Emanuel Lasker

Please do not confuse Emanuel Lasker with Edward Lasker !

Biography

Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941). A chess world champion (1894-1921) who liked to play Go, too.

In 1908 he married and became husband, father, and grandfather all at once. During World War I he invested his savings in war bonds (and lost them all).

Lasker's 1902 Ph.D. dissertation contained fundamental results in commutative algebra which are still relevant to modern research. The most famous is now referred to as the Lasker Noether Theorem.

He had only distant family relations to Edward Lasker, another German chess master who published an important Go book.

JohnF It is not sufficient to be airily dismissive as hnishy is and to say the Laskers were not cousins. Likewise, the above statement is misleading.

The relationship is discussed at length in Volume 1 of the currently definitive and scrupulously sourced biography "Emanuel Lasker" edited by Richard Forster et al. (Exzelsior Verlag, Berlin 2018), pages 53 onwards. Page 54 of this book states: "Edward referred to his world champion namesake on different occasions as either a close relative or a more distant relative, sometimes also as his cousin."

Someone else has concluded that the precise relationship was "third cousins twice removed." A third cousin is the child of one's parent's second cousin. To many people that's a long way off, but it's still a cousin (which in any case can be used of members of an extended family), but it is almost certainly much more significant to a member of a persecuted and dispersed race where members of the extended family are often the first port of call for support.

tderz In How Go came to America -- by [ Milton N. Bradley | he writes: About 2 years later, Emanuel Lasker (Ed. Note: no relation; tderz's note: to Edward Lasker), ...

Hence, either Milton Bradley has it wrong, and Edward was a cousin then to both Emanuel and Berthold OR Emanuel had no brother Berthold or Edward was not a relative of either. Could someone check this out?

BTW, http://www.logicalchess.com/info/trivia/l.html mentions ''Lasker, Edward (1885-1981) Became an International Master at the age of 75. Edward Lasker won the championship of Paris in 1912, the London championship in 1914, the New York City championship in 1915, and the championship of Chicago in 1916. '', however not a brother Berthold, nor any other Lasker who would have won NY championship in 1902. Did there creep in an error or three? http://www.chess-poster.com/great_players/lasker.htm writes that In 1924, at the great New York International Tournament, of course Dr. Lasker came in first, Capablanca came in second, Dr. Alekhine came in third. (perhaps this tournament, 10 years later was meant? please quote and use sorces in order to avoid mistakes)

tderz I would like to know for once, what Lasker (I always thought it was Emanuel, and that would make it so much more usable for marketing Go, appeal to authority) really has said. I quoted him as well several times, however never directly. Who has the oldest and/or most reliable source?

http://www.gungfu.de/zitate/#Go/Baduk/WeiQi cites: Wenn es im Universum noch irgendwo intelligente Lebewesen gibt, dann kennen sie vielleicht Schach, höchstwahrscheinlich jedoch Go. (...) Emanuel Lasker

http://www.leipzig-go.de/fruehgeschichte.html cites Emanuel Lasker: Ich betrachte das Schach nicht als Allheilmittel auf dem Gebiet des Figurenspiels, z.B. stelle ich dem Go ein günstigeres Prognostikon. The same site cites him with: "Emanuel Lasker publiziert Brettspiele der Völker mit 30 Seiten über Go, darin erkennt er klar: Go hat eine durchgehendere Logik als das Schach, ist ihm an Einfachheit überlegen und steht ihm, glaube ich, an Schwung der Phantasie nicht nach. in dem Buch stellt er auch sein selbst erfundenes Spiel Laska vor In einer anderen Publikation sagt er: Wenn es im Universum noch irgendwo intelligente Lebewesen gibt, dann kennen sie vielleicht Schach, höchstwahrscheinlich jedoch Go.

On that site you'll also find a commented game of Lasker against Felix Dueball.

Lasker played Go in 'Cafe König' in Berlin, Germany.

Links

• http://www.logicalchess.com/info/trivia/l.html
• http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Lasker.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Lasker
• http://starfireproject.com/chess/lasker.html
• http://www.chess-poster.com/great_players/lasker.htm
• http://www.lasker-gesellschaft.de/berichte/michael-dreyer/die-renaissance-eines-schachgenies.html]