After a month of incessant struggle in what at the time was considered the most interesting tournament of the century, Mikhail Botvinnik, the idol of Russia, and Czech star Salo Flohr garnered the top honors by sharing first.
The sensation of the tournament, however, was Old Man Lasker's fine showing. Like Flohr, he did not lose a game and finished in third place. His defeat of Capablanca was the high point of the tournament.
What was sensational was that Lasker, at the age of 66, was by far the oldest player and a long tournament like this was a test of physical stamina as well as mental alertness and the grand old man gave a truly remarkable exhibition. His performance was considered a biological miracle considering, in the United States at least, in 1935 the life expectancy for men was only about 60 and about 64 for women.
Here's a riddle for you. In the United States, Social Security was introduced in 1935 and the retirement age was set at 65 which was higher than the life expectancy! What's with that?
It looks like Social Security was designed in such a way that people would work for many years paying into it, but would not live long enough to collect benefits. But, it was argued that because infant mortality was high and that pulled down the average life expectancy, a better measure was life expectancy after attainment of adulthood. It was argued that the majority of Americans who made it to adulthood could expect to live to 65 and if they did, they could look forward to collecting benefits for several years.
Capablanca's fourth place finish was considered a good performance although his fans had expected him to finish higher. His lack of serious competition told against him at Moscow. After getting off to
a poor start by losing to Rjumin in the first round, he buckled down and aside from his loss to Lasker played good chess.
In spring 1933 Adolf Hitler had started a campaign of discrimination and intimidation against Jews, depriving them of their property and citizenship. Lasker and his wife Martha, who were both Jewish, were forced to leave Germany in the same year.
After a short stay in England, in 1935 they were invited to live in the USSR by Nikolai Krylenko, the Commissar of Justice who had been responsible for Show trials and, in his other capacity as Sports Minister, was an enthusiastic supporter of chess.
On March 24, 1935, Lasker announced in Moscow that he was renouncing his German citizenship and would make his permanent home in Russia, where he would organize and direct a chess academy. He stated, "There is a great depression in the science of
chess abroad," and the philosophy and psychology of chess would be studied at his academy.
He was given a post at Moscow's Institute for Mathematics and a post of trainer of the USSR national team.
Lasker and his wife didn't stay in Russia long. In August 1937, they decided to leave the Soviet Union and moved, by way of Holland, to first Chicago,then New York in October 1937. They were visiting Mrs. Lasker's daughter, but they may also have been motivated by political upheaval in the Soviet Union.
In the US Lasker tried to support himself by giving chess and bridge lectures and exhibitions, as he was now too old for serious competition. In 1940 he published his last book, The Community of the Future, in which he proposed solutions for serious political problems, including anti-Semitism and unemployment.
Lasker died of a kidney infection in New York on January 11, 1941, at the age of 72, as a charity patient at the Mount Sinai Hospital. A funeral service for him was held at the Riverside Memorial Chapel and he was buried at historic Beth Olom Cemetery, Queens, New York. His wife Martha and his sister, Mrs. Lotta Hirschberg, survived him. A few years later, Lasker’s sister, Lotta Lasker Hirschberg, died in a Nazi gas chamber. Martha died in Chicago on October 18, 1942.
The following game was yet another instructive one from this tournament. It was once superficially annotated by Fred Reinfeld and, as GM Alex Yermolinsky once so astutely observed, looking at old games with today's engines shows that they often were not the one sided thumping the notes would have us believe. This game was hard fought and both sides missed promising continuations.
Andre Lilienthal–Ilia Kan1–0E94MoscowMoscow URS18.02.1935Stockfish 14.1
King's Indian Defense 1.d4 f6 2.c4 d6 3.c3 bd7 4.e4 e5 5.f3 g6 6.e2 g7 7.0-0 0-0 8.d5 White has several choices here: 8.Be3, 8.Re1, 8.Qc2
and the text which gives the rest of the game its character: White will attack
on the Q-side, black on the K-side. Lilienthal carries out his plan with great
skill while Kan is guilty of some questionable play later on. c5 9.c2 a5 10.e3 Just one of many decent moves available to white. At the time theory
on the K-Indian was practically non-existent and it was suggested that a good
plan was Nd2-b3 as was played in Flohr-Bogolubow, Bad Sliac, 1932 and
Dake-Alexander, Folkeston, 1933. 10.d2 g4 11.b3 xe2 12.xe2 cd7 13.e3 h6 14.c1 h7 15.d3 f5 16.exf5 gxf5 17.f4 e4 18.f2 xc3 19.bxc3 hf6 20.g4 h7 21.g5 g8 22.h1 e8 23.g1 g6 24.gxh6 xh6 25.g3 gf6 26.h3 1-0 Flohr,S-Bogoljubow,E/Sliac 1932 10...b6 10...g4 This is a
more promising plan; if white move the B black gets a good game. 11.xc5 11.g5 f6 12.h4 g5 13.g3 f5 11...dxc5 12.h3 h6 The chances are equal,
but black does enjoy the more acrive position. 11.d2 e8 12.a3 f5 13.f3 f4 13...a4 14.xc5 bxc5 15.xa4 h6 16.c3 h4 Black has a promisng
attack for his P., but in the game Heissler,J (2435)-Werner,D (2420)/Germany
1997/GER-chT he misplayed the position and lost. 14.f2 a6 Temporarily
preventing b4 by white. 14...a4 was only slightly better. After 15.xc5 dxc5 16.xa4 d7 17.c3 d6 18.b4 b7 19.b3 white has the initiative. 15.ab1 g5 This is not entirely satisfactory, but black's position is
alreday compromised. 15...g5 16.b4 h5 17.bxa5 c5 18.axb6 cxb6 19.b2 a6 20.h3 f6 White is better. 15...h5 16.b4 16.h4 f6 16...axb4 17.axb4 h4 18.h3 g5 19.h2 f6 Here, too, white is better. In fact, white won
all five Shootouts. 16.fc1 h5 17.h1 h6? The Q turns out to be badly
misplaced here, so the best chance was for black to put his tail between his
legs and retreat 17...Qd8. 18.b4 axb4 19.axb4 g5 20.a4 White intends
c4-5. Now both sides are ready for the respective P advances which are the
goals of the play up to this point. Black intends ...g4 d7 20...g4
at once is met by 21.xb6 cxb6 22.xb6 b8 23.c5 xb4 23...ac7 24.xc8 xc8 25.c6 with an easy win. All black's K-side pieces are bystanders. 24.xb4 dxc5 25.xc5 d6 26.cb1 White has a winning position. 21.c5
Equally good was 21.Nxb6 xc5 This little interlude in no way alters the
course of events. White's pieces are all admirably placed and his attack will
be the first to succeed as black's forces still require considerable
rearrangement. 22.xc5 bxc5 23.bxc5 g4 24.cxd6 cxd6 25.c4 In spite of
his less than stellar play, black's position is only moderately inferior, say
not quite the equivalent of a P. However, instead of 25...Rc8, he now makes an
instructive mistake. gxf3 This is a violation of one of Tarrasch's strategic
principles that says when a player has it in his power to open a file by a
Pawn exchange, he must not do so until he has made certain that, once he has
opened the file, his pieces will have undisputed commanad of it. It will be
noticed in the course of this game that white is able to occupy the g-file
with both Rs and the Q oniy because of this exchange of Ps. 26.gxf3 h3 27.f1 xf1 28.xf1 h4 29.g1 h5 30.d2 h8 31.g4 f6 32.bg1 The faulty
exchange on the 25th move has allowed white to operate simultaneously on both
wings. d8 33.c6 h7 34.c4 e7 Black seems to have defended all his
weaknesses, but now comes a beautiful surprise move. 35.xh4 The knockout
blow. f7 35...xh4 36.xe5 There is no answer to this. The fork of the K,
Q and R at g6 is just one of the threats. 36.g8+ h7 37.xf6 xf6 38.a4 This gives black excellent defensive opportunities. 38.b6 was a much
harder punch. d7 39.b8 f8 40.8g5 f6 41.b2 g8 42.g2 xg5 43.xg5 h8 44.h6+ h7 45.g6 the d-Pawn falls and with it black's whole position. 38...h6 A tougher defense was offered by 38...Qf7. In fact, analyzing
with both Stockfish and Komodo was quite tedious! Both engines did a lot of
piece shifting without reaching a clear conclusion even though white has a
considerable plus. Consequently, I ran a Shootout here using Stockfish and
white scored +4 -0 =1 in some lengthy and tricky positions, so we'll leave it
at that. 39.a2 c8 This loses instantly. 39...d7 hangs on for a bit. 40.a5 f7 41.g2 g7 42.a8 h5 43.c6 h3 44.xh3 xh3 45.g2 h6 46.b1 and white wins. 40.g2 Black resigned. 40.g2 f6 41.xd6 c1 42.xc1 g6 43.xe8 xg2 44.xf6+ h6 45.h8+ g7 46.c7+ xf6 47.xg2 g5 48.h4+ g6 49.d6 f6 50.h6# 1–0
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