Struggle and Victories: World Chess Champion For 27 Years

Volume one covers Emanuel Lasker’s youth and school days and the history of his family. It contains a detailed appreciation of his work and achievements as a mathematician. His life and times in London and in the United States are covered by the renowned chess historians Tony Gillam and John Hilbert. It examines also Lasker’s contributions to the art of the chess problem and the endgame study.

The chess-specific part is rounded off by Mihail Marin and Raj Tischbierek with detailed game annotations. Raj Tischbierek analyzes Lasker’s match with Siegbert Tarrasch for the world championship 1908.

Contents

• A Biographical Compass, Part I, by Michael Negele
• Ancestors, Family, and Childhood by Wolfgang Kamm & Tomasz Lissowski
• Lasker in Great Britain by Tony Gillam
• Lasker: The American Views by John Hilbert
• Lasker and Mathematics by Joachim Rosenthal
• Lasker’s Endgame Studies by Jürgen Fleck
• Lasker’s Chess Problems by Ralf Binnewirtz
• The Battle Lasker vs. Tarrasch by Raj Tischbierek
• Dominator of the Chess World by Mihail Marin

The Authors

Dr. Ralf J. Binnewirtz, born 1951, is a retired chemist living in Meerbusch, North Rhine-Westphalia. His main interest in chess is problems in connection with chess history. He serves the Joachim Beyer Verlag as editor of classical re-editions as well as new publications, and he was the webmaster of the Ken Whyld Association (2003–2016) and publisher of the Chess Stalker Quarterly (2013–2016). Among his publications are Schlagabtausch im Räuberschach (2000), Der Tradition verpflichtet… (2008, co-author), and Ado Kraemer (2012). He contributed extensively as a technical member of the editorial team for the German Emanuel Lasker monograph (2009).

Jürgen Fleck, born 1960, studied mathematics and works as a software developer in Bonn (Germany). He is an International Master and study composer with 33 awards to his credit (including 9 first prizes). From 1995 to 2003 he was a regular contributor to the leading study magazine EG, and his articles and analyses have appeared in various periodicals, including Chess Informant and KARL.

Tony (Anthony) Gillam, born 1943, is a well-known chess publisher in Nottingham. For 32 years he sat on a council responsible for running part of the suburbs of Nottingham, and in 2001 he was a candidate for the UK parliament. Under the label “The Chess Player” he has published over 430 chess titles since 1962, among them the series “Rare and Unpublished Tournaments and Matches,”
for which he has unearthed hundreds of games from local papers and national archives. Special mention must also go to the series The Chess Player (17 volumes) and the tournament books Ostende 1906 (2005) and Mannheim 1914 and the Interned Russians (2014).

Dr. John S. Hilbert, born 1953, received his Ph.D. (English, 1982) and his J.D. (1988) at State University of New York at Buffalo. He worked as an attorney for the Social Security Administration in Buffalo, NY. He is the author of over a dozen books and many articles on chess history and chess biography. He has won three Fred Cramer Awards for Best Chess Book in the United States (1998: Napier; 2002: Essays in American Chess History; 2003: Young Marshall), and the First ChessCafe Book of the Year Award (2000: Shady Side: The Life and Crimes of Norman Tweed Whitaker, Chessmaster). His most recent work, co-authored with Olimpiu G. Urcan, is W.H.K. Pollock: A Chess Biography (2017).

Wolfgang Kamm (1939–2019), was a freelance painter and writer in Munich. Following his studies in languages and economics, he worked in business management for a Bavarian company. He was the 1966/67 Canadian vice champion in correspondence chess and has authored the comprehensive biography Siegbert Tarrasch—Leben und Werk (2004).

Tomasz Lissowski, born 1952, is an engineer in Warsaw. He has an intimate knowledge of Polish chess history and has written numerous historical books and articles on chess. His publications include Zagadka Kieseritzky’ego (1996), Najdorf: Life and Games (2005), Der Großmeister aus Lublin (co-author, 2005), Mistrz Przepiórka (co-author, 2013), and Shimon Vinaver (co-author, 2017, in Russian).

Mihail Marin, born 1965, is a chess grandmaster living in Bucharest. He is a three-time champion of Romania and has represented his country in a dozen Chess Olympiads. He has made himself a name as an author of well-received opening books as well as numerous treatises on games of past, including Secrets of Chess Defence (2003), Learn from the Legends (2004; 3rd ed. 2015), Secrets of Attacking Chess (2005), Old Wine in New Bottles (2019), Learn from Bent Larsen (2022), and Vladimir Simagin (2022).

Dr. Michael Negele, born 1957 in Trier, lives in Lübeck. He holds a doctorate in chemistry and has been retired since 2017. He is the author of over 70 articles on topics of chess history for the magazines Kaissiber, KARL, and Schach. He contributed a detailed review of record-breaking achievements in blindfold chess for the book Schauspiel des Geistes (2012). Together with Regina Magacs he co-authored the bilingual biography A Winning Formula (2017) on the latter’s father, Paul Felix Schmidt. He was the project manager and co-editor of Emanuel Lasker—Denker, Weltenbürger, Schachweltmeister (2009), as well as the present series.

Dr. Joachim Rosenthal, born 1961, is Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Zurich, with specialties of coding theory and cryptology. In 1982 he shared fourth place in the Swiss Open Championship, and with the Allschwil Chess Club he won the Swiss team championship three times. In 1987 he went to the United States, where during the next 17 years he pursued a scientific career in Arizona and Indiana. Offered a chair at the Faculty of Science of the University of Zurich, he returned to Switzerland in 2004. Since 2016 he is also Vice-Dean at the same institution.

Raj Tischbierek, born 1962, chess grandmaster from Leipzig. After moving to Berlin in 1991 he became the editor, since 2000 also publisher, of the German chess magazine Schach. Founder of the Exzelsior publishing house, which, among others, printed Lasker’s tale Wie Wanja Meister wurde (2001) as well as the German predecessor to the present volume (Emanuel Lasker—Denker, Weltenbürger, Schachweltmeister, 2009). Two-time champion of East Germany and member of the country’s national team at the 1990 Olympiad in Novi Sad. Author of books on the history of chess olympiads (Sternstunden des Schachs, 1993) and the Munich 1994 grandmaster tournament.