Home Page

Emanuel  LASKER

 Emanuel Lasker nacque a Berlinchen nella Prussia (oggi Barinek in Polonia) il 24 dicembre del 1868 e morì a New York City l'11 gennaio del 1941, dopo essere stato campione mondiali di scacchi ininterrottamente dal 1894 al 1921 ed uno dei più forti giocatori di ogni tempo.

 Matematico e filosofo, è stato un anticipatore del gioco tanto che i suoi due libri sugli scacchi risultavano quasi intellegibili ai contemporanei fu molto criticato per le sue richieste in danaro alle esibizioni, ma oggi gli si può riconoscere che fu il creatore del giocatore professionista.

 Valente matematico la sua tesi è ancora oggi considerata una pietra miliare dell'algebra, mentre nonostante la loro validità, i suoi scritti filosofici non hanno popolarità.

 Imparò a giocare da suo fratello Bertold di 8 anni più anziano che fu considerato uno dei primi dieci giocatori del suo tempo.

 Come molti altri campioni del suo tempo si mise in mostra come giocatore di scacchi e di carte nelle sale dello storico Café Kaiserhof, poi,  nel 1894 si trasferì si trasferì per qualche tempo negli Stati Uniti.

 Nel 1911 sposò Martha Cohn una ricca vedova che gli era di un anno più anziana e che era già nonna e all'approssimarsi del conflitto mondiale, investì tutti i suoi averi in titoli del tesoro tedesco, perdendo tutto.

 Si interessò di Go e scrisse un libro sull'approccio strategico a tale gioco corredato di una sezione dedicata ad una variante di sua invenzione.

Analizzò molti Giochi di Carte da un punto di vista matematico e pubblicò dei libri che ne esponevano i risultati, in particolare, nel 1931 pubblicò "The Game of Bridge", gioco al quale si appassionò per un certo tempo, rappresentando negli anni '30 la Germania negli incontri internazionali e vincendo nel 1932 il primo campionato a coppie mai organizzato in Germania: la ASS-Wonderkopal.

Nel 1937 si trasferì definitivamente negli Stati Uniti con la moglie che morì quello stesso anno.

Lasker, si spense  nel 1941 a causa di un'infezione renale.

Emanuel Lasker ( 1868 - 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.

It is often said that that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents. However recent analysis indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified them. Although Lasker also published chess magazines and two chess books, later players and commentators found it difficult to draw lessons from his methods. While it is often said that Lasker spent little time studying the openings, he actually knew the openings well but disagreed with many contemporary analyses.

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 that last 10 years of his reign were controversial, and prompted attempts, particularly by his successor José Raúl Capablanca , to define agreed rules for championship matches.

Lasker was also a talented mathematician, and his Ph.D thesis is regarded as one of the foundations of modern algebra . His attempt to produce a general theory of competitive activities had some influence on the early development of game theory , and his books about games in general presented a problem which is still regarded as notable in the mathematical analysis of card games. However his philosophical works and a drama which he co-wrote now receive little attention.

At the age of 42, in 1911, Lasker married Martha Cohn (née 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.

He also wrote books on other games of mental skill: "Encyclopedia of Games" (1929) and "Das verständige 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 Völker" ("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 in 1932 winning the first pairs championship ever organized in Germany: the ASS-Wonderkopal.

In 1937, after a trip to New York to visit relatives, Martha and Emanuel Lasker decided to stay in the USA . In the following year Emanuel Lasker's patron Krylenko was purged.

Martha Lasker died in 1937, soon after the couple took residence in the USA. 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.