Emanuel Lasker and Russian draughts

[DrCaesar]

Here is a fascinating excerpt from the autobiography of Lev Glezer, who was a book dealer in the Soviet Union from the 1920s until he retired in 1986. He was also a journalist, and went from a chess enthusiast to a checkers fanatic, learning from and playing with some of the great shashki players of the Twenties. He wrote a draughts column for many years.

He won many tournaments and earned the title of Master of Sport in 1930. He talks here about meeting and playing Dr. Lasker in 1936, at the height of the Terror. Lasker wasn't as good a shashki player as he had been in 1890s, when he had defeated some of the best players in Russia, but he performed respectably even though he lost.

Lasker left Russia for England before the end of '36, finding the political situation precarious.

I have read that Lasker was interested in English draughts enough that he almost entered the British Open in 1912.

https://books.google.com/books?id=LyECz ... rs&f=false

[Alex_Moiseyev]

earned the title of Master of Sport in 1930.

This title was officially established in Soviet Union in 1935. On January 1975 there were approximately 110,000 people who earned this honorable title, in 1988 - around 250,000.

I've got title "USSR Master of Sport" at the end of 1975 and my registration number was 111,950.



Alex Moiseyev

[DrCaesar]

What a great momento, Alex. If you ever write a memoir of your days as a Soviet draughts player, I will certainly read it!

[tgf]

Here is a fascinating excerpt from the autobiography of Lev Glezer, who was a book dealer in the Soviet Union from the 1920s until he retired in 1986. He was also a journalist, and went from a chess enthusiast to a checkers fanatic, learning from and playing with some of the great shashki players of the Twenties. He wrote a draughts column for many years.

He won many tournaments and earned the title of Master of Sport in 1930. He talks here about meeting and playing Dr. Lasker in 1936, at the height of the Terror. Lasker wasn't as good a shashki player as he had been in 1890s, when he had defeated some of the best players in Russia, but he performed respectably even though he lost.

Lasker left Russia for England before the end of '36, finding the political situation precarious.

I have read that Lasker was interested in English draughts enough that he almost entered the British Open in 1912.

https://books.google.com/books?id=LyECz ... rs&f=false

The same pages in Russian

[tgf]

.

[Bill Salot]

Speaking of Lasker, checker stories never die. Here is one that Newell Banks told to Ed Atkinson and others, and Ed told it to me, and I'm telling it to you:

“According to Banks, the then world chess champion, Emanuel Lasker, said that in checkers there were too many draws. Given a year to prepare, he could draw half of his games against anyone.

The year went by and Lasker returned to America and agreed to a 10 game match against anyone, draws to count as "wins" for Lasker. According to Banks he was matched against Charles Hefter. Score: Hefter 10, Lasker 0.

There is no documentation of the Hefter-Lasker match."

It is too bad that Ed is still barred from this forum. He contributed the following additional information about Lasker:

"Lasker, in his book, Chess Secrets That I Learned from the Masters, Edward Lasker, a distant cousin of Emanuel's, wrote that he and Emanuel played Go at every opportunity. They learned that they could play a Go master at the Japanese Club in Berlin. Along with Emanuel Lasker's brother, Berthold, they visited the club and met the master. He proposed that they play against him in consultation and that he would give them a nine stone handicap, equal to at least one man odds at checkers. Emanuel Lasker laughed and said that he thought no one could give him those odds. The Go master suggested that they let him try it anyway. He answered their deeply laid plans without a moment's hesitation and won easily.

Emanuel Lasker invented a checker type game called Lasca. It is played on a 7x7 checkerboard.”

Bill Salot

[DrCaesar]

Thanks to you and Ed for sharing that information, Bill!

According to Irving Chernev, Lasker was also an enthusiastic dominoes player, in addition to chess, draughts, Go, and bridge. When he died in New York in 1941, he was supporting himself (barely) as a bridge teacher.

I've thought about trying Lasca, but haven't ever gotten around to it. It looks very interesting.

[DrCaesar]

More on Lasker and dominoes, from Dr. Hannak's biography. The translator notes that he once disparaged the game of dominoes in Lasker's presence, and it did not go down well:

"Lasker was far from pleased; he was quite angry. 'What do you know about dominoes?' he exclaimed. 'How dare you insult a very ingenious game of whose intricacies and subtleties you evidently haven't an inkling!' And forthwith, he treated us to a most thorough and lucid lecture on dominoes when played at the high level at which he had mastered this and every other game he ever bothered about."

He notes that Dr. Lasker had a "deep theoretical and practical knowledge of many games," and that he couldn't just play casually--he HAD to master the game in question to a very high level. He was far more interested in Go and bridge in the last decades of his life than he was in chess, and he felt resentful of the time he had to spend on chess.

[tgf]

Younger Lasker