Lasker Biography
A new ChessBase monograph
Emanuel
Lasker became world champion in 1894 and kept this title until 1921. These nearly
incredible 27 years on the throne are more than enough to yield Lasker a very
special place in the history of chess. However, Lasker's fantastic series of
tournament successes which - as with Kasparov today - didn't come to an end
when he lost the title of the world champion, emphasize his extraordinary position
in the chess world even more.
But apart from playing chess, Lasker also left his mark in other fields. He
wrote chess books, founded a chess magazine, received a doctorate in mathematics,
wrote a drama and even acted as a philosopher. Furthermore, he occupied himself
with other games like go and bridge as well, and he even invented a game which
he called Lasca, not to mention Lasker's phases of life in Germany, England,
the Netherlands, the Soviet Union and the USA. So one could well write a thick
book about him, however, aspects beyond the field of chess are only mentioned
in passing on this ChessBase CD.
This biography deliberately focuses on the pure chess part of Lasker's life,
for particularly as far as his chess is concerned, there are many open questions.
Although the long time of Lasker's regency on the chess throne is generally
accepted and admired, the world champions who acquired an exemplary and legendary
reputation were rather Capablanca and above all Aljechin. Lasker, in contrast,
was rather put into the corner of pychological chess. However, basically this
only means that until this date, nobody has understood the way he played. Maybe
this CD can help to answer questions and do away with prejudices. Many games
have been annotated or revised for the very first time. A couple of tournaments
have been examined particularly with the following question in mind: 'In what
respect was Lasker superior to his opponents?'
Furthermore, the CD contains some features which become visible only at second
sight. For example, the database now includes some games in the hopefully correct
version, and many correct header data have been completed by dates or round
numbers. In addition, Lasker's great tournaments are covered by special tournament
reports with much background information. The Lasker CD features:
-
a main database with five biographical texts with links to further texts.
All of Lasker's important matches and tournaments are covered by a report
describing the event.
-
another database including all Lasker games - games from smaller tournaments
and matches, free games, consultation games (which used to be very popular)
and of course many simultaneous games. The total number of games is 1182.
-
a multimedia database featuring lectures held at the Lasker conference
in Potsdam as well as interviews with players and experts on the subject.
Authors: Albin Poetzsch, Manuel Fruth, Thorsten Heedt, Rainer Knaak, Karsten
Mueller, Hans-Dieter Mueller, Dorian Rogozenko, André Schulz and Igor
Stohl.
All features at a glance:
- extensive curriculum vitae
- complete collection of all 1182 known Lasker games or game fragments
- informative reports of all significant tournaments
- special reports on Lasker's world championship matches
- special analyses to explain Lasker's superiority
- many annotated games
- multimedia database containing interviews (with Averbakh, Baumbach among
others) and video clips from lectures held at the Lasker conference in Potsdam
(by Hübner, Unzicker, Lilienthal and others).
