however,
actually backed by a deposit of the required purse ($10,000 in
gold), led to a virtual agreement to play at Buenos Aires,
Argentina beginning April 14, 1940.
++1.D2 World War II (1939-1945)
Unlike many participants in the 1939 Chess Olympiad, Alekhine
returned to Europe in January 1940. After a short stay in Portugal
, he enlisted in the French army as a sanitation officer.
After the fall of France (June 1940), he fled to Marseille.
Alekhine tried to go to America by traveling to Lisbon and applying
for an American visa. In October 1940, he sought permission to
enter Cuba, promising to play a match with Capablanca. This request
was denied. To protect his wife, Grace Alekhine, an American Jew,
and her French assets (a castle at Saint Aubin-le-Cauf, near
Dieppe, which the Nazis looted), he agreed to cooperate with the
Nazis. Alekhine took part in chess tournaments in Munich, Salzburg,
Krakow/Warsaw, and Prague, organized by Ehrhardt Post, the Chief
Executive of the Nazi-controlled Grossdeutscher Schachbund
("Greater Germany Chess Federation") - Keres, Bogoljubov, Gosta
Stoltz, and several other strong masters in Nazi-occupied Europe
also played in such events. In 1941, he tied for second-third with
Erik Lundin in the Munich 1941 chess tournament (Europaturnier in
September, won by Stoltz), shared first with Paul Felix Schmidt at
Krakow/Warsaw (the 2nd General Government-ch, in
October) and won in Madrid (in December). The following year he won
in the Salzburg 1942 chess tournament (June 1942) and in Munich
(September 1942; the Nazis named this the
Europameisterschaft, which means "European
Championship"). Later in 1942 he won at Warsaw/Lublin/Krakow (the
3rd GG-ch; October 1942) and tied for first with Klaus Junge in
Prague (Duras Jubilei; December 1942). In 1943, he drew a mini-
match (+1 -1) with Bogoljubov in Warsaw (March 1943), he won in
Prague (April 1943) and tied for first with Keres in Salzburg (June
1943).
By late 1943, Alekhine was spending all his time in Spain and
Portugal, as the German representative to chess events. This also
allowed him to get away from the onrushing Soviet invasion into
eastern Europe. In 1944, he narrowly won a match against Ramon Rey
Ardid in Zaragoza (+1 -0 =3; April 1944) and won in Gijon (July
1944). The following year, he won at Madrid (March 1945), tied for
second place with Antonio Medina at Gijon (July 1945; the event was
won by Antonio Rico), won at Sabadell (August 1945), he tied for
first with F. Lspez Nzqez in Almeria (August 1945), won in Melilla
(September 1945) and took second in Caceres, behind Francisco Lupe
(Autumn 1945). Alekhine's last match was with Lupe at Estoril near
Lisbon, Portugal, in January 1946. Alekhine won two games, lost
one, and drew one.
Alekhine took an interest in the development of the chess prodigy
Arturo Pomar and devoted a section of his last book (!Legado! 1946)
to him. They played at Gijon 1944, when Pomar, aged twelve,
achieved a creditable draw with the champion.
++1.D3 His final year
Grave of Alexander Alekhine in Paris, France
After World War II, Alekhine was not invited to chess tournaments
outside the Iberian Peninsula, because of his alleged Nazi
affiliation. His original invitation to the London 1946 tournament
was withdrawn when the other competitors protested. While planning
for a World championship match against Botvinnik, he died in his
hotel room in Estoril, Portugal on March 24, 1946. The
circumstances of his death are still a matter of debate. It is
usually attributed to a heart attack, but a letter in Chess Life
magazine from a witness to the autopsy stated that choking on meat
was the actual cause of death. Some have speculated that he was
murdered by a French "Death Squad". A few years later, Alekhine's
son, Alexander Alekhine Junior, said that "the hand of Moscow
reached his father". Canadian Grandmaster Kevin Spraggett, who has
lived in Portugal since the late 1980s, and who has thoroughly
investigated Alekhine's death, favors this possibility. Spraggett
makes a case for the manipulation of the crime scene and the
autopsy by the Portuguese secret police PIDE. He believes that
Alekhine was murdered outside his hotel room, probably by the
Soviets.
Alekhine's burial was sponsored by FIDE, and the remains were
transferred to the Cimetihre du Montparnasse, Paris, France in
1956.
++1.E Assessment
++1.E1 Playing strength and style
Statistical ranking systems differ sharply in their views of
Alekhine. "Warriors of the Mind" rates him only the 18th strongest
player of all time and comments that victories over players such as
Bogoljubov and Euwe are not a strong basis for an "all time"
ranking. But the website "Chessmetrics" ranks him between the
fourth and eighth best of all time, depending on the lengths of the
peak periods being compared, and concludes that at his absolute
peak he was a little stronger than Emanuel Lasker and Capablanca,
although a little weaker than Botvinnik. Jeff Sonas, the author of
the website "Chessmetrics", rates Alekhine as the sixth best player
of all-time on the basis of comparable ratings. He also assesses
Alekhine's victory at the tournament of San Remo in 1930 as the
sixth best performance ever in tournaments. In his 1978 book The
Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, Arpad Elo gave
retrospective ratings to players based on their performance over
the best five-year span of their career. He concluded that Alekhine
was the joint fifth strongest player of those surveyed (tied with
Paul Morphy and Vasily Smyslov), behind Capablanca, Botvinnik,
Emanuel Lasker and Mikhail Tal.
Alekhine's peak period was in the early 1930s, when he won almost
every tournament he played, sometimes by huge margins. Afterward,
his play declined, and he never won a top-class tournament after
1934. After Alekhine regained his world title in 1937, there were
several new contenders, all of whom would have been serious
challengers.
Diagram #1.E1:
White: King at h2, Rooks at c1 and d2, Bishop at h1, Knights at
b7 and f3, Pawns at f2 and g3.
Black: King at h8, Rooks at a8 and e3, Bishop at g4, Knights at
f6 and e2, Pawns at f7 and g7.
Reti-Alekine, Baden-Baden 1925 is one of Alekhine's most famous and
complicated wins - 31. ... Ne4 forces the win of White's Knight at
b7 in 12 moves.
Alekhine was one of the greatest attacking players and could
apparently produce combinations at will. What set him apart from
most other attacking players was his ability to see the potential
for an attack and prepare for it in positions where others saw
nothing. Rudolf Spielmann, a master tactician who produced many
brilliancies, said, "I can see the combinations as well as
Alekhine, but I cannot get to the same positions." Dr. Max Euwe
said, "Alekhine is a poet who creates a work of art out of
something that would hardly inspire another man to send home a
picture post-card." An explanation offered by Reti was, "he beats
his opponents by analysing simple and apparently harmless sequenses
of moves in order to see whether at some time or another at the end
of it an original possibility, and therefore one difficult to see,
might be hidden." John Nunn commented that "Alekhine had a special
ability to provoke complications without taking excessive risks",
and Edward Winter called him "the supreme genius of the complicated
position." Some of Alekhine's combinations are so complex that even
modern champions and contenders disagree in their analyses of them.
Nevertheless, Garry Kasparov said that Alekhine's attacking play
was based on solid positional foundations, and Harry Golombek went
further, saying that "Alekhine was the most versatile of all chess
geniuses, being equally at home in every style of play and in all
phases of the game." Fine, a serious contender for the world
championship in the late 1930s, wrote in the 1950s that Alekhine's
collection of best games was one of the three most beautiful that
he knew, and Golombek was equally impressed.
Alekhine's games have a higher percentage of wins than those of any
other World Champion, and his drawn games are on average among the
longest of all champions'. His desire to win extended beyond formal
chess competition. When Fine beat him in some casual games in 1933,
Alekhine demanded a match for a small stake. And in table tennis,
which Alekhine played enthusiastically but badly, he would often
crush the ball when he lost.
Bobby Fischer, in a 1964 article, ranked Alekhine as one of the ten
greatest players in history. Fischer, who was famous for the
clarity of his play, wrote of Alekhine, "Alekhine has never been a
hero of mine, and I've never cared for his style of play. There's
nothing light or breezy about it; it worked for him, but it could
scarcely work for anyone else. He played gigantic conceptions, full
of outrageous and unprecedented ideas. ... He had great
imagination; he could see more deeply into a situation than any
other player in chess history. ... It was in the most complicated
positions that Alekhine found his grandest concepts."
Alekhine's style had a profound influence on Kasparov, who said:
"Alexander Alekhine is the first luminary among the others who are
still having the greatest influence on me. I like his universality,
his approach to the game, his chess ideas. I am sure that the
future belongs to Alekhine chess."
++1.E2 Influence on the game
Several openings and opening variations are named after Alekhine.
In addition to the well-known Alekhine's Defense (1.e4 Nf6) and the
Albin-Chatard-Alekhine Attack in the "orthodox" Paulsen variation
of the French Defense, there are Alekhine Variations in: the
Budapest Gambit, the Vienna Game, the Exchange Variation of the Ruy
Lopez, the Winawer Variation of the French Defense; the Dragon
Variation of the Sicilian Defense, the Queen's Gambit Accepted, the
Slav Defense, the Queen's Pawn Game, the Catalan Opening and the
Dutch Defense (where three different lines bear his name). Irving
Chernev commented, "The openings consist of Alekhine's games, with
a few variations."
Composition by Alekhine
Diagram #++1.E2
White: King at d4, Pawns at d6, g4.
Black: King at b7, Pawns at f7, g6, h7.
White to move and win.
1. g5! Kc6
2. Ke5 Kd7
3. Kd5!
(3. Kf6? Kxd6 4. Kxf7 Ke5)
3. ... Kd8
4. Kc6
And White wins.
Alekhine also composed a few endgame studies, one of which is shown
on the right, a miniature (a study with a maximum of seven pieces).
Alekhine wrote over twenty books on chess, mostly annotated
editions of the games in a major match or tournament, plus
collections of his best games between 1908 and 1937. Unlike Wilhelm
Steinitz, Emanuel Lasker, Capablanca and Euwe, he wrote no books
that explained his ideas about the game or showed beginners how to
improve their play. His books appeal to expert players rather than
beginners: they contain many long analyses of variations in
critical positions, and "singularities and exceptions were his
forte, not rules and simplifications".
Although Alekhine was declared an enemy of the Soviet Union after
his anti-Bolshevik statement in 1928, he was gradually
rehabilitated by the Soviet chess elite following his death in
1946. Alexander Kotov's research on Alekhine's games and career,
culminating in a biography, led to a Soviet series of Alekhine
Memorial tournaments. The first of these, at Moscow 1956, was won
jointly by Botvinnik and Vasily Smyslov. In their book The Soviet
School of Chess Kotov and Yudovich devoted a chapter to Alekhine,
called him "Russia's greatest player" and praised his capacity for
seizing the initiative by concrete tactical play in the opening.
Botvinnik wrote that the Soviet School of chess learned from
Alekhine's fighting qualities, capacity for self-criticism and
combinative vision. Alekhine had written that success in chess
required "Firstly, self-knowledge; secondly, a firm comprehension
of my opponent's strength and weakness; thirdly, a higher aim - ...
artistic and scientific accomplishments which accord our chess
equal rank with other arts."
++1.E3 Accusations of "improving" games
Diagram #1.E3
White: King at f3, Queens at e3, f4 and g8, Rook at h1, Bishop
at f1, Knight at g1, Pawn at f2.
Black: King at b6, Queens at b1 and c2, Rook at a8, Bishops at
c5 and c8, Pawns at a7, b7, d5
Famous and much-analyzed position from the "5 Queens" game
Samuel Reshevsky wrote that Alekhine "allegedly made up games
against fictitious opponents in which he came out the victor and
had these games published in various chess magazines." In a recent
book Andy Soltis lists "Alekhine's 15
Improvements". The most famous example is his game with five queens
in Moscow in 1915. In the actual game, Alekhine, playing as Black,
beat Grigoriev in the Moscow 1915 tournament; but in one of his
books he presented the "five Queens" variation (starting with a
move he rejected as Black in the original game) as an actual game
won by the White player in Moscow in 1915 (he did not say in who
was who in this version, nor that it was in the tournament).
In the position of the diagram at right, which never arose in real
play, Alekhine claimed that White wins by 24.Rh6, as after some
complicated play Black is mated or goes into an endgame a Queen
down. Some recent analyses suggest that this is not the case: if
White plays 24.Rh6, black can play 24...Bg4+! and White has no
mating attack. A later computer-assisted analysis concludes that
White can force a win, but only by diverging from Alekhine's move
sequense at move 20, while there are only three Queens.
Chess historian Edward Winter investigated a game Alekhine
allegedly won in fifteen moves via a Queen sacrifice at Sabadell in
1945. Some photos of the game in progress were discovered that
showed the players during the game and their chessboard. Based on
the position that the chess pieces had taken on the chessboard in
this photo, the game could never have taken the course that was
stated in the published version. This raised suspicions that the
published version was made up. Even if the published version is a
fake, however, there is no doubt that Alekhine did defeat his
opponent in the actual game, and there is no evidense that Alekhine
was the source of the spectacular fifteen-move win whose
authenticity is doubted.
++1.E4 Accusations of anti-Semitism
During World War II, Alekhine played in several tournaments held in
Germany or German-occupied territory, as did many strong players in
occupied and neutral countries. In March 1941, a series of articles
appeared under Alekhine's name in the Pariser Zeitung, a German-
language newspaper published in Paris by the occupying German
forces. Among other things, these articles said that Jews had a
great talent for exploiting chess but showed no signs of chess
artistry; described the hypermodern theories of Nimzowitsch and
Reti as "this cheap bluff, this shameless self-publicity", hyped by
"the majority of Anglo-Jewish pseudo-intellectuals"; and described
his 1937 match with Euwe as "a triumph against the Jewish
conspiracy". Alekhine was reported as making further anti-Semitic
statements in interviews for two Spanish newspapers in September
1941; in one of these it was said that "Aryan chess was aggressive
chess ... on the other hand, the Semitic concept admitted the idea
of pure defense."
Almost immediately after the liberation of Paris, Alekhine publicly
stated that "he had to write two chess articles for the Pariser
Zeitung before the Germans granted him his exit visa ... Articles
which Alekhine claims were purely scientific were rewritten by the
Germans, published and made to treat chess from a racial
viewpoint." He wrote at least two further disavowals, in an open
letter to the organizer of the 1946 London tournament (W. Hatton-
Ward) and in his posthumous book !Legado!. These three denials are
phrased differently.
Extensive investigations by Ken Whyld have not yielded conclusive
evidense of the authenticity of the articles. Chess writer Jacques
Le Monnier claimed in a 1986 issue of Europe Ichecs that in 1958 he
saw some of Alekhine's notebooks and found, in Alekhine's own
handwriting, the exact text of the first anti-Semitic article,
which appeared in Pariser Zeitung on March 18, 1941. In his 1973
book 75 parties d'Alekhine ("75 of Alekhine's games"), however, Le
Monnier had written "It will never be known whether Alekhine was
behind these articles or whether they were manipulated by the
editor of the Pariser Zeitung."
British chess historian Edward G. Winter notes that the articles in
the Pariser Zeitung mis-spelled the names of several famous chess
masters, which could be interpreted as evidense of forgery or as
attempts by Alekhine to signal that he was being forced to write
things that he did not believe; but these could simply have been
typesetting errors, as Alekhine's handwriting was not easy to read.
The articles contained (probably) incorrect claims that Lionel
Kieseritzky (Kieseritsky in English, Kizierycki in Polish) was a
Polish Jew, although (probably) Kieseritzky was neither Polish nor
Jewish. Winter concludes: "Although, as things stand, it is
difficult to construct much of a defense for Alekhine, only the
discovery of the articles in his own handwriting will settle the
matter beyond all doubt." Under current French copyright law,
Alekhine's notebooks will not enter the public domain until January
1, 2017.
There is evidense that Alekhine was not anti-Semitic in his
personal or chess relationships with Jews. In June 1919, he was
arrested by the Cheka, imprisoned in Odessa and sentensed to death.
Yakov Vilner, a Jewish master, saved him by sending a telegram to
the chairman of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars, who
knew of Alekhine and ordered his release. Alekhine accepted and
apparently used chess analysis from Charles Jaffe in his World
Championship match against Capablanca. Jaffe was a Jewish master
who lived in New York, where Alekhine often visited, and upon his
return to New York after defeating Capablanca, Alekhine played a
short match as a favor to Jaffe, without financial remuneration.
Alekhine's second for the 1935 match with Max Euwe was the master
Salo Landau, a Dutch Jew. The American Jewish grandmaster Arnold
Denker wrote that he found Alekhine very friendly in chess
settings, taking part in consultation games and productive analysis
sessions. Denker also wrote that Alekhine treated the younger and
(at that time) virtually unproven Denker to dinner on many
occasions in New York during the 1930s, when the economy was very
weak because of the Great Depression. Denker added that Alekhine,
during the early 1930s, opined that the American Jewish grandmaster
Isaac Kashdan might be his next challenger (this did not in fact
occur). He gave chess lessons to 14-year-old prodigy Gerardo
Budowski, a German Jew, in Paris in Spring 1940. Alekhine also
married an American Jew, Grace Wishard, as his fourth wife. Mrs.
Grace Alekhine was the women's champion of Paris in 1944.
++1.F Notable chess games
Diagram #1.F
White: King at f4, Rooks at c7 and f7, Knight at f6, Pawns at
a3, b2, d4, e3, f3, g3, h5
Black: King at h8, Rooks at a8 and f8, Bishop at a6, Pawns at
a4, b3, d5, e6, f5, g7, h6
"Alekhine-Yates
London 1922".
1. Rxg7 Rxf6
2. Ke5
And Yates resigned: if either Black Rook moves to f8, White
checkmates by 3. Rh7+ Kg8 4. Rcg7#
* Alekhine-Yates, London 1922, Queen's Gambit Declined: Orthodox
Defense. Main Line (D64) 1-0 Alekhine conjures up an attack in
the endgame, and his King joins the fray.
* Efim Bogolyubov vs Alexander Alekhine, Hastings 1922, Dutch
Defense, Classical Variation (A91), 0-1 This has been called
one of the greatest games ever played, with some incredibly
deep variations as Black prepares to queen a pawn.
* Ernst Gruenfeld vs Alexander Alekhine, Karlsbad 1923, Queen's
Gambit Declined: Orthodox Defense. Rubinstein Attack (D64),
0-1 Gruenfeld makes no obvious mistakes but his slow build-up
lets Alekhine take the initiative and start squeezing him off
the board. Gruenfeld desperately tries to free his position
and is crushed by a series of sacrifices that forces the win
of a piece or checkmate.
* Richard Reti vs Alexander Alekhine, Baden Baden 1925,
Hungarian Opening: Reversed Alekhine (A00), 0-1 A tactically
complex game in which Alekhine unleashes a 12-move combination
that wins a Knight.
* Jose Raul Capablanca vs Alexander Alekhine, World Championship
match, Buenos Aires 1927, Queen's Gambit Declined (D52), 0-1
The game ends in an interesting position with four queens on
the board.
* Alexander Alekhine vs Aron Nimzowitsch, San Remo 1930, French
Defense, Winawer Variation (C17), 1-0 One of the shortest
games ending in a zugzwang -- by the 26th move, Black is
already strategically lost and has no good moves. This game
also spawned the term 'Alekhine's gun' for the formation where
the queen lines up behind the two rooks.
* Gideon Stahlberg vs Alexander Alekhine, Hamburg 1930, 3rd
Olympiad, Nimzo-Indian Defense, Spielmann Variation (E23), 0-1
1st best game prize.
* Alexander Alekhine vs Emanuel Lasker, Zurich 1934, Queen's
Gambit Declined, Orthodox Defense, Bd3 line (D67), 1-0 A short
game ending with a queen sacrifice. After the tournament
Lasker said: "Alekhine's attacking genius has no equal in the
history of the game".
* Max Euwe vs Alexander Alekhine, World Championship Match, game
4, The Hague 1935, Grunfeld Defense, Russian Variation (D81),
0-1 Alekhine sacrifices two rooks, but traps Euwe's King in
the centre, wins the queen, then finishes elegantly.
++1.G Writings
Alekine wrote over twenty books on chess. Some of the best-known
are:
* Alekhine, Alexander (1985). My Best Games of Chess 1908-1937.
Dover. ISBN 0-486-24941-7. Originally published in two volumes
as My Best Games of Chess 1908-1923 and My Best Games of Chess
1924-1937
* Alekhine, Alexander (1968). The Book of the Hastings
International Masters' Chess Tournament 1922. Dover. ISBN
0-486-21960-7.
* Alekhine, Alexander (1961). The Book of the New York
International Chess Tournament 1924. Dover. ISBN
0-486-20752-8.
* Alekhine, Alexander (1962). The Book of the Nottingham
International Chess Tournament. Dover. ISBN 0-486-20189-9.
* Alekhine, Alexander (1973). The World's Chess Championship,
1937. Dover. ISBN 0-486-20455-3.
Games analysis published after 1938 were edited by Edward Winter
and published in 1980 in the book :
* Alekhine, Alexander & Edward Winter (1992). 107 Great Chess
Battles 1939-1945. Dover. ISBN 0-486-27104-8.
++1.H Summary of results in competitions
++1.H1 Tournament results
Here are Alekhine's placings and scores in tournaments:
1907 Moscow
11-13 5.5/15 +5 =1 -9 his brother Alexei Alekhine tied for
4-6th
1908 Moscow
1st Moscow Chess Club Spring Tournament.
1908 Duesseldorf
3-4 9/13 +8 =2 -3 16th DSB Congress, A Tournament
1908/09 Moscow
1st 6.5/9 +5 =3 -1 Moscow Chess Club Autumn Tournament
1909 Saint Petersburg
1st 13/16 +12 =2 -2 All-Russian Amateur Tournament
1910 Hamburg
7-8 8.5/16 +5 =7 -4 17th DSB Congress, Schlechter won
1911 Cologne
1st 3/3 +3 =0 -0 Quadrangular
1911 Carlsbad
8-9 13.5/25 +11 =5 -9 Teichmann won
1912 Saint Petersburg
1-2 8/9 +8 =0 -1 First Winter Tournament, lost a game to
Vasily Osipovich Smyslov
1912 Saint Petersburg
1st 7/9 +6 =2 -1 Second Winter Tournament, lost a game to
Boris Koyalovich
1912 Stockholm
1st 8.5/10 +8 =1 -1 8th Nordic Championship, ahead of
Spielmann
1912 Vilnius
6-7 8.5/18 +7 =3 -8 7th Russian Championship (All-Russian
Masters' Tournament), Rubinstein won
1913 Saint Petersburg
1-2 2/3 +2 =0 -1 Quadrangular, tied with Levenfish
1913 Scheveningen
1st 11.5/13 +11 =1 -1 ahead of Janowski
1913/14 Saint Petersburg
1-2 13.5/17 +13 =1 -3 8th Russian Championship (All-Russian
Masters' Tournament), tied with Nimzowitsch
1914 Saint Petersburg
3rd 10/18 +6 =8 -4 Lasker 13.5, Capablanca 13, Alekhine 10,
Tarrasch 8.5, Marshall 8
1914 Paris
1-2 2.5/3 +2 =1 -0 Cafe Continental Quadrangular, tied with
Marshall, third Muffang, fourth Hallegua
1914 Mannheim
leading 9.5/11 +9 =1 -1 19th DSB Congress, interrupted by the
start of World War I
1915 Moscow
1st 10.5/11 +10 =1 -0 Moscow Chess Club Championship
1919/20 Moscow
1st 11/11 +11 =0 -0 Moscow City Championship, not declared
Moscow Champion because he was not a resident of Moscow
1920 Moscow
1st 12/15 +9 =6 -0 later recognized as the 1st USSR
Championship
1921 Triberg
1st 7/8 +6 =2 -0 ahead of Bogoljubov
1921 Budapest
1st 8.5/11 +6 =5 -0 ahead of Gruenfeld
1921 The Hague
1st 8/9 +7 =2 -0 ahead of Tartakower
1922 Pistyan
2-3 14.5/18 +12 =5 -1 tied with Spielmann, behind Bogoljubov
1922 London
2nd 11.5/15 +8 =7 -0 Capablanca 13, Alekhine 11.5, Vidmar 11,
Rubinstein 10.5
1922 Hastings
1st 7.5/10 +6 =3 -1 Rubinstein 7, Bogoljubov and Thomas 4.5,
Tarrasch 4, Yates 2.5
1922 Vienna
3-6 9/14 +7 =4 -3 Rubinstein won
1923 Margate
2-5 4.5/7 +3 =3 -1 Gruenfeld won
1923 Carlsbad
1-3 11.5/17 +9 =5 -3 tied with Bogoljubov and Marsczy
1923 Portsmouth
1st 11.5/12 +11 =1 -0 ahead of Vajda
1924 New York
3rd 12/20 +6 =12 -2 Lasker 16, Capablanca 14.5, Alekhine 12,
Marshall 11, Reti 10.5. Marsczy 10, Bogoljubov 9.5
1925 Paris
1st 6.5/8 +5 =3 -0 ahead of Tartakower
1925 Bern
1st 4/6 +3 =2 -1 Quadrangular
1925 Baden-Baden
1st 16/20 +12 =8 -0 ahead of Rubinstein
1925/26 Hastings
1-2 8.5/9 +8 =1 -0 tied with Vidmar
1926 Semmering
2nd 12.5/17 +11 =3 -3 Spielmann won
1926 Dresden
2nd 7/9 +5 =4 -0 Nimzowitsch won
1926 Scarborough
1st 5.5/6 +5 =1 -0 Alekhine won a play-off match against Colle
2-0
1926 Birmingham
1st 5/5 +5 =0 -0 ahead of Znosko-Borovsky
1926 Buenos Aires
1st 10/10 +10 =0 -0 ahead of Villegas and Illa
1927 New York
2nd 11.5/20 +5 =13 -2 Capablanca 14, Alekhine 11.5,
Nimzowitsch 10.5, Vidmar 10, Spielmann 8, Marshall 6
1927 Kecskemit
1st 12/16 +8 =8 -0 ahead of Nimzowitsch and Steiner
1929 Bradley Beach
1st 8.5/9 +8 =1 -0 ahead of Lajos Steiner
1930 San Remo
1st 14/15 +13 =2 -0 Nimzowitsch 10.5; Rubinstein 10;
Bogoljubov 9.5; Yates 9
1931 Nice
1st 6/8 +4 =4 -0 consultation tournament
1931 Bled
1st 20.5/26 +15 =11 -0 Bogoljubov 15; Nimzowitsch 14; Flohr,
Kashdan, Stoltz and Vidmar 13.5
1932 Bern
1-3 2/3 +2 =0 -1 Quadrangular, tied with Voellmy and Naegeli
1932 Bern
1st 12.5/15 +11 =3 -1 Swiss Championship (title awarded to
Hans Johner and Paul Johner)
1932 London
1st 9/11 +7 =4 -0 ahead of Flohr
1932 Pasadena
1st 8.5/11 +7 =3 -1 ahead of Kashdan
1932 Mexico City
1-2 8.5/9 +8 =1 -0 tied with Kashdan
1933 Paris
1st 8/9 +7 =2 -0 ahead of Tartakower
1933/34 Hastings
2nd 6.5/9 +4 =5 -0 Flohr 7, Alekhine and Andor Lilienthal 6.5,
C.H.O'D. Alexander and Eliskases 5
1934 Rotterdam
1st 3/3 +3 =0 -0 Quadrangular
1934 Zurich
1st 13/15 +12 =2 -1 Swiss Championship (title awarded to Hans
Johner)
1935 Vrebro
1st 8.5/9 +8 =1 -0 ahead of Lundin
1936 Bad Nauheim
1-2 6.5/9 +4 =5 -0 tied with Keres
1936 Dresden
1st 6.5/9 +5 =3 -1 ahead of Engels
1936 Podebrady
2nd 12.5/17 +8 =9 -0 Flohr won
1936 Nottingham
6th 9/14 +6 =6 -2 Botvinnik and Capablanca 10; Euwe, Fine and
Reshevsky 9.5
1936 Amsterdam
3rd 4.5/7 +3 =3 -1 Euwe and Fine won
1936 Amsterdam
1-2 2.5/3 +2 =1 -0 Quadrangular, tied with Landau
1936/37 Hastings
1st 8/9 +7 =2 -0 Fine 7.5, Eliskases 5.5, Vidmar and Feigins
4.5
1937 Margate
3rd 6/9 +6 =0 -3 tied for 1-2 were Keres and Fine
1937 Kemeri
4-5 11.5/17 +7 =9 -1 tied for 1-3 were Flohr, Petrov and
Reshevsky
1937 Bad Nauheim
2-3 3.5/6 +3 =1 -2 Quadrangular, Euwe won, the other players
were Bogoljubov and Saemisch
1937 Nice
1st 2.5/3 +2 =1 -0 Quadrangular
1938 Montevideo
1st 13/15 +11 =4 -0 ahead of Guimard
1938 Margate
1st 7/9 +6 =2 -1 ahead of Spielmann
1938 Netherlands (ten cities)
4-6 7/14 +3 =8 -3 AVRO tournament, Keres and Fine 8.5;
Botvinnik 7.5; Alekhine, Euwe and Reshevsky 7; Capablanca 6
1939 Montevideo
1st 7/7 +7 =0 -0 ahead of Golombek
1939 Caracas
1st 10/10 +10 =0 -0
1941 Munich
2-3 10.5/15 +8 =5 -2 tied with Lundin, behind Stoltz
1941 Krakow, Warsaw
1-2 8.5/11 +6 =5 -0 tied with Schmidt
1941 Madrid
1st 5/5 +5 =0 -0
1942 Salzburg
1st 7./10 +7 =1 -2 ahead of Keres
1942 Munich
1st 8.5/11 +7 =3 -1 1st European Championship, ahead of Keres
1942 Warsaw, Lublin, Krakow
1st 7.5/11 +6 =3 -1 ahead of Junge
1942 Prague
1-2 8.5/11 +6 =5 -0 tied with Junge
1943 Prague
1st 17/19 +15 =4 -0 ahead of Keres
1943 Salzburg
1-2 7.5/10 +5 =5 -0 tied with Keres
1944 Gijon
1st 7.5/8 +7 =1 -0
1945 Madrid
1st 8.5/9 +8 =1 -0
1945 Gijon
2-3 6.5/9 +6 =1 -2 tied with Medina, behind Rico
1945 Sabadell
1st 7.5/9 +6 =3 -0
1945 Almeria
1-2 5.5/8 +4 =3 -1 tied with Lopez Nunez
1945 Melilla
1st 6.5/7 +6 =1 -0
1945 Caceres
2nd 3.5/5 +3 =1 -1 Lupe won
++1.H2 Match results
Here are Alekhine's results in matches:
1908 Curt von Bardeleben
Won Duesseldorf 4.5/5 +4 =1 -0
1908 Hans Fahrni
Drew Munich 1.5/3 +1 =1 -1
1908 Benjamin Blumenfeld
Won Moscow 4.5/5 +4 =1 -0
1908 Vladimir Nenarokov
Lost Moscow 0/3 +0 =0 -3
1913 Stepan Levitsky
Won Saint Petersburg 7/10 +7 =0 -3
1913 Edward Lasker
Won Paris, London 3/3 +3 =0 -0
1913 Jose Raul Capablanca
Lost Saint Petersburg 0/2 +0 =0 -2 exhibition match
1914 Aron Nimzowitsch
Drew Saint Petersburg 1/2 +1 =1 -0 play-off match
1916 Alexander Evensohn
Won Kiev 2/3 +2 =0 -1
1918 Abram Rabinovich
Won Moscow 3.5/4 +3 =1 -0
1918 Boris Verlinsky
Won Odessa 6/6 +6 =0 -0
1920 Nikolay Pavlov-Pianov
Drew Moscow 1/2 +1 =0 -1
1921 Nikolay Grigoriev
Won Moscow 4.5/7 +2 =5 -0
1921 Efim Bogoljubow
Drew Triberg 2/4 +1 =2 -1 "secret match"
1921 Richard Teichmann
Drew Berlin 3/6 +2 =2 -2
1921 Friedrich Saemisch
Won Berlin 2/2 +2 =0 -0
1922 Ossip Bernstein
Won Paris 1.5/2 +1 =1 -0
1922 Arnold Aurbach
Won Paris 1.5/2 +1 =1 -0
1922 Manuel Golmayo
Won Madrid 1.5/2 +1 =1 -0
1923 Andri Muffang
Won Paris 2/2 +2 =0 -0
1926 Edgar Colle
Won Scarborough 2/2 +2 =0 -0 play-off match
1926/7 Max Euwe
Won Amsterdam 5.5/10 +3 =5 -2
1927 Jose Raul Capablanca
Won Buenos Aires 18.5/34 +6 =25 -3 Alekhine became world
champion
1927 Charles Jaffe
Won New York 2/2 +2 =0 -0 exhibition match
1929 Efim Bogoljubow
Won Wiesbaden, Berlin, Amsterdam 15.5/25 +11 =9 -5 retained
world championship
1933 Rafael Cintron
Won San Juan 4/4 +4 =0 -0 exhibition match
1933 Ossip Bernstein
Drew Paris 2/4 +1 =2 -1
1934 Efim Bogoljubow
Won Baden-Baden, Villingen, Pforzheim, Bayreuth, Kissingen,
Berlin 15.5/25 +8 =15 -3 retained world championship
1935 Max Euwe
Lost Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht 14.5/30 +8 =13 -9 lost
world championship
1937 Max Euwe
Won Rotterdam, Haarlem, Leiden, Zwolle, Amsterdam, Delft, The
Hague 15.5/25 +10 =11 -4 regained world championship
1937 Max Euwe
Lost The Hague 2/5 +1 =2 -2 exhibition match
1941 Lopez Esnaola
Won Vitoria 2/2 +2 =0 -0
1943 Efim Bogoljubow
Drew Warsaw 1/2 +1 =0 -1
1944 Ramon Rey Ardid
Won Zaragoza 2.5/4 +1 =3 -0
1946 Francisco Lupe
Won Estoril 2.5/4 +2 =1 -1
++1.H3 Chess Olympiad results
Here are Alekhine's results in Chess Olympiads. He played top board
for France in all these events:
1930 Hamburg
3 9/9 +9 =0 -0 Alekhine won the brilliancy prize for his game
against Gideon Stehlberg (Sweden). He did not win a medal
because the medallists played 17 games each.
1931 Prague
4 13.5/18 +10 =7 -1 Alekhine won the gold medal for 1st board.
His loss to Hermanis Matisons (Latvia) was his first loss in
a serious chess event since winning the world championship.
1933 Folkestone
5 9.5/12 +8 =3 -1 Alekhine won the gold medal for 1st board.
His loss to Savielly Tartakower (Poland) was his second and
last loss in chess olympiads.
1935 Warsaw
6 12/17 +7 =10 -0 Alekhine won the silver medal for 1st board
(Salo Flohr of Czechoslovakia took the gold by scoring 13/17).
1939 Buenos Aires
8 7.5/10 (12.5/16) +9 =7 -0 Alekhine won the silver medal for
1st board (Jose Raul Capablanca of Cuba took the gold by
scoring 8.5/11). Only games in the final stage were counted
for awarding the medals. The first score is for the final
stage, the one in parentheses is Alekhine's total score.
++2. Emanuel Lasker
World Champion 1894-1921
Emanuel Lasker (December 24, 1868 - January 11, 1941) was a German
chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess
Champion for 27 years. In his prime Lasker was one of the most
dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of
the strongest players ever.
His contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a "psychological"
approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately
played inferior moves to confuse opponents. Recent analysis,
however, indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more
flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified many of
them. Lasker knew the openings well but disagreed with many
contemporary analyses. He published chess magazines and five chess
books, but later players and commentators found it difficult to
draw lessons from his methods.
He demanded high fees for playing matches and tournaments, which
aroused criticism at the time but contributed to the development of
chess as a professional career. The conditions which Lasker
demanded for World Championship matches in the last ten years of
his reign were controversial, and prompted attempts, particularly
by his successor Jose Raul Capablanca, to define agreed rules for
championship matches.
Lasker made contributions to the development of other games. He was
a first-class contract bridge player and wrote about this and other
games, including Go and his own invention, Lasca. His books about
games presented a problem which is still considered notable in the
mathematical analysis of card games. Besides, Lasker was a research
mathematician who was known for his contributions to commutative
algebra, as he defined the primary decomposition property of the
ideals of some commutative rings when he proved that polynomial
rings have the primary decomposition property. On the other hand,
his philosophical works and a drama that he co-authored received
little attention.
++2.A Life and career
++2.a1 Early years 1868-1894
Emanuel Lasker was born on December 24, 1868 at Berlinchen in
Neumark (now Barlinek in Poland), the son of a Jewish cantor. At
the age of eleven he was sent to Berlin to study mathematics, where
he lived with his brother Berthold, eight years his senior, who
taught him how to play chess. According to the website
Chessmetrics, Berthold was among the world's top ten players in the
early 1890s. To supplement their income Emanuel Lasker played chess
and card games for small stakes, especially at the Cafi Kaiserhof.
Emanuel Lasker shot up through the chess rankings in 1889, when he
won the Cafi Kaiserhof's annual Winter tournament 1888/89 and the
Hauptturnier A ("second division" tournament) at the sixth DSB
Congress (German Chess Federation's congress) held in Breslau. He
also finished second in an international tournament at Amsterdam,
ahead of some well-known masters, including Isidore Gunsberg
(assessed as the second strongest player in the world at that time
by Chessmetrics). In 1890 he finished third in Graz, then shared
first prize with his brother Berthold in a tournament in Berlin. In
spring 1892, he won two tournaments in London, the second and
stronger of these without losing a game. At New York 1893, he won
all thirteen games, one of the few times in chess history that a
player has achieved a perfect score in a significant tournament.
His record in matches was equally impressive: at Berlin in 1890 he
drew a short play-off match against his brother Berthold; and won
all his other matches from 1889 to 1893, mostly against top-class
opponents: Curt von Bardeleben (1889; ranked 9th best player in the
world by Chessmetrics at that time, Jacques Mieses (1889; ranked
11th, Henry Edward Bird (1890; then 60 years old; ranked 29th,
Berthold Englisch (1890; ranked 18th, Joseph Henry Blackburne
(1892, without losing a game; Blackburne was aged 51 then, but
still 9th in the world, Jackson Showalter (1892-1893; 22nd and
Celso Golmayo Zupide (1893; 29th Chessmetrics calculates that
Emanuel Lasker became the world's strongest player in
mid-1890, and that he was in the top ten from the very beginning of
his recorded career in 1889.
The players and tournament officials at the New York 1893
tournament
In 1892 Lasker founded the first of his chess magazines, The London
Chess Fortnightly, which was published from August 15, 1892 to July
30, 1893. In the second quarter of 1893 there was a gap of ten
weeks between issues, allegedly because of problems with the
printer. Shortly after its last issue Lasker traveled to the USA,
where he spent the next two years.
Lasker challenged Siegbert Tarrasch, who had won three consecutive
strong international tournaments (Breslau 1889, Manchester 1890,
and Dresden 1892), to a match. Tarrasch haughtily declined, stating
that Lasker should first prove his mettle by attempting to win one
or two major international events.
++2.A2 Chess competition 1894-1918
++2.A2a Match against Steinitz
Wilhelm Steinitz, whom Lasker beat in World Championship matches in
1894 and 1896
Rebuffed by Tarrasch, Lasker challenged the reigning World Champion
Wilhelm Steinitz to a match for the title. Initially Lasker wanted
to play for US $5,000 a side and a match was agreed at stakes of
$3,000 a side, but Steinitz agreed to a series of reductions when
Lasker found it difficult to raise the money. The final figure was
$2,000, which was less than for some of Steinitz' earlier matches
(the final combined stake of $4,000 would be worth over $495,000 at
2006 values. Although this was publicly praised as an act of
sportsmanship on Steinitz' part, Steinitz may have desperately
needed the money. The match was played in 1894, at venues in New
York, Philadelphia, and Montreal. Steinitz had previously declared
he would win without doubt, so it came as a shock when Lasker won
the first game. Steinitz responded by winning the second, and was
able to maintain the balance through the sixth. However, Lasker won
all the games from the seventh to the eleventh, and Steinitz asked
for a week's rest. When the match resumed, Steinitz looked in
better shape and won the 13th and 14th games. Lasker struck back in
the 15th and 16th, and Steinitz was unable to compensate for his
losses in the middle of the match. Hence Lasker won convincingly
with ten wins, five losses and four
draws. Lasker thus became the second formally-recognized World
Chess Champion, and confirmed his title by beating Steinitz even
more convincingly in their re-match in 1896-1897 (ten wins, five
draws, and two losses).
++2.A2b Successes in tournaments
Sketch of Lasker, ca. 1894
Influential players and journalists belittled the 1894 match both
before and after it took place. Lasker's difficulty in getting
backing may have been caused by hostile pre-match comments from
Gunsberg and Leopold Hoffer, who had long been a bitter enemy of
Steinitz. One of the complaints was that Lasker had never played
the other two members of the top four, Siegbert Tarrasch and
Mikhail Chigorin - although Tarrasch had rejected a challenge from
Lasker in 1892, publicly telling him to go and win an international
tournament first. After the match some commentators, notably
Tarrasch, said Lasker had won mainly because Steinitz was old (58
in 1894).
Emanuel Lasker answered these criticisms by creating an even more
impressive playing record. Before World War I broke out his most
serious "setbacks" were third place at Hastings 1895 (where he may
have been suffering from the after-effects of typhoid), tie for
second at Cambridge Springs 1904, and tie for first at the Chigorin
Memorial in St. Petersburg 1909. He won first prizes at very strong
tournaments in St. Petersburg (1895-1896, Quadrangular), Nuremberg
(1896), London (1899), Paris (1900) and St. Petersburg (1914),
where he overcame a 1= point deficit to finish ahead of the rising
stars, Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, who later became the next
two World Champions. For decades chess writers have reported that
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia conferred the title of "Grandmaster of
Chess" upon each of the five finalists at St. Petersburg 1914
(Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall), but chess
historian Edward Winter has questioned this, stating that the
earliest known sources supporting this story were published in 1940
and
1942.
++2.A2c Matches against Marshall and Tarrasch
Lasker's match record was as impressive between his 1896-1897 re-
match with Steinitz and 1914: he won all but one of his normal
matches, and three of those were convincing defenses of his title.
He first faced Marshall in the World Chess Championship 1907, when
despite his aggressive style, Marshall could not win a single game,
losing eight and drawing seven (final score: 11.5-3.5).
He then played Tarrasch in the World Chess Championship 1908, first
at Duesseldorf then at Munich. Tarrasch firmly believed the game of
chess was governed by a precise set of principles. For him the
strength of a chess move was in its logic, not in its efficiency.
Because of his stubborn principles he considered Lasker as a
coffeehouse player who won his games only thanks to dubious tricks,
while Lasker mocked the arrogance of Tarrasch who, in his opinion,
shone more in salons than at the chessboard. At the opening
ceremony, Tarrasch refused to talk to Lasker, only saying: "Mr.
Lasker, I have only three words to say to you: check and mate!"
Lasker gave a brilliant answer on the chessboard, winning four of
the first five games, and playing a type of chess Tarrasch could
not understand. For example, in the second game after 19 moves
arose a situation (see diagram) in which Lasker was a pawn down,
with a bad bishop and doubled pawns. At this point it appeared
Tarrasch was winning, but 20 moves later he was forced to resign.
Lasker eventually won by 10= -5= (eight wins, five draws, and three
losses). Tarrasch claimed the wet weather was the cause of his
defeat.
Diagram:
White: King at f2, Queen at a7, Rooks at a1 and e1, Knight at f5,
Pawns at a2, b3, c2, e4, g2, h2
Black: King at h8, Queen at d7, Rooks at d8 and e8, Bishop at e7,
Pawns at c6, c7, d6, f6, h7
Tarrasch-Lasker
Position after 19. Qxa7
++2.A2d Matches against Janowski
In 1909 Lasker drew a short match (two wins, two losses) against
Dawid Janowski, an all-out attacking Polish expatriate. Several
months later they played a longer match, and chess historians still
debate whether this was for the World Chess
Championship. Understanding Janowski's style, Lasker chose to
defend solidly so that Janowski unleashed his attacks too soon and
left himself vulnerable. Lasker easily won the match 8-2 (seven
wins, two draws, one loss). This victory was convincing for
everyone but Janowski, who asked for a revenge match. Lasker
accepted and they played World Chess Championship match in Paris in
November-December 1910. Lasker crushed his opponent, winning 9= -1=
(eight wins, three draws, no losses). Janowski was not able to
understand Lasker's moves, and after his first three losses he
declared to Edward Lasker, "Your homonym plays so stupidly that I
cannot even look at the chessboard when he thinks. I am afraid I
will not do anything good in this match."
++2.A2E Match against Schlechter
Between his two matches against Janowski, Lasker arranged another
World Chess Championship in January-February 1910 against Carl
Schlechter. Schlechter was a modest gentleman, who was generally
unlikely to win the major chess tournaments by his peaceful
inclination, his lack of aggressiveness and his willingness to
accept most draw offers from his opponents (about 80% of his games
finished by a draw). The conditions of the match against Lasker are
still debated among chess historians, but it seems Schlechter
accepted to play under very unfavourable conditions, notably that
he would need to finish two points ahead of Lasker to be declared
the winner of the match, and he would need to win a revenge match
to be declared World Champion. The match was originally meant to
consist of 30 games, but when it became obvious that there were
insufficient funds (Lasker demanded a fee of 1,000 marks per game
played), the number of games was reduced to ten, making the margin
of two points all the more difficult.
At the beginning, Lasker tried to attack but Schlechter had no
difficulty defending, so that the first four games finished in
draws. In the fifth game Lasker had a big advantage, but committed
a blunder that cost him the game. Hence at the middle of the match
Schlechter was one point ahead. The next four games were drawn,
despite fierce play from both players. In the sixth Schlechter
managed to draw a game being a pawn down. In the seventh Lasker
nearly lost because of a beautiful exchange sacrifice from
Schlechter. In the ninth only a blunder from Lasker allowed
Schlechter to draw a lost ending. The score before the last game
was thus 5-4 for Schlechter. In the tenth game Schlechter tried to
win tactically and took a big advantage, but he missed a clear win
at the 35th move, continued to take increasing risks and finished
by losing. Hence the match was a draw and Lasker remained World
Champion.
++2.A2f Abortive challenges
Jose Raul Capablanca won the world title from Lasker in 1921.
In 1911 Lasker received a challenge for a world title match against
the rising star Jose Raul Capablanca. Lasker was unwilling to play
the traditional "first to win ten games" type of match in the semi-
tropical conditions of Havana, especially as drawn games were
becoming more frequent and the match might last for over six
months. He therefore made a counter-proposal: if neither player had
a lead of at least two games by the end of the match, it should be
considered a draw; the match should be limited to the best of
thirty games, counting draws; except that if either player won six
games and led by at least two games before thirty games were
completed, he should be declared the winner; the champion should
decide the venue and stakes, and should have the exclusive right to
publish the games; the challenger should deposit a forfeit of US
$2,000 (equivalent to over $194,000 in 2006 values; the time limit
should be twelve moves per hour; play should be limited to two
sessions of 2= hours each per day, five days a week. Capablanca
objected to the time limit, the short playing times, the thirty-
game limit, and especially the requirement that he must win by two
games to claim the title, which he regarded as unfair. Lasker took
offence at the terms in which Capablanca criticized the two-game
lead condition and broke off negotiations, and until 1914 Lasker
and Capablanca were not on speaking terms. However, at the 1914 St.
Petersburg tournament, Capablanca proposed a set of rules for the
conduct of World Championship matches, which were accepted by all
the leading players including Lasker.
Late in 1912 Lasker entered into negotiations for a world title
match with Akiba Rubinstein, whose tournament record for the
previous few years had been on a par with Lasker's and a little
ahead of Capablanca's. The two players agreed to play a match if
Rubinstein could raise the funds, but Rubinstein had few rich
friends to back him and the match was never played. The start of
World War I put an end to hopes that Lasker would play either
Rubinstein or Capablanca for the World Championship in the near
future. Throughout World War I (1914-1918) Lasker played in only
two serious chess events. He convincingly won (5= -=) a non-title
match against Tarrasch in 1916. In
September-October 1918, shortly before the armistice, he won a
quadrangular (four-player) tournament, half a point ahead of
Rubinstein.
++2.A3 Academic activities 1894-1918
David Hilbert encouraged Lasker to obtain a Ph.D in mathematics.
Despite his superb playing results, chess was not Lasker's only
interest. His parents recognized his intellectual talents,
especially for mathematics, and sent the adolescent Emanuel to
study in Berlin (where he found he also had a talent for chess).
Lasker gained his abitur (high school graduation certificate) at
Landsberg an der Warthe, now a Polish town named Gorzsw
Wielkopolski but then part of Prussia. He then studied mathematics
and philosophy at the universities in Berlin, Gottingen and
Heidelberg.
In 1895 Lasker published two mathematical articles in
Nature. On the advice of David Hilbert he registered for doctoral
studies at Erlangen during
1900-1902. In 1901 he presented his doctoral thesis \ber Reihen auf
der Convergenzgrenze ("On Series at Convergence Boundaries") at
Erlangen and in the same year it was published by the Royal
Society. He was awarded a doctorate in mathematics in 1902. His
most significant mathematical article, in 1905, published a theorem
of which Emmy Noether developed a more generalized form, which is
now regarded as of fundamental importance to modern algebra and
algebraic geometry.
Lasker held short-term positions as a mathematics lecturer at
Tulane University in New Orleans (1893) and Victoria University in
Manchester (1901; Victoria University was one of the "parents" of
the current University of Manchester). However he was unable to
secure a longer-term position, and pursued his scholarly interests
independently.
In 1906 Lasker published a booklet titled Kampf (Struggle), in
which he attempted to create a general theory of all competitive
activities, including chess, business and war. He produced two
other books which are generally categorized as philosophy, Das
Begreifen der Welt (Comprehending the World; 1913) and Die
Philosophie des Unvollendbar (The Philosophy of the Unattainable;
1918).
++2.A4 Other activities 1894-1918
In 1896-1897 Lasker published his book Common Sense in Chess, based
on lectures he had given in London in 1895.
Rice Gambit
Position after 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. h4 g4 5. Ne5 Nf6 6.
Bc4 d5 7. exd5 Bd6 8. 0-0 -- White sacrifices the Knight on e5, in
order to get his King to safety and enable a Rook to join the
attack against the under-developed Black position.
In 1903, Lasker played in Ostend against Mikhail Chigorin, a six-
game match that was sponsored by the wealthy lawyer and
industrialist Isaac Rice in order to test the Rice Gambit. Lasker
narrowly lost the match. Three years later Lasker became secretary
of the Rice Gambit Association, founded by Rice in order to promote
the Rice Gambit, and in 1907 Lasker quoted with approval Rice's
views on the convergence of chess and military strategy.
In November 1904, Lasker founded Lasker's Chess Magazine, which ran
until 1909.
For a short time in 1906 Emanuel Lasker was interested in the
strategy game Go, but soon returned to chess. Curiously he was
introduced to the game by his namesake Edward Lasker, who wrote a
successful book Go and Go-Moku in 1934.
At the age of 42, in July 1911, Lasker married Martha Cohn (nie
Bamberger), a rich widow who was a year older than Lasker and
already a grandmother. They lived in Berlin.
Martha Cohn wrote popular stories under the pseudonym "L. Marco".
During World War I, Lasker invested all of his savings in German
war bonds. Since Germany lost the war, Lasker lost all his money.
During the war, he wrote a book which claimed that civilization
would be in danger if Germany lost the war.
++2.A5 Match against Capablanca
In January 1920 Lasker and Jose Raul Capablanca signed an agreement
to play a World Championship match in 1921, noting that Capablanca
was not free to play in 1920. Because of the delay Lasker insisted
on a final clause that: allowed him to play anyone else for the
championship in 1920; nullified the contract with Capablanca if
Lasker lost a title match in 1920; and stipulated that if Lasker
resigned the title Capablanca should become World Champion. Lasker
had previously included in his agreement before World War I to play
Akiba Rubinstein for the title a similar clause that if he resigned
the title, it should become Rubinstein's.
A report in the American Chess Bulletin (July-August 1920 issue)
said that Lasker had resigned the world title in favor of
Capablanca because the conditions of the match were unpopular in
the chess world. The American Chess Bulletin speculated that the
conditions were not sufficiently unpopular to warrant resignation
of the title, and that Lasker's real concern was that there was not
enough financial backing to justify his devoting nine months to the
match. When Lasker resigned the title in favor of Capablanca he was
unaware that enthusiasts in Havana had just raised $20,000 to fund
the match provided it was played there. When Capablanca learned of
Lasker's resignation he went to Holland, where Lasker was living at
the time, to inform him that Havana would finance the match. In
August 1920 Lasker agreed to play in Havana, but insisted that he
was the challenger as Capablanca was now the champion. Capablanca
signed an agreement that accepted this point, and soon afterwards
published a letter confirming this. Lasker also stated that, if he
beat Capablanca, he would resign the title so that younger masters
could compete for it.
The match was played in March-April 1921. After four draws, the
fifth game saw Lasker blunder with Black in an equal ending.
Capablanca's solid style allowed him to easily draw the next four
games, without taking any risks. In the tenth game, Lasker as White
played a position with an isolated queen pawn but failed to create
the necessary activity and Capablanca reached a superior ending,
which he duly won. The eleventh and fourteenth games were also won
by Capablanca, and Lasker resigned the match.
Reuben Fine and Harry Golombek attributed this to Lasker's being in
mysteriously poor form. On the other hand Vladimir Kramnik thought
that Lasker played quite well and the match was an "even and
fascinating fight" until Lasker blundered in the last game, and
explained that Capablanca was twenty years younger, a slightly
stronger player, and had more recent competitive practice.
++2.A6 1921 - end of life
By this time Lasker was nearly 53 years old, and he never played
another serious match; his only other match was a short exhibition
against Frank James Marshall in 1940, which he won. After winning
the New York 1924 chess tournament (1.5 points ahead of Capablanca)
and finishing second at Moscow in 1925 (1.5 points behind Efim
Bogoljubow, .5 point ahead of Capablanca), he effectively retired
from serious chess.
During the Moscow 1925 chess tournament, Emanuel Lasker received a
telegram informing him that the drama written by himself and his
brother Berthold, Vom Menschen die Geschichte ("History of
Mankind"), had been accepted for performance at the Lessing theatre
in Berlin. Emanuel Lasker was so distracted by this news that he
lost badly to Carlos Torre the same day. The play, however, was not
a success.
In 1926 Lasker wrote Lehrbuch des Schachspiels, which he re-wrote
in English in 1927 as Lasker's Manual of Chess. He also wrote books
on other games of mental skill: Encyclopedia of Games (1929) and
Das verstdndige Kartenspiel (means "Sensible Card Play"; 1929;
English translation in the same year), both of which posed a
problem in the mathematical analysis of card games; Brettspiele der
Vvlker ("Board Games of the Nations"; 1931), which includes 30
pages about Go and a section about a game he had invented in 1911,
Lasca; and Das Bridgespiel ("The Game of Bridge"; 1931). Lasker
became an expert bridge player, representing Germany at
international events in the early 1930s, and a registered teacher
of the Culbertson system.
In October 1928 Emanuel Lasker's brother Berthold
died.
In spring 1933 Adolf Hitler started a campaign of
discrimination and intimidation against Jews, depriving them of
their property and citizenship. Lasker and his wife Martha, who
were both Jewish, were forced to leave Germany in the same year.
After a short stay in England, in 1935 they were invited to live in
the USSR by Nikolai Krylenko, the Commissar of Justice who was
responsible for the Moscow show trials and, in his other capacity
as Sports Minister, was an enthusiastic supporter of chess. In the
USSR, Lasker renounced his German citizenship and received Soviet
citizenship. He took permanent residence in Moscow, and was given
a post at Moscow's Institute for Mathematics and a post of trainer
of the USSR national team. Lasker returned to competitive chess to
make some money, finishing fifth in Zurich 1934 and third in Moscow
1935 (undefeated, .5 point behind Mikhail Botvinnik and Salo Flohr;
ahead of Capablanca, Rudolf Spielmann and several Soviet masters),
sixth in Moscow 1936 and seventh equal in Nottingham 1936. His
performance in Moscow 1935 at age 66 was hailed as "a biological
miracle."
Unfortunately Stalin's Great Purge started at about the same time
the Laskers arrived in the USSR. In August 1937, Martha and Emanuel
Lasker decided to leave the Soviet Union, and they moved, via the
Netherlands, to the United States (first Chicago, next New York) in
October 1937. In the following year Emanuel Lasker's patron,
Krylenko, was purged. Lasker tried to support himself by giving
chess and bridge lectures and exhibitions, as he was now too old
for serious competition. In 1940 he published his last book, The
Community of the Future, in which he proposed solutions for serious
political problems, including anti-Semitism and
unemployment. He died of a kidney infection in New York on January
11, 1941, at the age of 72, as a charity patient at the Mount Sinai
Hospital. He was buried in the Beth Olom Cemetery, Queens, New
York. His was survived by his wife Martha and his sister, Mrs.
Lotta Hirschberg.
++2.B Assessment
++2.B1 Chess strength and style
Lasker was considered to have a "psychological" method of play in
which he considered the subjective qualities of his opponent, in
addition to the objective requirements of his position on the
board. Richard Reti published a lengthy analysis of Lasker's play
in which he concluded that Lasker deliberately played inferior
moves that he knew would make his opponent uncomfortable. W. H. K.
Pollock commented, "It is no easy matter to reply correctly to
Lasker's bad moves."
Lasker himself denied the claim that he deliberately played bad
moves, and most modern writers agree. According to Grandmaster
Andrew Soltis and International Master John L. Watson, the features
that made his play mysterious to contemporaries now appear
regularly in modern play: the g2-g4 "Spike" attack against the
Dragon Sicilian; sacrifices to gain positional advantage; playing
the "practical" move rather than trying to find the best move;
counterattacking and complicating the game before a disadvantage
became serious. Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik writes, "He
realized that different types of advantage could be
interchangeable: tactical edge could be converted into strategic
advantage and vice versa", which mystified contemporaries who were
just becoming used to the theories of Steinitz as codified by
Siegbert Tarrasch.
The famous win against Jose Raul Capablanca at St. Petersburg in
1914, which Lasker needed in order to retain any chance of catching
up with Capablanca, is sometimes offered as evidence of his
"psychological" approach. Reuben Fine describes Lasker's choice of
opening, the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez, as "innocuous but
psychologically potent." However, an analysis of Lasker's use of
this variation throughout his career concludes that he had
excellent results with it as White against top-class opponents, and
sometimes used it in "must-win" situations. Ludek Pachman writes
that Lasker's choice presented his opponent with a dilemma: with
only a = point lead, Capablanca would have wanted to play safe; but
the Exchange Variation's pawn structure gives White an endgame
advantage, and Black must use his bishop pair aggressively in the
middle game to nullify this. In Kramnik's opinion, Lasker's play in
this game demonstrated deep positional understanding, rather than
psychology.
Fine reckoned Lasker paid little attention to the openings., but
Capablanca thought Lasker knew the openings very well, but
disagreed with a lot of contemporary opening analysis. In fact
before the 1894 world title match Lasker studied the openings
thoroughly, especially Steinitz' favorite lines. In Capablanca's
opinion, no player surpassed Lasker in the ability to assess a
position quickly and accurately, in terms of who had the better
prospects of winning and what strategy each side should adopt.
Capablanca also wrote that Lasker was so adaptable that he played
in no definite style, and that he was both a tenacious defender and
a very efficient finisher of his own attacks.
In addition to his enormous chess skill Lasker had an excellent
competitive temperament: his bitter rival Siegbert Tarrasch once
said, "Lasker occasionally loses a game, but he never loses his
head." Lasker enjoyed the need to adapt to varying styles and to
the shifting fortunes of tournaments. Although very strong in
matches, he was even stronger in tournaments. For over twenty
years, he always finished ahead of the younger Capablanca: at St.
Petersburg 1914, New York 1924, Moscow 1925, and Moscow 1935. Only
in 1936 (15 years after their match), when Lasker was 67, was
Capablanca able to finish ahead of him.
In 1964, Chessworld magazine published an article in which future
World Champion Bobby Fischer listed the ten greatest players in
history. Fischer did not include Lasker in the list, deriding him
as a "coffee-house player (who) knew nothing about openings and
didn't understand positional chess." In a poll of the world's
leading players taken sometime after Fischer's list appeared, Tal,
Korchnoi, and Robert Byrne all said that Lasker was the greatest
player ever. Both Pal Benko and Byrne said that Fischer later
reconsidered and admitted that Lasker was a great player.
Statistical ranking systems place Lasker high among the greatest
players of all time. The book Warriors of the Mind places him
sixth, behind Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Fischer, Mikhail
Botvinnik and Capablanca. In his 1978 book The Rating of
Chessplayers, Past and Present, Arpad Elo gave retrospective
ratings to players based on their performance over the best five-
year span of their career. He concluded that Lasker was the joint
second strongest player of those surveyed (tied with Botvinnik and
behind Capablanca). The most up-to-date system, Chessmetrics, is
rather sensitive to the length of the periods being compared, and
ranks Lasker between fifth and second strongest of all time for
peak periods ranging in length from one to twenty years. Its
author, the statistician Jeff Sonas, concluded that only Kasparov
and Karpov surpassed Lasker's long-term dominance of the game. By
Chessmetrics' reckoning, Lasker was the number 1 player in 292
different months - a total of over 24 years. His first No. 1 rank
was in June 1890, and his last in December 1926 - a span of 36=
years. Chessmetrics also considers him the strongest 67-year-old in
history: in December 1935, at age 67 years and 0 months, his rating
was 2691 (number 7 in the world), well above second-place Viktor
Korchnoi's rating at that age (2660, number 39 in the world, in
March 1998).
++2.B2 Influence on chess
Lasker at home in Berlin, in 1933
Lasker founded no school of players who played in a similar style.
Max Euwe, World Champion 1935-37 and a prolific writer of chess
manuals, who had a lifetime 0-3 score against Lasker, said, "It is
not possible to learn much from him. One can only stand and
wonder." However Lasker's pragmative, combative approach had a
great influence on Soviet players like Mikhail Tal and Viktor
Korchnoi.
There are several "Lasker Variations" in the chess openings,
including Lasker's Defense to the Queen's Gambit, Lasker's Defense
to the Evans Gambit (which effectively ended the use of this gambit
in tournament play until a revival in the 1990s), and the Lasker
Variation in the McCutcheon Variation of the French Defense.
One of Lasker's most famous games is Lasker - Bauer, Amsterdam
1889, in which he sacrificed both bishops in a maneuver later
repeated in a number of games. Similar sacrifices had already been
played by Cecil Valentine De Vere and John Owen, but these were not
in major events and Lasker probably had not seen them.
Lasker was shocked by the poverty in which Wilhelm Steinitz died
and did not intend to die in similar circumstances. He became
notorious for demanding high fees for playing matches and
tournaments, and he argued that players should own the copyright in
their games rather than let publishers get all the
profits. These demands initially angered editors and other players,
but helped to pave the way for the rise of full-time chess
professionals who earn most of their living from playing, writing
and teaching. Copyright in chess games had been contentious at
least as far back as the mid-1840s, and Steinitz and Lasker
vigorously asserted that players should own the copyright and wrote
copyright clauses into their match contracts. However Lasker's
demands that challengers should raise large purses prevented or
delayed some eagerly-awaited World Championship matches -- for
example Frank James Marshall challenged him in 1904 to a match for
the World Championship but could not raise the stakes demanded by
Lasker until 1907. This problem continued throughout the reign of
his successor Capablanca.
Some of the controversial conditions that Lasker insisted on for
championship matches led Capablanca to attempt twice (1914 and
1922) to publish rules for such matches, to which other top players
readily agreed.
++2.B3 Work in other fields
Lasker was also a mathematician. In his 1905 article on
commutative algebra, Lasker introduced the theory of primary
decomposition of ideals, which has influence in the theory of
Noetherian rings. Rings having the primary decomposition property
are called "Laskerian rings" in his honor.
His attempt to create a general theory of all competitive
activities were followed by more consistent efforts from von
Neumann on game theory, and his later writings about card games
presented a significant issue in the mathematical analysis of card
games.
However, his dramatic and philosophical works have never been
highly regarded.
++2.C Friends and relatives
Lasker was a good friend of Albert Einstein, who wrote the
introduction to the posthumous biography Emanuel Lasker, The Life
of a Chess Master from Dr. Jacques Hannak (1952). In this preface
Einstein express his satisfaction at having met Lasker, writing:
Emanuel Lasker was undoubtedly one of the most interesting people
I came to know in my later years. We must be thankful to those who
have penned the story of his life for this and succeeding
generations. For there are few men who have had a warm interest in
all the great human problems and at the same time kept their
personality so uniquely independent.
Poetess Else Lasker-Schueler was his sister-in-law. Edward Lasker,
born in Kempen (Kepno), Greater Poland (then Prussia), the German-
American chess master, engineer, and author, claimed that he was
distantly related to Emanuel Lasker. They both played in the great
New York 1924 chess tournament.
++2.D Publications
++2.D1 Chess
* The London Chess Fortnightly, 1892-1893
* Common Sense in Chess, 1896 (an abstract of 12 lectures
delivered to a London audience in 1895)
* Lasker's How to Play Chess: An Elementary Text Book for
Beginners, Which Teaches Chess By a New, Easy and
Comprehensive Method, 1900
* Lasker's Chess Magazine, OCLC 5002324, 1904-1907.
* The International Chess Congress, St. Petersburg, 1909,
1910
* Lasker's Manual of Chess, 1925, is as famous in chess
circles for its philosophical tone as for its content.
* Lehrbuch des Schachspiels, 1926 - English version Lasker's
Manual of Chess published in 1927.
* Lasker's Chess Primer, 1934.
++2.D2 Mathematics
* Lasker, Emanuel (August 1895). "Metrical Relations of Plane
Spaces of n Manifoldness". Nature 52 (1345): 340-343.
* Lasker, Emanuel (October 1895). "About a certain Class of
Curved Lines in Space of n Manifoldness". Nature 52 (1355):
596.
++2.F Notable games
* Emanuel Lasker vs Johann Hermann Bauer, Amsterdam 1889.
Although this was not the earliest known game with a
successful two bishops sacrifice, this combination is now
known as a "Lasker-Bauer combination" or "Lasker
sacrifice".
* Harry Nelson Pillsbury vs Emanuel Lasker, St. Petersburg
1895. A brilliant sacrifice in the seventeenth move leads
to a victorious attack.
* Wilhelm Steinitz vs Emanuel Lasker, London 1899. The old
champion and the new one really go for it.
* Frank James Marshall vs Emanuel Lasker, World Championship
Match 1907, game 1. Lasker's attack is insufficient for a
quick win, so he trades it in for an endgame in which he
quickly ties Marshall in knots.
* Emanuel Lasker vs Carl Schlechter, match 1910, game 10. Not
a great game, but the one that saved Emanuel Lasker from
losing his world title in 1910.
* Emanuel Lasker vs Jose Raul Capablanca, St. Petersburg
1914. Lasker, who needed a win here, surprisingly used a
quiet opening, allowing Capablanca to simplify the game
early. There has been much debate about whether Lasker's
approach represented subtle psychology or deep positional
understanding.
* Max Euwe vs Emanuel Lasker, Zurich 1934. 66-year old Lasker
beats a future World Champion, sacrificing his Queen to
turn defense into attack.
++2.G Tournament results
1888/89 Berlin (Cafe Kaiserhof)
1st 20/20 +20 -0 =0
1889 Breslau "B"
Equal 1st 12/15 +11 -2 =2 Tied with von Feyerfeil and won
the playoff. This was Hauptturnier A of the sixth DSB
Congress, i.e. the "second-division" tournament.
1889 Amsterdam "A" tournament
2nd 6/8 +5 -1 =2 Behind Amos Burn; ahead of James Mason,
Isidor Gunsberg and others. This was the stronger of the
two Amsterdam tournaments held at that time.
1890 Berlin
1-2 6.5/8 +6 -1 =1 Tied with his brother Berthold Lasker.
1890 Graz
3rd 4/6 +3 -1 =2 Behind Gyula Makovetz and Johann Hermann
Bauer.
1892 London
1st 9/11 +8 -1 =2 Ahead of Mason and Rudolf Loman.
1892 London
1st 6.5/8 +5 -0 =3 Ahead of Joseph Henry Blackburne, Mason,
Gunsberg and Henry Edward Bird.
1893 New York City
1st 13/13 +13 -0 =0 Ahead of Adolf Albin, Jackson Showalter
and a newcomer called Harry Nelson Pillsbury.
1895 Hastings
3rd 15.5/21 +14 -4 =3 Behind Pillsbury and Mikhail
Chigorin; ahead of Siegbert Tarrasch, Wilhelm Steinitz and
the rest of a strong field.
1895/96 St. Petersburg
1st 11.5/18 +8 -3 =7 A Quadrangular tournament; ahead of
Steinitz (by two points), Pillsbury and Chigorin.
1896 Nuremberg
1st 13.5/18 +12 -3 =3 Ahead of Giza Marsczy, Pillsbury,
Tarrasch, Dawid Janowski, Steinitz and the rest of a strong
field.
1899 London
1st 23=/28 +20 -1 =7 Ahead of Janowski, Pillsbury, Marsczy,
Carl Schlechter, Blackburne, Chigorin and several other
strong players.
1900 Paris
1st 14.5/16 +14 -1 =1 Ahead of Pillsbury (by two points),
Frank James Marshall, Marsczy, Burn, Chigorin and several
others.
1904 Cambridge Springs
2nd = 11/15 +9 -2 =4 Tied with Janowski; two points behind
Marshall; ahead of Georg Marco, Showalter, Schlechter,
Chigorin, Jacques Mieses, Pillsbury and others.
1906 Trenton Falls
1st 5/6 +4 -0 =2 A Quadrangular tournament; ahead of Curt,
Albert Fox and Raubitschek.
1909 St. Petersburg
Equal 1st 14.5/18 +13 -2 =3 Tied with Akiba Rubinstein;
ahead of Oldrich Duras and Rudolf Spielmann (by 3.5
points), Ossip Bernstein, Richard Teichmann and several
other strong players.
1914 St. Petersburg
1st 13.5/18 +10 -1 =7 Ahead of Jose Raul Capablanca,
Alexander Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall. This tournament
had an unusual structure: there was a preliminary
tournament in which eleven players played each other player
once; the top five players then played a separate final
tournament in which each player who made the "cut" played
the other finalists twice; but their scores from the
preliminary tournament were carried forward. Even the
preliminary tournament would now be considered a "super-
tournament". Capablanca "won" the preliminary tournament by
1.5 points without losing a game, but Lasker achieved a
plus score against all his opponents in the final
tournament and finished with a combined score .5 point
ahead of Capablanca's.
1918 Berlin
1st 4.5/6 +3 -0 =3 Quadrangular tournament. Ahead of
Rubinstein, Schlechter and Tarrasch.
1923 Moravska Ostrava
1st 10.5/13 +8 -0 =5 Ahead of Richard Reti, Ernst
Gruenfeld, Alexey Selezniev, Savielly Tartakower, Max Euwe
and other strong players.
1924 New York City
1st 16/20 +13 -1 =6 Ahead of Capablanca (by 1.5 points),
Alekhine, Marshall, and the rest of a very strong field.
1925 Moscow
2nd 14/20 +10 -2 =8 Behind Efim Bogoljubow; ahead of
Capablanca, Marshall, Tartakower, Carlos Torre, other
strong non-Soviet players and the leading Soviet players.
1934 Zurich
5th 10/15 +9 -4 =2 Behind Alekhine, Euwe, Salo Flohr and
Bogoljubow; ahead of Bernstein, Aron Nimzowitsch, Gideon
Stahlberg and various others.
1935 Moscow
3rd 12.5/19 +6 -0 =13 half a point behind Mikhail Botvinnik
and Flohr; ahead of Capablanca, Spielmann, Ilya Kan,
Grigory Levenfish, Andor Lilienthal, Viacheslav Ragozin and
others. Emanuel Lasker was about 67 years old at the time.
1936 Moscow
6th 8/18 +3 -5 =10 Capablanca won.
1936 Nottingham
7-8th 8.5/14 +6 -3 =5 Capablanca and Botvinnik tied for
first place.
++2.H Match results
Here are Lasker's results in matches.
1889 E.R. von Feyerfeil
Won Breslau 1-0 +1 -0 =0 Play-off match
1889/90 Curt von Bardeleben
Won Berlin 2.5-1.5 +2 -1 =1
1889/90 Jacques Mieses
Won Leipzig 6.5-1.5 +5 -0 =3
1890 Berthold Lasker
Drew Berlin .5-.5 +0 -0 =1 Play-off match
1890 Henry Edward Bird
Won Liverpool 8.5-3.5 +7 -2 =3
1890 N.T. Miniati
Won Manchester 4-1 +3 -0 =2
1890 Berthold Englisch
Won Vienna 3.5-1.5 +2 -0 =3
1891 Francis Joseph Lee
Won London 1.5-.5 +1 -0 =1
1892 Joseph Henry Blackburne
Won London 8-2 +6 -0 =4
1892 Bird
Won Newcastle upon Tyne 5 -0 +5 -0 =0
1892/93 Jackson Showalter
Won Logansport and Kokomo, Indiana 7-3 +6 -2 =2
1893 Celso Golmayo Zupide
Won Havana 2.5-.5 +2 -0 =1
1893 Andres Clemente Vazquez
Won Havana 3-0 +3 -0 =0
1893 A. Ponce
Won Havana 2-0 +2 -0 =0
1893 Alfred Ettlinger
Won New York City 5-0 +5 -0 =0
1894 Wilhelm Steinitz
Won New York, Philadelphia, Montreal 12-7 +10 -5 =4 World
Championship match
1896/97 Wilhelm Steinitz
Won Moscow 12.5-4.5 +10 -2 =5 World Championship match
1901 Dawid Janowski
Won Manchester 1.5-.5 +1 -0 =1
1903 Mikhail Chigorin
Lost Brighton 2.5-3.5 +1 -2 =3 Rice Gambit match
1907 Frank James Marshall
Won New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore,
Chicago, Memphis 11.5-3.5 +8 -0 =7 World Championship match
1908 Siegbert Tarrasch
Won Duesseldorf, Munich 10.5-5.5 +8 -3 =5 World
Championship match
1908 Abraham Speijer
Won Amsterdam 2.5-.5 +2 -0 =1
1909 Dawid Janowski
Drew Paris 2-2 +2 -2 =0 Exhibition match
1909 Dawid Janowski
Won Paris 8-2 +7 -1 =2
1910 Carl Schlechter
Drew Vienna-Berlin 5-5 +1 -1 =8 World Championship match
1910 Dawid Janowski
Won Berlin 9.5-1.5 +8 -0 =3 World Championship match
1914 Ossip Bernstein
Drew Moscow 1-1 +1 -1 =0 Exhibition match
1916 Tarrasch
Won Berlin 5.5-.5 +5 -0 =1
1921 Jose Raul Capablanca
Lost Havana 5-9 +0 -4 =10 lost World Championship
1940 Frank James Marshall
Lost New York .5-1.5 +0 -1 =1 exhibition match
++3. Alexander Alekhine - Emanuel Lasker, St. Petersburg 1914
St. Petersburg 1914
White: Alexander Alekhine
Black: Emanuel Lasker
Result: 0-1
ECO: C68 - Ruy Lopez, Morphy Variation, Exchange Variation, Keres Variation
Notes by R.J. Macdonald
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5
(this opening sequence is known as the Ruy Lopez, or the Spanish Opening. It is
one of the oldest and most respected openings. In the more than 400 years of
practice, just about everything has been tried as a defense against white's
third move. Here are the alternatives black has tried over the years:
* 3. ... Bb4 - the Alapin Variation
* 3. ... Qf6 - The Frankfurt Variation
* 3. ... Nge7 - The Cozio Variation
* 3. ... g5 - the Brentano Variation
* 3. ... f6 - The Nuernberg Variation
* 3. ... Be7 - The Spanish: Lucena Variation
* 3. ... Na5 - The Pollock Variation
* 3. ... Qe7 - The Vinogradov Variation
* 3. ... g6 - The Barnes Variation
* 3. ... Nd4 - the Bird
* 3. ... d6 - the Steinitz Variation
* 3. ... f5 - The Schliemann Variation
* 3. ... Bc5 - The Classical Variation
* 3. ... Nf6 - the Berlin Variation
* 3. ... a6 The Morphy Variation
(Listed in no particular order.))
3. ... a6
(The Morphy Variation, probably black's most popular third move. White is now
forced to either exchange the bishop for black's knight (the Exchange
Variation), or else move the bishop for the second time in four moves.)
4. Bxc6
(The Exchange Variation.)
4. ... dxc6
(White has a solid advantage after 4. ... bxc6 5. 0-0 d6 6. d4 exd4 7. Qxd4 Nf6
8. Nc3 Be7 9. e5 dxe5 10. Qxd8+ Bxd8 11. Nxe5 Nd5.)
5. Nc3
(This is the Keres Variation.)
5. ... f6
6. d4
(The Romanovsky Variation continues with 6. d3. After 6. ... c5 7. Be3 Bd6 8.
Nd2 Ne7 9. 0-0 Be6 10. Qh5+ Ng6 11. Nc4 0-0 12. a4 Qd7 13. Qf3 Ne7 both sides
have equal chances.)
6. ... exd4
7. Qxd4 Qxd4
8. Nxd4 Bd6
9. Be3 Ne7
10. 0-0-0
(10. Rd1 Kf7 11. 0-0 Bd7 gives white a slight advantage.)
10. ... 0-0!?
(Black castles and improves king safety. Alternatives include (a) 10. ... Ng6
11. Rhf1 0-0 12. f4 Re8 13. Rde1 Bb4 14. Bd2 c5 15. Nb3 c4 16. Nd4 Bc5 17. Nf3
Bd7 18. h3 Bc6 19. g4 Rad8 20. g5 fxg5 21. Nxg5 Bd7 22. Nd5 c6 23. Nc7 Re7 24.
f5 Nf8 25. Bf4 1-0, as in the game A. Semenova (1892) - M. Mrazova (1805),
Pardubice 2009; (b) 10. ... Bd7 11. Nb3 0-0-0 12. Nc5 Bxc5 13. Bxc5 Ng6 14. f3
Be6 15. Bf2 h5 16. h4 Nf4 17. Rxd8+ Rxd8 18. Rg1 Bf7 19. Be3 Ng6 20. Rh1 b6 21.
b3 c5 22. Ne2 a5 23. Ng3 Ne5 24. Rd1 Rxd1+ 25. Kxd1 1/2-1/2 in 45 moves, as in
the game Z. Stanojoski (2496) - A. Onischuk (2657), Rethymnon 2003; and (c) 10.
... c5 11. Nde2 b6 12. Bf4 Bxf4+ 13. Nxf4 Bd7 14. Ncd5 Nxd5 15. Nxd5 0-0-0 16.
Rd2 Rhe8 17. f3 f5 18. Re1 fxe4 19. Rxe4 Rxe4 20. fxe4 Re8 21. Re2 Bc6 22. Kd2
Kd7 23. c4 Bxd5 24. cxd5 c6 25. dxc6+ 1-0 in 62 moves, as in the game M. Kolago
(2325) - L. Klykow (2193), Wroclaw 2008.)
11. Nb3
(Black has a cramped position. 11. h4 c5 12. Nde2 f5 leads to equality.)
11. ... Ng6
12. Bc5
(White threatens to win material: Bc5xd6. 12. Kb1 Re8 offers equal chances.)
12. ... Bf4+
13. Kb1 Re8
14. Rhe1
(14. f3 f5 offers equal chances.)
14. ... b6
(This move consolidates a5. 14. ... Bxh2 15. g3 Bg4 16. Rc1 leads to equality.)
15. Be3 Be5
16. Bd4 Nh4
(Black threatens to win material: Nh4xg2. 16. ... Be6 17. Bxe5 fxe5 18. Nc1
leads to equality.)
17. Rg1 Be6
(17. ... Bxd4 18. Nxd4 c5 19. Nde2 offers equal chances.)
18. f4 Bd6
19. Bf2
(White threatens to win material: Bf2xh4. 19. Bxb6 Bxf4 20. Bc5 Ng6 offers
equal chances. 20. ... Bxh2? is no good because of 21. Rh1 Bg4 22. Rxh2 Bxd1
23. Rxh4 with a decisive advantage for white. 23. Nxd1?@ Rxe4 24. Bf2 Nf5 would
give equal chances.)
19. ... Ng6
20. f5
(This push gains space for white.)
20. ... Bxb3
(Weaker is 20. ... Bxh2 21. Rh1 (21. fxe6?! Bxg1 22. Bxg1 Rxe6 leads to
equality) 21. ... Be5 22. fxe6 Bxc3 23. bxc3 Rxe6 24. Rd7 gives white a very
strong position.)
21. axb3
(21. cxb3 Nh8 22. Bxb6 Bxh2 offers equal chances.)
21. ... Nf8
(21. ... Nh8 22. Bxb6 Bxh2 23. Rh1 cxb6 24. Rxh2 gives black a slight
advantage.)
22. Bxb6
(22. h3 b5 gives black a slight edge.)
22. ... Bxh2
23. Rh1 cxb6
24. Rxh2 b5
25. Re1
(25. Rh4 Rad8 leads to equality.)
25. ... Nd7
(25. ... a5 26. Rh3 gives black a slight edge.)
26. Nd1
(26. Rh4 Red8 gives black a slight advantage.)
26. ... a5
(26. ... Rad8 27. Nf2 gives black a slight advantage.)
27. Rh3 b4
(Black has a new backward pawn on a5. 27. ... a4 28. Nf2 slightly favors black.)
28. Nf2
(Both sides now have equal chances.)
28. ... Nc5
(Attacking the backward pawn on e4.)
29. Rhe3 a4
30. bxa4 Nxa4
(30. ... Rxa4!? 31. e5 Rea8 leads to equality.)
31. e5
(White now has a slight advantage.)
31. ... fxe5
32. Rxe5 Reb8
33. Ne4
(33. Nd3 Nc3+ 34. Kc1 Nd5 slightly favors white.)
33. ... b3
(33. ... Nc3+ 34. Nxc3 bxc3 35. b3 offers equal chances.)
34. Re2
(34. c3 Nb6 35. Nd2 Nd7 gives white a slight edge.)
34. ... Nb6
(34. ... Nxb2 35. Kxb2 Ra2+ 36. Kc3 leads to equality.)
35. cxb3
(35. Rc5 Rf8 slightly favors white.)
35. ... Nd5
36. g4
(36. Rc2 Ra5 37. Nc5 h5 offers equal chances.)
36. ... h6
(This move covers g5. 36. ... Rxb3 37. Nd6 g6 38. fxg6 hxg6 39. Rc2 offers
equal chances.)
37. g5
(White has a slight advantage.)
37. ... hxg5
(37. ... Nf4 38. Rd2 Re8 39. Rxe8+ Rxe8 40. Rd4 slightly favors white.)
38. Nxg5 Nf6
39. Re7
(39. Ne6 Rxb3 40. Nd4 Rb6 gives white a slight advantage.)
39. ... Rxb3
(Both sides now have equal chances.)
40. Rg2 Nd5
(Black threatens to win material: Nd5xe7.)
Key Move Diagram:
r5k1/
4R1p1/
2p5/
3n1PN1/
8/
1r6/
1P4R1/
1K6
Position after black's 40th move.
41. Rd7??
(This move allows black back into the game. 41. Re1 would be a reprieve.)
41. ... Rd3
(Black now has a very strong position.)
42. Rxd5
(42. Rg1 Nc3+! 43. bxc3 Rxd7 gives black a very strong position.)
42. ... Rxd5
43. Ne6 Kf7
(43. ... Rd7 44. f6 is very strong for black.)
44. Rxg7+ Kf6
45. Rc7 Rd6
46. Nc5
(46. Kc2 Kxf5 47. Nc5 Rg6 is decisive for black.)
46. ... Kxf5
47. Rf7+
(47. Kc2 Rg6 gives black a very strong position.)
47. ... Ke5
48. Kc2 Rh6
(48. ... Rh8 49. Rg7 is very strong for black.)
49. Nd3+
(49. Rd7 Ra5 50. b4 Ra3 51. Nd3+ Ke6 52. Nc5+ Kf5 gives black a very strong
position.)
49. ... Kd6
50. Rf5
(50. Rf4 Rah8 gives black a very strong position.)
50. ... Rb8
(50. ... Rah8 51. Nf2 is still very strong for black.)
51. Kc3 Kc7
52. Rf7+ Kb6
53. Rd7
(53. Ne5 Kb5 is very strong for black.)
53. ... Rh3
54. Rd4 Rbh8
55. Rb4+
(55. b3 R8h5 56. Kd2 Rg3 is very strong for black.)
55. ... Kc7
56. Kc2
(56. Rd4 R8h4 is very strong for black.)
56. ... R8h4
57. Rb3 Rh2+
(57. ... c5 58. Ne5 gives black a very strong position. 58. Nxc5?? Rc4+ 59. Kb1
Rh1+ (59. ... Rxc5?! is a useless try because of 60. Rxh3 Rc4 61. Rc3 Rxc3 62.
bxc3 with equality) 60. Ka2 Rxc5 gives black a very strong position.)
58. Kc3 R4h3
(58. ... Ra4 seems even better: 59. Rb4 Rxb4 60. Nxb4 is decisive for black.)
59. Rb4
(59. Ra3 Rg2 gives black a very strong position.)
59. ... Rh5
(After 59. ... Rg2 Black can relax: 60. Rd4 gives black a decisive advantage.)
60. Rg4
(60. Re4 R2h3 is very strong for black.)
60. ... R2h3
61. Kc2 Rd5
(61. ... Re3 might be the shorter route: 62. Rg7+ Kb6 63. b3 should win for
black.)
62. Nf4
(62. Nf2 Rc5+ 63. Kd2 Rhh5 is very strong for black.)
62. ... Rc5+
63. Kb1 Rh1+
64. Ka2 Ra5+
(64. ... Kb6 keeps an even firmer grip: 65. Rg2 should win easily for black.)
65. Kb3 Rb5+
66. Kc3 Kb6
67. Nd3
(67. b4 Re5 68. Nd3 Rh3 gives black a decisive advantage.)
67. ... Rh3
68. Kc2 Rd5
69. Rb4+ Kc7
70. Rb3
(70. Nf4 Rh2+ 71. Kb3 Rb5 is decisive for black.)
70. ... Rh2+
71. Kc3 Kd6
72. Ra3 Rg2
(After 72. ... Rh3 Black can relax: 73. Kc2 should win easily.)
73. Ra1
(73. Kb4 Rg3 74. Kc4 Rh3 gives black a very strong position.)
73. ... Rg3
74. Rd1 Kc7
75. Rd2 Kb6
76. Rd1 Kb5
77. Kc2 Kc4
78. b3+ Kb5
79. Rd2 Rh3
80. Rd1 Rh2+
81. Kc3 Rd8
(81. ... Rg2!? seems even better: 82. Rd2 Rxd2 83. Kxd2 should win easily for
black.)
82. Rg1 Rh3
83. Rd1 Rdh8
84. Rg1 R8h5
(84. ... Rf8!? makes it even easier for Black: 85. Rg5+ Kb6 86. Rg1 with a
decisive advantage for black.)
85. Kc2 Rd5
86. Rd1 Rg5
87. Rd2 Rhg3
88. Nc1 Rg2
89. Ne2
(89. Nd3 should win for black.)
89. ... Kb6
(White resigned. 89. ... Kb6 90. Kc1 Rc5+ 91. Kd1 Rh2 is decisive for black.)
0-1
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- » [blind-chess] Annotated Game #066: Alexander Alekhine - Emanuel Lasker, St. Petersburg 1914 - Roderick Macdonald
