<The keen interest of the last fortnight centered in t h e race between Lasker and
Capablanca. The latter started on the
final with a lead of 1% points—would he
keep it to the finish? His game with
Lasker in the preliminary had been a
draw, so was his first game with Lasker
in the final. Lasker picked up half a
point by beating Alechin, and when the
remaining games numbered but four,
Capablanca had s t i l l a point in hand.
Lasker Won in Seventh Round
In the seventh round they met again,
and, for the first time, Lasker had the
move. Somehow, the experts are still
trying to find out how it was, but none
of them can point to the losing move—
somehow Lasker got his opponent in an
iron grip wThich never relaxed, move after
move remorselessly tightened the pressure,
until the Cuban saw no further
hope and resigned. Scores were equal,
w i t h three games to play. Then came
the tragi-comedy of the tournament.
Playing Tarrasch, with position superior
and material gain in sight, Capablanca
moved the wrong Rook! Instead
of winning a Pawn, by that unfortunate
incident he lost a piece, and though he
struggled against odds for 83 moves, the
burden was too great, and the game
was scored against him. But for that,
Lasker would have been, not first, but
second, for winning his remaining games
while Lasker drew one, Capablanca made
up still another half point of his deficit.
But the moral needs no pointing; m
the public eye, these two great experts
come out of the long ordeal on the same
high pinnacle, and the question of priori
t y ought to be settled once for all.>

A lot of annotators have said that, but computer analysis just doesn't support it. Sure, it rules out that 15... ♕d2 trick as in the game, but Black doesn't have to play the same way. After 13.♖ad1 ♗g4 14.♕g3, Black doesn't need to play 14... ♗xd1 but just plays 14...♕e6! 15.♗xe5 ♘xe4 16.♕f4 ♗xd1 17.♖xd1 f5 18.♗xc7 ♘xc3, and Black has whatever tiny advantage is there (-0.3). And even 14... ♗xd1 would not be that terrible for Black despite the lack of the 14... Qd2 trick, hardly winning for White, e.g. 14...♗xd1 15.♗xe5 ♘h5 16.♗xd6 ♘xg3 17.♗xg3 ♗xc2 ⩲ (+0.5).

More like a rare lapse of calculation:

14.Rxd6 Bxf3
15.Rxf6 gxf6
16.Bxe5 fxe5
17.gxf3 Rb8

<CapablancaFan: [...] Capa wasn't fighting for a win, he was fighting for a draw. He had hoped (maybe naively) that if he could eliminate blacks a pawn then somehow exchange rooks then it's an automatic draw.>

Eliminating the a-pawn wasn't necessary, just the exchange of rooks since Black's B was 'the wrong colour' which is why Black can't just take White's last pawn on move 65:

click for larger view

I admit that Lasker, after almost dying of typhus, only finished third at the great Hastings 1895 tournament. How about after that? Lasker won OUTRIGHT EVERY tournament from St. Petersburg 1895/96 through New York 1924 except for Cambridge Springs 1904 (Marshall's great triumph; Lasker tied for second) and St. Petersburg 1909 ("only" tying for first with Rubinstein). OVER 28 YEARS. He won New York 1924 at age 55, 1.5 points ahead of Capablanca, scoring 80% against the world's top players. How did Capablanca play at age 55? Oh sorry, he was pushing up daisies. Even at age 66, at Moscow 1935, Lasker was undefeated, half a point out of first, behind the joint winners Botvinnik and Flohr. Botvinnik was a little over a third of Lasker's age. Lasker beat Capablanca in their individual game.

Compare Capablanca's tournament results in the 1930s, when Capa was in his forties. These included second at Hastings 1930-31, 4th at Hastings 1934-35, fourth at the aforementioned Moscow 1935, second at Margate 1935, second at Margate 1936, equal third at Semmering 1937, seventh at AVRO 1938. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C...