Emanuel Lasker

Emanuel Lasker was born in Berlinchen, now Barlinek in Poland, in 1868. His older brother Berthold taught him chess while he was attending school in Berlin. He combined competitive play with studies in mathematics and philosophy. Victories in England and the United States helped him obtain a match with Wilhelm Steinitz, whom he defeated in 1894 to become world champion. He won their return match in 1896-97.

Lasker retained the championship against Frank Marshall in 1907, Siegbert Tarrasch in 1908, and Carl Schlechter and David Janowski in 1910. His reign lasted twenty-seven years, ending with defeat by José Raúl Capablanca in 1921. He nevertheless won the New York tournament in 1924 ahead of Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine. In 1935, aged sixty-six, he finished third without losing a game at the Moscow international tournament. His books include Common Sense in Chess and Lasker’s Manual of Chess.

Lasker earned a doctorate in mathematics at Erlangen in 1902. His 1905 work on primary decomposition of ideals helped lay the foundations for a theorem later generalised by Emmy Noether. He also wrote on philosophy and other games, and represented Germany at bridge. As a Jewish player, he left Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933. After periods in Britain and the Soviet Union, he moved to New York in 1937. He died there in 1941.