Peter Lane, 30 October 1997
Dr. Emanuel Lasker was not only World Champion for 27 years from 1894 to 1921, but was also one of the great thinkers of the game. He introduced and regularly used many strategical concepts decades before Nimzowitsch’s formulations in `My System’ and `Chess Praxis’. He is known as one of the great fighters, and, in his games, we see no attachment to dogma or `correctness’; the point of a game is to win. I imagine Simon Webb of `Chess for Tigers’ learnt a lot from Lasker.
In particular, club players can learn from Lasker’s approach to each individual move. Often Lasker seemed less concerned with the objective evaluation of a move, and more with the competitive edge it would give him. His skill in defense is reflected in the attitude: `a position can never be so bad as not to offer some means of defense’. Further, he stressed the importance of success in the final rounds in a tournament, when the prizes are decided.
How does Lasker win games? If his opponent made bad opening mistakes, he would gain an advantage and move over to the attack. If a weakness was created, he would fix a hold on that weakness, create a second weakness, and then force a breakthrough. Against passive play, he would work out a blockade of his opponent’s aggressive possibilities, and then force his own attack through. With strong players he would create an ever-widening front of conflict, encouraging his opponent to think of winning, but also opening the possibility that the point could go either way. These four `winning strategems’ are demonstrated in the four games below.
The games here are taken from Fred Reinfeld and Reuben Fine `Lasker’s Greatest Chess Games : 1889-1914′. I initially found the games heavy going, intricate in their strategy. Of help is Nimzowitsch’s `Chess Praxis’, which explains in detail many of the strategic themes.
1. Attack from Strength
2. Accumulating Advantages
3. Taking Control
4. When Only a Win Will Do