Chess history trivia

[Matt Mackenzie]

Yes, indeed, Jack. Well done.

At Nottingham, 1936, Lasker (8.5) was 1.5 points behind Capablanca (10), but Capablanca did particularly well there, and Lasker's 8.5 seems quite good. Lasker was well behind Capablanca at Moscow, 1936.

It was a sore point with Lasker that he was not invited to play in the AVRO tournament of 1938.

His performance in the second half of Moscow 1936 was significantly worse than the first IIRC. Nottingham 1936 was quite a bit better overall and a worthy end to his front line career - even if the official tournament book's foreword was a bit sniffy about his showing.

Of course, at Moscow 1935 Lasker not only finished ahead of Capablanca but beat him in their individual game. He also missed a win against Botvinnik (with the Black pieces) which would have made him the actual winner.

Regarding 1935, Botvinnik said that Lasker had been inactive for a couple of years before the tournament and never lost a game even though he was by then 66 years old.

Up to a point, but he had played in the pretty strong Zurich tournament the previous year.

Where his rustiness was maybe a bit more apparent even if he still did very creditably overall.

[MJMcCready]

Taimanov and Larsen?

Correct Jack. Rather sad really since Kasparov had a lot of respect for Larsen later on in his life I seem to recall.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Of course, that was said not very long after the two 6-0s - I don't think even Taimanov is just remembered for that now.

[MJMcCready]

It was published in New in Chess in 1984..

[Matt Mackenzie]

The inaugural issue?

Though of course MMB actually said it to Gazza a few years earlier than that.

[MJMcCready]

Yes of course, it is referred to in the quote above.