My great predecessors!!

...anyone read this book?I've studied some of the games in this book so far and I have to say there are a ton of annotations in some of the games lol!!I do think though Kaspie did a good job with the annotations.My only problem is that I don't know where his annotations end and the computer's begin...but otherwise I like this book.

thoughts?

hehe...you're right...I purchased the first book,the one with Steinitz,Lasker,Capa and Alekhine.

so far I'm blown away by some of Lasker's games...he was more Tal-like than Tal himself!!

and I'm also eager to get to the Capa-Alekhine WC match!

lol..."coffeehouse player" (?!)

Fischer was a brilliant player but a little nutty with his opinions....

but anyway...what I also like about this book is the historical facts Kasparov gives along with the games...it paints a more "human" picture for the players!

Lasker is great! I recommend "Lasker's Manual of Chess". Great book

It is funny that Fischer dismissed Lasker as a "coffeehouse player", as NM Tonydal just pointed out...but Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games has one quote at the beginning of the book...by Lasker!

"On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive for long on the chessboard. The creative combination lies bare the presumption of a lie, while the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite."

I have this series that the OP talks about, and several books about Lasker, and I am blown away by his games.  Kasparov made a great contribution with these books.  I really enjoy them.

It must be the one I am thinking of, and Fine was the co-author.

One of the worthy Reinfeld books. You gotta speak descriptive though. No problem for me since I've been around long enough but I can understand newcomers never wanting to touch anything not algebraic.

Lasker = greatest player EVER  he played the game GO to prepare for a world championship match... who else could NOT play chess to get ready to take on the next best player in the world and still win the match!?

I just got that for Xmas :)

I'm pretty sure that he's mainly thinking of Edward Lasker, but this article also states that Emmanuel Lasker knew Go as well (though he obviously didn't play it at a high level):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lasker#Go

I've just got his book "Chess Strategy". In a few places I've read opinions that it is the best generally-accessible chess book ever written.

I wonder why no one has put it in algebraic...

for which WC match did he prepare with GO?

man...that game is really complex....never could get the hang of it...

i will retract my statement on the fact that i cannot find the original source (i believe that it was in chessnotes)...however i did find this http://web.archive.org/web/20060528115529/http://www.leipzig-go.de/fruehgeschichte_e.php

it says that Emanuel Lasker learned from Edward Lasker in 1907... i was thinking that it was against Marshall that Lasker played go instead of chess to prepare for and they did play a WC match in 1907 against each other so maybe thats where im getting it...that site also said that Lasker played a game of go in 1921 the same year he played Capa...or maybe im just pickled and its a delusion... who knows for sure...

My Great Predecessors, 5 vols has a bit of slop, lacks sufficient documentation, and has a host of other minor problems. But, as a history of the world champions and a collection of great games and parts of games with perceptive annotations, it has no rival. I bought all five as they came out. I wish I could make time to read them.