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Edward Lasker
Edward Lasker (Breslau, December 3, 1885- New York, March 25, 1981) was a leading American chess and go player. He was awarded the title of International Master of chess by FIDE.
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Background
He was born in Breslau, then Germany now Poland. During World War I he moved first to England and then to America, the birthplace of his mother. When America entered the war, he was sent enlistment papers, but with the right of exemption as a German. But he waived his right to exemption, which he said made it much quicker to be granted American citizenship, although the war was over before he was called up.
Science career
Lasker earned a doctoral degree at the University of Berlin in mechanical and electrical engineering. He also invented the breast pump, which saved many premature infants' lives and made Lasker a lot of money, although it caused his friends to refer to him facetiously as "the chest player."
Chess
Edward Lasker published several books on American checkers, chess, and go. His best result was his narrow 8.5–9.5 loss in a match with Frank Marshall for the U.S. Championship in 1923. For that, Lasker was invited to participate in the legendary New York chess tournament in 1924, facing world-class masters like Alekhine, Capablanca, Rubinstein, Lasker, and Réti.
His most famous game is probably the queen sacrifice and king hunt against Sir George Thomas.[1] Thomas said, "That was very nice", and Lasker was touched by his sportsmanship when it was translated into German (he had yet to learn English). But in his account, he gave a position missing the white pawn on d4, so Lasker contrasted Thomas's reaction with a typical reaction that other opponents would have given, "You were lucky ..."
Although Lasker had a negative record against Capablanca, without a win, he had a drawn game against Capablanca with black pieces in New York in 1924.[2] Lasker wasn't usually so fortunate, e.g. Capablanca once arrived with only one minute to spare, and Lasker played the Riga variation with which he had some experience, but Capablanca found an advantageous continuation over the board.[3]
He lived on the Upper West Side of New York City at the time of his death.
He was friends with former World chess champion Emanuel Lasker. Some controversy exists as to whether they were related. Edward Lasker wrote in his memoirs of the New York 1924 tournament as published in the March 1974 edition of Chess Life magazine: "I did not discover that we were actually related until he (Emanuel Lasker) told me shortly before his death that someone had shown him a Lasker family tree on one of whose branches I was dangling."
Books
- Chess Strategy, 1915 (second edition)
- Chess and Checkers: the Way to Mastership, 1918
- Go and Go-Moku, 1934 (2nd ed. 1960)
- The Adventure of Chess, 1949 (2nd ed. 1959), ISBN 048620510.
- Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters (semi-autobiographical and instructional) (1951, 1969) ISBN 0486222667.
- Chess for Fun and Chess for Blood, 1942 (2nd ed.), ISBN 0486201465.
Quotes
- "It has been said that man is distinguished from animal in that he buys more books than he can read. I should like to suggest that the inclusion of a few chess books would help to make the distinction unmistakable." — The Adventure of Chess