If you get a winning lottery ticket, don't wait for a bigger jackpot.

If you are in a burning building, take the first exit that you find. Don't stay in the heat looking for a better way out.

Black will eventually play Nh4 (with the f-pawns off the board or replaced, the position on f3 is not as strong) and might as well do so right away. All variations look crushing, although they do require some more thought on black's side.

If you like a pair of shoes don't buy them, look around for a better pair.>

The Lottery Ticket.

If you intend to buy a lottery ticket, don't, wait until the jackpot is higher.

The Burning Building.

If you want to go into a building, don't, look around for a better building to go into.

So you see Lasker's Maxim always works!

"If we took Lasker's advice all of the time, none of us would ever get married."

I think that is what Lasker has been trying to tell us for all these years. Don't get married, you will lose grading points.

We should heed the words of Prince Phillip the Duke of Edinburgh.

"If you see a married man opening a car door for his wife, it is either a new wife or a new car."

And finally...

If you write good post, don't post it, write a better one.

I'm thinking that Bukacek saw 17.Bxe8 Qxe8 18.gxf3 Qg6+ 19.Kh1 Qh5, but missed 20.Qe6! I did when I first looked at this.

The lottery ticket is already bought, the building is already on fire and no-one wants to come upstairs to see my itchings.

I saw 28...BxBP 29.B-K3 (29.BxB Q-K8+) 29...BxB 30.PxB QxKP and black is winning.

But, that seemed unlike a puzzle solution so I looked at others. I found 28...BxNP which nets a pawn (29.PxB? QxQP and wins a piece back), but doesn't get anywhere either.

Your amusing reducto ad absurdum in regard to attempting to apply Lasker's maxim universally, which I thoroughly enjoyed, reminds me of Immanuel Kant's categorical (i.e. universal)imperative.

If 27. Bxf4 Q-e1+ 28. Qxe1 Rxe1+ 29. Rxe1 Rxe1++

You are sitting at the board and the clock is ticking. You spot a good move. You analyse it, check for refutations, examine the variations ... and all the time your clock is ticking down.

Eventually you decide that the move is indeed a good one. It is at this point that Lasker tells you that you have been wasting your time and you should be looking for a better move.

On what evidence? Lasker is dead (which is just as well because they buried him). He can't see your position. He doesn't know whether there is a better move than the one you have been analysing.

If you do follow Lasker's advice there is a chance that you will find a better move. There is also a chance that you won't and you would have wasted a big chunk of time on a wild goose chase.

And if you do find a better move, do you follow Lasker's advice again? Look for an even betterer one? And keep on doing that until you run out of time?

At some point you have to use your judgment about whether it is worth looking for a better move, or if the good move that you spotted is good enough.

The superficial allure of Lasker's maxim is that we have all had instances where we played a sub-optimal move OTB. Times when we wished we had played something else. Then we wish we had a dead Lasker whispering in our ear to look again.

We all need to use judgement about whether there is a better move to be found in a position or whether we should play the good move that we have already found. Lasker's maxim doesn't help with that. And that, for me, makes it just about useless OTB.

It is beyond my understanding.

<Am i the only one who is so unfamiliar with this kind of English?>

click for larger view

where almost all white pieces on the queen's side, I'd <dream>,maybe this is not real, about the pos. like this.

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an e8 delicate delivery as hoof huffle f7 an shuffle 8e flinch aorta i e2 flash in pan fresh a d2 well army bad in let off the hook creme bishop fraiche 8e inch.