Game of the Day 1

In my last post, I said that it was a good idea to look at classic annotated games where a lot of skills can be learned. I also said I would try to put up a game from my collection each day, so here we go.

Day 1:

The earliest player I have a set of games for is the second World Champion, Emanuel Lasker. I have "Lasker's Greatest Chess Games: 1889-1914" by Reinfeld and Fine, a book in the old descriptive notation which I am old enough to remember and have used! You don't have to go very far in the book to find beautiful ideas. In fact the first game, Lasker-Lipke Breslau 1899, has an excellent winning point to it

Lasker, as White, is a piece up, but Black threatens mate on h1. White can't play play Kh2, or it's a perpetual. But Lasker came out with 1.Bxf5+! giving back the piece with check. 1..Qxf5+ 2.Qg4!! an amazing retreat, giving up his active queen and a pawn to reach a winning endgame. This transition from aggressive middlegame, to winning endgame is something that we all need to understand. In fact, transitions are a hugely important aspects of the game that aren't really discussed much in books.

Earlier in the game Lasker showed his understanding for transitions. In the above position most of us would throw the c-pawn up to c4 holding on to the d5 pawn, but Lasker wants to play d4 to take control of the centre, and gain some extra space. So White played 10.Bg5! pinning at least one of the knights, and thus defending d5. While Black was untangling, White played d4 and took some space for his bishops.

Anyway, here's the game, in an algebraic form, with the notes of Reinfeld and Fine.

Enjoy :)

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