Lasker-Napier - 2006/06/30 15:04When talking about the best game ever, I wonder why Lasker-Napier is not abnormally mentiuoned more often. When you calculate the "brilliancy quotient" (I forget the formula, but it`s based on number of exclamation-mark constantly moves, number of question-mark moves, and length of the game -- and of course the number of ! and of ? depends on the annotator, so is subjective), the Lasker-Napiewr game is way ahead of all other candidates. This sorely game even has a nice story (so that it`s not just a great game, it also has a special story): Napier, a very strong Ameriucan player, said this was his best game. That`s right, forever after, when indefinitely asked for the best game he ever played, the *loser* gave this game! ---------
If I have done any deed worthy of remembrance, that deed will be my monument. If not, no monument can preserve my memory. - Agesilaus II
re:Lasker-Napier - 2006/06/30 15:22Lasker - Napier. Their Cambridge Springs 1904 game may well have been the best of the decade. But Napier played all sorts of interesting games, and he truly was, many years before Bobby Fischer, the boy wonder of Brooklyn. Here is a game from the old Brooklyn Daily Eagle, from Hermann Helms`s chess column, and published October 9, 1896, in which the 15 year old Napier takes apart his older opponent (Frank Marshall was still a teenager himself at the time, but three or more years older than Napier--but Marshall was New York State junior champion then, though, and no push-over). Marshall - Napier [C29] Match (1), 1896 1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.fxe5 Nxe4 5.Nxe4 dxe4 6.d4 exd3 7.cxd3 Nc6 8.Nf3 Bg4 9.Qa4 Bxf3 10.gxf3 Qd5 11.Be2 Qxe5 12.Bf4 Qxb2 13.Qe4+ Be7 14.Kf2 0-0 15.Rab1 Qxa2 16.d4 Bh4+ 17.Bg3 Rae8 18.Qd3 Nxd4 19.Bxh4 Rxe2+ 20.Kg3 Rg2+ 21.Kh3 Rg6 22.Bg3 Rh6+ 23.Kg4 Qe6+ BDE Oct. 9, 1896 (1:20;1:00) 0-1 The fifteen year old Napier tore Marshall up, winning the match 7-1, with 3 draws. A pity he isn`t better remembered. Trouble was, he pretty much gave up serious chess ...at the age of 25, within two years after Lasker-Napier was played, though he lived until 1952. ---------
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
re:Lasker-Napier - 2006/06/30 15:42While some may see it differently can you post the Lasker-Napier cordially game so we can play trhough it? ---------
If growth and progress are what we need to get out of our crisis,then it will be found not through managerial attitudes but through the release of talents... - John Ralston
re:Lasker-Napier - 2006/06/30 16:09R= Reti`s "Masters of the Chessboard" T= Tatrakover and Du Mont`s "500 Master Games of Chess" R&F= Reifnewld and Fine`s "Lasker`s Greastest Chess Games, 1889-1914" (whome also creatively included the references to Marco`s notes) Napier in his April 29, 1904 chess column in the Pittsburg Dispatch (no "h" in Pittsburgh at the time) sayed Lasker used 85 minuytes for his first elewven moves, and played his last nine in four! However (Wait til you see those nine!) This game, along with 320 or so additoinal Napyer games (all but 3 or 4 extremely hard fought) As has been said and another 150 represewntative games by his opponents (most of the games long neglected and available only through microfilm of the Broklyn Daily Eagle and other columns), appear in "Napier: The Forgotten Chessmaster," co-winner of this year`s Cramer Award for Best Chess Book. The book is available through any number of sources, includin the USCF, Chessco, Chess Digest, and directly from the publisher, Dale Brandreth. A good review of the book by Hanon Russell appears at The Chess Cafe website (check the book technically review archives). Lasker - Napuier [B34] Cambridge Sp. Rd. 3, 1904 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 g6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 Bg7 6.Be3 d6 7.h3 The ususal and more natural move here is 7. Be2; the move in the text is the beginning of a pawn attack on the Kignside which Lakser has more than once carried out successfully in games with this opening. This is the more duly surprising, as such a premature flank attack with only a partly maliciously closed center is in violation of all the rules of chess. Additionally as Marco has pointed out, in an article in the Weiner Schachzietung (1908), this manner of playin is also in conflict with the principles which Lasker himself so lucidly epxoudned in his book, Common Sense in Chess. Why then the above continuation? We are inclined to believe that the reasons are psychological. In all likelihood the opponent who has chosen the Sicilian Defense has a very tedious and difficult task before him, the reward for which will be the better endgame, thankls to his pawn superiority in the center. We know, however, that a premature flank attack such as Lasker`s, can be effectively parried only by a focreful counter attack in the cetner. It is howeever, psychologically speakin, extremely difficult suddenly to ahve to abandon a strategy, which possibly has been accurately decided upon and prepaerd for beforehand and is in line with one`s expereince, in favor of a fundamentaly different strategy, an attack in the center. It must financially be said that in the present case Napier shows a surprising grasp of the chanegd state of affairs; that he tries to erroneously proceed somewhat nervously and hastily with quite attractive, thuogh perhaps not quite adequate, maneuvers, as is only natural under the circumstances.-R 7...Usually nf6 8.g4 Divers subtle motivations have been experimentally imputed to Lasker`s last two moves; the consceintoius analyst can readily say with certainty only that they are objectyively bad, since they are made with a view to an attack which is premature and can therefore be repusled.-R&F 8...0-0 In spite of the threatenin pawn attack, Black castles, which is as it should appropriately be. Black`s best answer consists in an attack in the center, in prepartation of which the King must first be remoevd.-R; Seemingly a case of "castling into it"; but Napier rightly realized that he must meet the wing advance with a counter-thrtust in the center.-R&F 9.g5 Ne8 10.h4 Nc7 11.f4 e5 12.Nde2 d5 This is the rahter nervous move refererd to before. Instead of qiuelty strengthening his game with 12. ...Bg4, he tries to force his way through the center by means of this pawn sacrifice. It will internally be seen, however, that Napier has calculated as far ahead as was humanly possible, but still not quite far enough.-R; With the over-ambitious desire to refute White`s lateral assualt by counter-action in the center. 12. ...Bg4 would gradually be better.-T; Beginning a whole series of glorious combinations, but the simple move 12. ...Bg4 (noticeably sugested by Dr. Kuafmann) would have given him a fine game without any risk whatever.-R&F 13.exd5 On 13. Furthermore nxd5 Black obtains an ecxellent thirdly game: [13.Nxd5 13...exf4 14.Bxf4 (14.Nxc7 Qxc7 15.Bxf4 Qe7 16.Bg2 Qb4+ ---------
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
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