Dr. Lasker's Chess Career 1889-1914 - Tapa blanda

This was the first book by Reuben Fine and one of the first, if not the very first, by Fred Reinfeld. Both were young men. Fine was 21. Reinfeld was 24. Both went on to become not only strong chess players but prolific writers of books, especially Reinfeld who wrote more than one hundred chess books. Both Fine and Reinfeld became noted authors of books on other subjects as well. Reinfeld wrote more than fifty books on other subjects such as checkers, coin collecting and stamp collecting. Fine wrote college textbooks on psychology and psychoanalysis. Dr. Lasker's Chess Career 1889-1914 has become a rare book, almost impossible to obtain. I bought the book used for this reprint from a collector of rare books in Denmark. The original title was Dr. Lasker's Chess Career, Part I, 1889-1914. This was obviously intended to be the first in a series of books about World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941). When this book was written, Emanuel Lasker was still alive. However, no other volume of this book was ever written, so the title has been shortened to just Dr. Lasker's Chess Career 1889-1914. Emanuel Lasker burst on the chess scene by winning his first tournament in 1888-1889 at the age of 20. He then won several tournaments and played a series of matches in 1889-1893 against some of the strongest players in the world, winning them all. However, when he challenged the World Chess Champion Wilhelm Steinitz to a match in 1894, it was believed that he stood no chance. The world was shocked when he defeated Steinitz and became World Chess Champion, a title he held for the next 27 years until he lost to Capablanca in 1921.

Fred Reinfeld was born on January 27, 1910. Although Fred Reinfeld is now remembered as a writer about chess and other subjects, he was also a strong player. In the 1950 USCF Rating List he was rated number 6 in the United States with a rating of 2593. He defeated Reshevsky twice and Fine once in tournament games and drew World Champion Alekhine in the grandmaster tournament in Pasadena 1932, the strongest tournament ever played in the Western United States. Reinfeld wrote more than one hundred chess books. In his day, almost all young chess players started off on his books. Nowadays, his books are mostly out of print because they were written in descriptive notation, as this one was. He died on May 29, 1964. Reuben Fine was born on October 11, 1914. He was both one of the world's strongest grandmasters of chess and one of the world's leading authorities on psychoanalysis. Reuben Fine was remarkable not merely for having two successful careers, but for achieving top levels and being world renowned in both fields. Fine took up chess in his youth, became a master as a teenager and at age 17 won his first of seven US Open Chess Championships. He was invited to the great masters tournament in Pasadena 1932, won by World Champion Alekhine, one of the strongest tournaments ever held in the United States. Fine's victories in a series of European tournaments in 1936 and 1937 established Fine as a top contender for the World Chess Championship. This led to his greatest result ever, his tie for first in the strongest chess tournament ever played, AVRO 1938, a double round-robin tournament to determine who would be the next challenger to World Champion Alexander Alekhine. Fine tied with Paul Keres, won more games than anybody, and finished ahead of future champion Mikhail Botvinnik, current champion Alekhine, former world champions Max Euwe and Capablanca, and Grandmasters Samuel Reshevsky and Salo Flohr. Fine won both of his games against Alekhine. Reuben Fine died on March 26, 1993 in New York.