Lasker had a strong understanding of piece activity, and was able to use it to compensate for material deficits in a way his contemporaries simply did not understand.
Because he played chess that was ahead of his time. In fact, many of his games remember the best Tal (best, not craziest). So his contemporaries though it was impossible that way of playing was ok so they decided it was all psychology. Later on, as people don't have their own opinion, the myth prevailed.
There various ways to express this; perhaps "call to mind" would work? English can be challenging sometimes, especially if it isn't someone's first language.
I thought it was quite poetic, as if humanising his play by giving it the ability to remember. Might just be me up at 4 am seeing shadows between the lines fhough…
It is and it would be fine to apply it to a chess game if Tal played before Lasker, as is, it's weird because Tal came after Lasker and remembered is pretty strict in chronological terms as you can't remember something that hasn't happened yet, so neither can the personified chess game
Mate, I’m just trying to explain smt in a simple way on f-in reddit, not going to give a full on English class about literary devices and stuff. Cmon dude useless comment.
A person “remembers” something, but in this usage this is that something “causes one to remember” something. There’s no reason in general the same verb would would be used for both meanings. For example some languages have the same word for “lend” and “borrow,” but not English, and there’s no reason it would generally be the same.
Language is very often logical, just not straightforward. Languages go through evolution, so just like you end up with crazy animals that don't make any sense to create, you end up with weird things in language that seem unnecessary.
There isn’t any logical reason why you would expect that the verb for remembering a fact must also be the verb for a fact reminding someone of something (with that someone being unspecified). It’s not surprising it would sometimes happen in some languages. But there is nothing “illogical” about having two different words for two different things.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you why as a native speaker. But I had to re-read to understand the original comment, while “recall”, “evoke”, and “resemble” all seem to fit naturally
Because his moves were actually ahead of his time but his (still somewhat Romantic) contemporaries weren’t able to see it. Steinitz was the father of positional chess, but Lasker was the first to really master it and people of his time couldn’t understand it.
Funny thing is, Steinitz wasn't really the father of positional chess. His 'modern school' did try to formalize some positional rules we still use today, but for the most part he didn't invent them. Besides he had some wacky ideas, like the king is a strong piece that can take care of itself. Steinitz being far ahead of his contemporaries in positional understanding was a narrative pushed by Lasker.
No, I've definitely read some contemporary literature of how Steinitz would (sometimes, certainly not always) play for a win by "picking your pocket for a pawn" and then carrying that through to a winning endgame, which definitely wasn't the fashionable way for elite chess players to win at the time.
He wasn't consistent, he wasn't very accurate (Morphy was much more accurate despite his being a more bloodthirsty opponent), and he did mix it in with a lot of sillier ideas (and he'd also still play romantically from time to time), but I'm pretty sure this wasn't an invention of Lasker.
he wasn't very accurate (Morphy was much more accurate despite his being a more bloodthirsty opponent),
I think accuracy needs to come with a few caveats though. First is where in Steinitz career someone is comparing to Morphy, especially since it took a looong time for Steinitz to organize his ideas and reach his proper peak. And second is that when you compare "mid to late" Steinitz (which is his peak), his opponents were better players than the ones Morphy was facing (since everyone had time to learn from Morphy himself), and playing against better opponents will always lower someones' accuracy. They were also playing with clocks and had to deal with time pressure, which wasn't a case in Morphy's time.
Accuracy is arguably measure of how much better one is than the opponents, and Morphy was definitely very ahead of everyone else when he was active. But I am not convinced (active) Morphy was better than peak Steinitz. Which is not a diss on Morphy, it is just what happens when everyone had decades to study and improve on Morphy.
Morphy was a remarkably fast player. Records say that in his famous game against Paulsen, he took his longest pause before playing the queen sacrifice ...Qxf3!, and so far, nothing surprising. But then you hear how long he thought... 12 minutes. That's the longest Morphy had thought in the entire game.
This is not to say, "oh yeah Steinitz was so bad, Morphy is clearly better," I don't think we can reply to that question conclusively, but for the sake of accuracy, I doubt that the invention of time controls would harm Morphy's play considering what I said above.
This is not to say, "oh yeah Steinitz was so bad, Morphy is clearly better," I don't think we can reply to that question conclusively, but for the sake of accuracy, I doubt that the invention of time controls would harm Morphy's play considering what I said above
Arguably also falls into the same problem as accuracy. He can afford to play fast against the opposition he had then, that's true. But anyone who plays games agains opposition considerably weaker than oneself understands that it is also easier, since the good moves are more obvious. I don't think he would be able to play fast the same way against the chess players from several decades later.
The thing then becomes, how good would be the accuracy when you have a timer and your opposition is much stronger?
Oh, no I am not saying Steinitz didn't have positional ideas or could not play positionally. Just that "the father of positional chess" is way too much credit, and that it was Lasker who pushed this narrative. The full story is a bit too long to cite here, but in The Ink War (page 458 - 459) IM Hendriks writes "What was later described as the Copernican revolution in chess was invented here by Lasker. In his caricature of the chess world prior to Steinitz, one attacked without reason, relying on the inspiration of the moment, and having no idea what the position was about. Steinitz's scientific approach put an end to this romantic approach. [...] However, if you look at the development of chess in this period, you cannot find such a fundamental break at all. You see a gradual increase in the knowledge of chess to which not only Steinitz but also many others contributed."
Positional chess wasn't invented as such, but more of a gradual discovery. A lot of positional ideas, like the advantage of the bishop pair in open positions, were floating around well before Steinitz. So I guess my argument is: positional chess doesn't really have a father, but it gradually developed over time.
There is just no data to support this assertion. A quick eval of his 211 games yields 98.19(+/-1.32) accuracy, vs. Lasker's 98.45(+/-1.41, from 897 games across many decades).
Must be easy going through life dismissing arguments that clash with your personal opinion without providing any counterpoints. I suggest you read 'The Ink War' and 'The Philosopher and the Housewife'. When you're done you may come back and apologise.
“providing any counterpoints”
You didn’t provide any arguments against it.
“Formalize some positional rules but for the most part didn’t invent them”
So-he did formalize “some” and even invented “few”.
He also popularised them.
So who did more than him?
I got 897 of his games evaluated for accuracy (Lichess-type score, calculated with Stockfish): he got a remarkably high 98.45 average, shown in this repo.
Something else to add, besides what others said, is that he also had quite a good understanding of his opponents styles, and he would frequently adapt the game to annoy his opponent. But they were not bad moves (like many in his time thought). Something like "This dude likes unbalanced, active positions, I will go for this line that ends up in a slow, boring, symmetrical middlegame", and then do the opposite for opponents who were into "calmer" games, etc.
Why do you say that his games hold up to modern engine analysis? Was there a comprehensive recent review of his games that found no errors in his play? I'd be surprised.
One of the quotes attributed to him is: "A chess game, after all, is a fight in which all possible factors must be made use of, and in which a knowledge of the opponent's good and bad qualities is of the greatest importance." This suggests that he was a pragmatist that played his opponent as much as the game. He saw Chess as a fight, and in a fight you make use of any possible advantage.
Besides this, it was Reti that commented about Lasker often coming back from behind and winning losing battles. In his Masters of the Chessboard book, he references an earlier article that he published on this topic and quotes from it - the quotes are too extensive to reproduce here, but you can look for a copy of his book.
Another of Lasker's quotes is relevant to winning lost battles: "He who has a slight disadvantage plays more attentively, inventively and more boldly than his antagonist who either takes it easy or aspires after too much. Thus a slight disadvantage is very frequently seen to convert into a good, solid advantage."
So, putting all this together, Lasker's reputation is partly based on his own remarks and on his view of Chess as a a model for struggle (also see Lasker's philosophical book, Struggle), which got further amplified and shaped by Richard Reti's comments.
There have been multiple engine studies over the years and Lasker was certainly a super-GM caliber player by multiple different metrics, which is something most of his contemporaries couldn't match other than a couple of his younger rivals (Alekhine and Capablanca.)
I know there are much more recent studies but a quick Google showed this 2006 study, which shows him having:
a lower average centipawn loss than Alekhine, Smyslov, Tal, Botvinnik, and Fischer.
a lower blunder percentage than Fischer, Tal, and Botvinnik
a best move percentage higher than Spassky, Botvinnik, and Petrosian
It's also worth noting that Lasker was exceptionally strong in his old age, something that very few other super GMs have managed to achieve (other than Korchnoi, I think?)
So yeah, I think there's decent evidence showing that he was a damn good player and random quotes by lesser players of that era (sorry, Reti) aren't enough to support the characterization of him as primarily a psychological player.
Indeed, Korchnoi was still top 100 globally at 75 which is crazy, he won the world senior championship at 75, still I think the oldest player to have done that.
He only died a few years ago, his life was fascinating from a child in WW2 soviet Russia to one of the strongest grandmasters never to be world champion (largely because he wasn't a soviet favourite, so much so he defected) to his championship matches with Karpov to still been a ridiculously strong player in the 80's and up to his retirement (won the Biel Chess Festival at 70).
world senior championship at 75, still I think the oldest player to have done that.
No, with a caveat
Vlastimil Jansa then won the 65+ section at the age of 76 in 2018 (his first gold medal), Gaprindashvili won the same year in the women's group 65+ at the age of 77 [ref wiki]
The caveat is that the senior championships were split in 2014 into 50+ and 65+ age groups , Korchnoi won before the split
Many people also forget, in the discussion of "old but gold" players, World Champion Smyslov. He continued slaying young talents left and right, he has a famous game against Karpov where he won with the IQP, and when, in a dream, God told him he would become World Champion again (at 70 years of age!), he apparently took that to heart and speedran through the Candidates Matches, going into the finals, only to be stopped by Garry Kasparov. It's funny to think that, in another universe, we could've had Karpov-Smyslov.
It's also worth noting that Lasker was exceptionally strong in his old age, something that very few other super GMs have managed to achieve (other than Korchnoi, I think?)
Botvinnik was still a world champion at 50. Vishy currently is still super strong. Vasyl Ivanchuk and Michael Adams have lost rating from not protecting their ratings by playing in a lot of open tournaments, but remain incredibly strong (2600s) in their 50s. There were more people in their 50s playing strong chess in the past.
Korchnoi is the guy who kept in chess shape the longest though.
I think people overshoot when actual decline begins. On this reddit people think it is 35, when it's more likely 45. Just people lose motivation and love of the game faster nowadays. Probably from increased workloads required as top players.
Should we be considering the strength of his opposition in this? It's much easier to avoid blunders and find best moves when your opponent isn't playing as well as an engine.
I find it hard to believe that Lasker could compete with modern super GMs.
Perhaps he's not remembered dearly for his World Championship Matches, but he was the most successful tournament player of pre-WW2 chess. Just to cite one example, he won New York 1924, where both Capablanca and Alekhine were participating. Capablanca was already WC and Alekhine was starting to become quite strong.
In my rather uncultured opinion, I don't believe he could crack 2700 today, but he could very well stand as a 2600. I think that the first to crack 2700 would be either a very lucky Tal, or Petrosian.
If you are simply a very good chess player but know other people think you get in their heads and aren't actually that good it is in your best interest to lean into the myth.
I think there is something to this but more important could be Tarraschs disregard for Laskers play and a lack of understanding and quite a bit of arrogance toward Laskers achievements in later years.
Also, while your quotes are well known the basis of Laskers understanding wasn’t psychological at all. As he laid out in his Lehrbuch he believed firmly that chess was a fight (and fight had a central meaning in his whole thinking) but that calculation and analysis must form any decision. He also believed that an attack could only succeed if an imbalance was created first.
Lasker considered the strength and weaknesses of his opponents and may - for example - have chosen openings accordingly. That is something all the great players have done though.
Because people love to trash on the old masters. They’d rather blindly kiss up to all the players of today instead of looking at the great games from legends of the last. “They’re not new, so they must be bad”
Zurich 1953 book by Bronstein says Lasker understood exactly when to abandon a weak point and switch the location of action on the board, but no one understood the concept until decades later
That's some dumb theory that Reti invented and people believed him for some reason. In reality Lasker was a psychologist in the sense that he understood well what were the strong points and weaknesses of his opponents and adjusted his style accordingly. For example if somebody was a great attacker Lasker would trade queens and play the endgame. He was really good at that stuff. But he never made bad moves on purpose that's just dumb.
He also insisted that in every game he played, both he and his opponent would play black. This often confused his opponents, allowing him to win easily.
I feel like Lasker is kinda known for being way ahead of his time in terms of his defensive ability, so many of his famous games involve swindling his opponent from a worse/losing position lol
idk if there's a collection of his games which shows a different side of his playstyle
Engine analysis has shown that Lasker's play was indeed super-GM level. It's not his fault that no one in his generation was able to consistently compete on his level. Capablanca and Alekhine were the only ones up to the task, but they were 20-30 years his junior.
There are plenty of computer engine studies out there confirming his performance is super-GM strength. I posted one above showing how his lifetime performance was calculated to be better in multiple metrics against many very well-regarded "modern" world champions.
Reddit needs some sort of micropayment system for people who absolutely refuse to learn how to use a search engine.
It was nonsense. He won because he was an incredibly strong player. A lot of strong players in his day didn’t understand his moves.
He also was good at psychology. That part is also true. He knew how to get under his opponent's skin.
How did he demonstrate that knowledge? How did Lasker get under opponents' skin?
By skinning his opponents and wearing it of course!
I can see how that would be a little intimidating.
Damn wokeism took that from us. Game's gone.
He's not a Night Lord!
Finish him!!!
Lasker had a strong understanding of piece activity, and was able to use it to compensate for material deficits in a way his contemporaries simply did not understand.
Yeah but he always moved his knights backwards /s
It's only backwards if you don't flip the board in your mind!
Because he played chess that was ahead of his time. In fact, many of his games remember the best Tal (best, not craziest). So his contemporaries though it was impossible that way of playing was ok so they decided it was all psychology. Later on, as people don't have their own opinion, the myth prevailed.
Well said. Minor note: in this context, 'recall' works but 'remember' doesn't, despite almost identical meanings for the word.
"remind of" sounds natural
Resemble.
This is the clearest choice
I like ‘evoke’
but so unartfully understandable and chronological.
There various ways to express this; perhaps "call to mind" would work? English can be challenging sometimes, especially if it isn't someone's first language.
I like “evoke” here
Recall definitely doesn't work here in that context...
Why is that? Seems like remember would also work
Probably "resemble" fits here
It just doesn’t apply in this usage. I’m a native English speaker, and I couldn’t understand what your sentence meant until I read the reply.
I thought it was quite poetic, as if humanising his play by giving it the ability to remember. Might just be me up at 4 am seeing shadows between the lines fhough…
Tal played like 40+ years after Lasker so remember really doesn't work
It would not work regardless.
Remembering is an "act", chess games do not have agency.
Personification and metaphor are allowed.
If you were being poetic and accurate something like 'his games carry a memory of tal' or something would work (assuming the order was correct).
You are correct that you are hallucinating. It is neither correct nor poetic.
To be fair, Shakespeare was not 'correct' often either
The lady doth correct too much.
But he was poetic
Remembering is something exclusive to a person. In that sentence, the games are the subject, thus they can’t be remembering.
Personification is a thing
It is and it would be fine to apply it to a chess game if Tal played before Lasker, as is, it's weird because Tal came after Lasker and remembered is pretty strict in chronological terms as you can't remember something that hasn't happened yet, so neither can the personified chess game
Mate, I’m just trying to explain smt in a simple way on f-in reddit, not going to give a full on English class about literary devices and stuff. Cmon dude useless comment.
Even then, it's not the games who are remembering. The games are letting us remember. recall for short.
A person “remembers” something, but in this usage this is that something “causes one to remember” something. There’s no reason in general the same verb would would be used for both meanings. For example some languages have the same word for “lend” and “borrow,” but not English, and there’s no reason it would generally be the same.
It is a very old-fashioned usage of remember, see Scarborough Fair. It just sounds really weird in modern English.
Language often isn't logical
Language is very often logical, just not straightforward. Languages go through evolution, so just like you end up with crazy animals that don't make any sense to create, you end up with weird things in language that seem unnecessary.
There isn’t any logical reason why you would expect that the verb for remembering a fact must also be the verb for a fact reminding someone of something (with that someone being unspecified). It’s not surprising it would sometimes happen in some languages. But there is nothing “illogical” about having two different words for two different things.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you why as a native speaker. But I had to re-read to understand the original comment, while “recall”, “evoke”, and “resemble” all seem to fit naturally
Yep. Also likely the main explanation for 80% of everything that doesn't make sense in the world.
well said
this was so hard to read
Because his moves were actually ahead of his time but his (still somewhat Romantic) contemporaries weren’t able to see it. Steinitz was the father of positional chess, but Lasker was the first to really master it and people of his time couldn’t understand it.
Funny thing is, Steinitz wasn't really the father of positional chess. His 'modern school' did try to formalize some positional rules we still use today, but for the most part he didn't invent them. Besides he had some wacky ideas, like the king is a strong piece that can take care of itself. Steinitz being far ahead of his contemporaries in positional understanding was a narrative pushed by Lasker.
No, I've definitely read some contemporary literature of how Steinitz would (sometimes, certainly not always) play for a win by "picking your pocket for a pawn" and then carrying that through to a winning endgame, which definitely wasn't the fashionable way for elite chess players to win at the time.
He wasn't consistent, he wasn't very accurate (Morphy was much more accurate despite his being a more bloodthirsty opponent), and he did mix it in with a lot of sillier ideas (and he'd also still play romantically from time to time), but I'm pretty sure this wasn't an invention of Lasker.
I think accuracy needs to come with a few caveats though. First is where in Steinitz career someone is comparing to Morphy, especially since it took a looong time for Steinitz to organize his ideas and reach his proper peak. And second is that when you compare "mid to late" Steinitz (which is his peak), his opponents were better players than the ones Morphy was facing (since everyone had time to learn from Morphy himself), and playing against better opponents will always lower someones' accuracy. They were also playing with clocks and had to deal with time pressure, which wasn't a case in Morphy's time.
Accuracy is arguably measure of how much better one is than the opponents, and Morphy was definitely very ahead of everyone else when he was active. But I am not convinced (active) Morphy was better than peak Steinitz. Which is not a diss on Morphy, it is just what happens when everyone had decades to study and improve on Morphy.
Morphy was a remarkably fast player. Records say that in his famous game against Paulsen, he took his longest pause before playing the queen sacrifice ...Qxf3!, and so far, nothing surprising. But then you hear how long he thought... 12 minutes. That's the longest Morphy had thought in the entire game.
This is not to say, "oh yeah Steinitz was so bad, Morphy is clearly better," I don't think we can reply to that question conclusively, but for the sake of accuracy, I doubt that the invention of time controls would harm Morphy's play considering what I said above.
Arguably also falls into the same problem as accuracy. He can afford to play fast against the opposition he had then, that's true. But anyone who plays games agains opposition considerably weaker than oneself understands that it is also easier, since the good moves are more obvious. I don't think he would be able to play fast the same way against the chess players from several decades later.
The thing then becomes, how good would be the accuracy when you have a timer and your opposition is much stronger?
Oh, no I am not saying Steinitz didn't have positional ideas or could not play positionally. Just that "the father of positional chess" is way too much credit, and that it was Lasker who pushed this narrative. The full story is a bit too long to cite here, but in The Ink War (page 458 - 459) IM Hendriks writes "What was later described as the Copernican revolution in chess was invented here by Lasker. In his caricature of the chess world prior to Steinitz, one attacked without reason, relying on the inspiration of the moment, and having no idea what the position was about. Steinitz's scientific approach put an end to this romantic approach. [...] However, if you look at the development of chess in this period, you cannot find such a fundamental break at all. You see a gradual increase in the knowledge of chess to which not only Steinitz but also many others contributed."
Positional chess wasn't invented as such, but more of a gradual discovery. A lot of positional ideas, like the advantage of the bishop pair in open positions, were floating around well before Steinitz. So I guess my argument is: positional chess doesn't really have a father, but it gradually developed over time.
There is just no data to support this assertion. A quick eval of his 211 games yields 98.19(+/-1.32) accuracy, vs. Lasker's 98.45(+/-1.41, from 897 games across many decades).
“Steinitz wasn’t really the father of positional chess”… Says nobody but some Reddit troll.
Must be easy going through life dismissing arguments that clash with your personal opinion without providing any counterpoints. I suggest you read 'The Ink War' and 'The Philosopher and the Housewife'. When you're done you may come back and apologise.
“providing any counterpoints” You didn’t provide any arguments against it. “Formalize some positional rules but for the most part didn’t invent them” So-he did formalize “some” and even invented “few”. He also popularised them. So who did more than him?
'Cuz Dr. Tarrasch said so.
Someone is talking Tarrasch.
Ben Finegold ass joke (in a good way)
And fries!
Pretty sure it was Reti, not Tarrasch.
He wasn't reti for Lasker's style
u win chief
Tarrasch said a lot of bad things about Lasker, because he was a sore loser after Lasker beat him.
I got 897 of his games evaluated for accuracy (Lichess-type score, calculated with Stockfish): he got a remarkably high 98.45 average, shown in this repo.
Is that real?
yes
Haters gonna hate
Something else to add, besides what others said, is that he also had quite a good understanding of his opponents styles, and he would frequently adapt the game to annoy his opponent. But they were not bad moves (like many in his time thought). Something like "This dude likes unbalanced, active positions, I will go for this line that ends up in a slow, boring, symmetrical middlegame", and then do the opposite for opponents who were into "calmer" games, etc.
Why do you say that his games hold up to modern engine analysis? Was there a comprehensive recent review of his games that found no errors in his play? I'd be surprised.
One of the quotes attributed to him is: "A chess game, after all, is a fight in which all possible factors must be made use of, and in which a knowledge of the opponent's good and bad qualities is of the greatest importance." This suggests that he was a pragmatist that played his opponent as much as the game. He saw Chess as a fight, and in a fight you make use of any possible advantage.
Besides this, it was Reti that commented about Lasker often coming back from behind and winning losing battles. In his Masters of the Chessboard book, he references an earlier article that he published on this topic and quotes from it - the quotes are too extensive to reproduce here, but you can look for a copy of his book.
Another of Lasker's quotes is relevant to winning lost battles: "He who has a slight disadvantage plays more attentively, inventively and more boldly than his antagonist who either takes it easy or aspires after too much. Thus a slight disadvantage is very frequently seen to convert into a good, solid advantage."
So, putting all this together, Lasker's reputation is partly based on his own remarks and on his view of Chess as a a model for struggle (also see Lasker's philosophical book, Struggle), which got further amplified and shaped by Richard Reti's comments.
There have been multiple engine studies over the years and Lasker was certainly a super-GM caliber player by multiple different metrics, which is something most of his contemporaries couldn't match other than a couple of his younger rivals (Alekhine and Capablanca.)
I know there are much more recent studies but a quick Google showed this 2006 study, which shows him having:
a lower average centipawn loss than Alekhine, Smyslov, Tal, Botvinnik, and Fischer.
a lower blunder percentage than Fischer, Tal, and Botvinnik
a best move percentage higher than Spassky, Botvinnik, and Petrosian
It's also worth noting that Lasker was exceptionally strong in his old age, something that very few other super GMs have managed to achieve (other than Korchnoi, I think?)
So yeah, I think there's decent evidence showing that he was a damn good player and random quotes by lesser players of that era (sorry, Reti) aren't enough to support the characterization of him as primarily a psychological player.
Indeed, Korchnoi was still top 100 globally at 75 which is crazy, he won the world senior championship at 75, still I think the oldest player to have done that.
He only died a few years ago, his life was fascinating from a child in WW2 soviet Russia to one of the strongest grandmasters never to be world champion (largely because he wasn't a soviet favourite, so much so he defected) to his championship matches with Karpov to still been a ridiculously strong player in the 80's and up to his retirement (won the Biel Chess Festival at 70).
No, with a caveat
The caveat is that the senior championships were split in 2014 into 50+ and 65+ age groups , Korchnoi won before the split
Ah interesting, didn’t know they’d split the senior championship further.
Many people also forget, in the discussion of "old but gold" players, World Champion Smyslov. He continued slaying young talents left and right, he has a famous game against Karpov where he won with the IQP, and when, in a dream, God told him he would become World Champion again (at 70 years of age!), he apparently took that to heart and speedran through the Candidates Matches, going into the finals, only to be stopped by Garry Kasparov. It's funny to think that, in another universe, we could've had Karpov-Smyslov.
Botvinnik was still a world champion at 50. Vishy currently is still super strong. Vasyl Ivanchuk and Michael Adams have lost rating from not protecting their ratings by playing in a lot of open tournaments, but remain incredibly strong (2600s) in their 50s. There were more people in their 50s playing strong chess in the past.
Korchnoi is the guy who kept in chess shape the longest though.
I think people overshoot when actual decline begins. On this reddit people think it is 35, when it's more likely 45. Just people lose motivation and love of the game faster nowadays. Probably from increased workloads required as top players.
Should we be considering the strength of his opposition in this? It's much easier to avoid blunders and find best moves when your opponent isn't playing as well as an engine.
I find it hard to believe that Lasker could compete with modern super GMs.
Perhaps he's not remembered dearly for his World Championship Matches, but he was the most successful tournament player of pre-WW2 chess. Just to cite one example, he won New York 1924, where both Capablanca and Alekhine were participating. Capablanca was already WC and Alekhine was starting to become quite strong.
In my rather uncultured opinion, I don't believe he could crack 2700 today, but he could very well stand as a 2600. I think that the first to crack 2700 would be either a very lucky Tal, or Petrosian.
If you are simply a very good chess player but know other people think you get in their heads and aren't actually that good it is in your best interest to lean into the myth.
I think there is something to this but more important could be Tarraschs disregard for Laskers play and a lack of understanding and quite a bit of arrogance toward Laskers achievements in later years.
Also, while your quotes are well known the basis of Laskers understanding wasn’t psychological at all. As he laid out in his Lehrbuch he believed firmly that chess was a fight (and fight had a central meaning in his whole thinking) but that calculation and analysis must form any decision. He also believed that an attack could only succeed if an imbalance was created first.
Lasker considered the strength and weaknesses of his opponents and may - for example - have chosen openings accordingly. That is something all the great players have done though.
Because people love to trash on the old masters. They’d rather blindly kiss up to all the players of today instead of looking at the great games from legends of the last. “They’re not new, so they must be bad”
It’s funny to me that the majority of comments care saying the opposite - that his moves were ahead of their time.
I was not aware of this reputation as a suboptimal move guy.
He was world champion for over 25 years, right?
That's how I remember him.
are you the guy that gave up on chess?
Yes. I only play bullet now.
Fucking impeccable shirt Mr Lasker!
why dont chess players do this instead of jeans?
As clearly visible on the photo, when he played, all the pieces where of black colour, which made it hard for an opponent who played white.
It's not like he constantly played suboptimal moves. He only did when the time was right
What's the right time to play a suboptimal move?
When the position is already bad.
Bro's extremely classy
Zurich 1953 book by Bronstein says Lasker understood exactly when to abandon a weak point and switch the location of action on the board, but no one understood the concept until decades later
That's some dumb theory that Reti invented and people believed him for some reason. In reality Lasker was a psychologist in the sense that he understood well what were the strong points and weaknesses of his opponents and adjusted his style accordingly. For example if somebody was a great attacker Lasker would trade queens and play the endgame. He was really good at that stuff. But he never made bad moves on purpose that's just dumb.
He also insisted that in every game he played, both he and his opponent would play black. This often confused his opponents, allowing him to win easily.
I feel like Lasker is kinda known for being way ahead of his time in terms of his defensive ability, so many of his famous games involve swindling his opponent from a worse/losing position lol
idk if there's a collection of his games which shows a different side of his playstyle
Because that's what he talked about in his books.
Lasker was a great player but his games surely do not hold up.
He won a ton of games that were completely lost.
I mean, so has Carlsen.
Engine analysis has shown that Lasker's play was indeed super-GM level. It's not his fault that no one in his generation was able to consistently compete on his level. Capablanca and Alekhine were the only ones up to the task, but they were 20-30 years his junior.
“His games still holds up to modern engine analysis”… Source: Trust me, bro.
There are plenty of computer engine studies out there confirming his performance is super-GM strength. I posted one above showing how his lifetime performance was calculated to be better in multiple metrics against many very well-regarded "modern" world champions.
Reddit needs some sort of micropayment system for people who absolutely refuse to learn how to use a search engine.