Thanks for supplying the material by Whyld on Game Collection: WCC: Lasker-Janowski 1910 !

I agree with you that we can't quote him as he gives no sources, but we could insert the assumption that the 2nd 1909 match couldn' be for the title as he had an agreement with Schlechter.

<It was a Pyrrhic victory for Lasker as it turned out, because it killed any interest in the Schlechter match...>

First of all, in this article Dr. Lasker discusses the current (1906) chessplayers worthy of playing a title match - these are Tarrasch and Maroczy (and to a lesser degree Schlechter).

<Dr. Tarraschs Stärke oder Schwäche, wenn man will, ist seine prononcirte Eigenliebe. Ohne sie wäre er nur ein sehr mittelmäßiger Schachspieler geworden. Aber bei seiner ungewöhnlichen Begabung wurde er ein Riese. Seine Eigenliebe ist so groß, daß er sich auf irgendeinem Gebiete auszeichnen mußte. Das Schachspiel bot ihm das geeignete Feld, und er liebt am Schach hauptsächlich nur sein eigenes Schachspiel. Er hat zwei Schachbücher geschrieben und schreibt jetzt ein drittes, alle nur über sich selbst, seine Siege, seine Meinungen, sein Leben, seine Laufbahn. Er schreibt sehr witzig und unterhaltend, aber seine naive Selbstanbetung trübt oft sein Urteil über Menschen und Dinge, ja selbst über Schachpositionen.

Auf der ganzen Erde gibt es keine von irgend wem - außer Dr. Tarrasch selbst - gespielte Partie, in der er nicht einen Fehler oder einen schnelleren Weg zum Gewinne oder irgendeine Verbesserung fände.

In seinen kritischen Bemerkungen spielt seine Persönlichkeit die Hauptrolle. Dies ist eine große Schwäche seines kritischen Urteiles. In seinem Privatleben ist er, wie viele Deutsche der besseren Klassen, "immer" korrekt. Korrekt heißt in Deutschland die Haltung eines Mannes, dessen Benehmen nach dem Urteile seiner Nachbarn seiner Sellung angemessen ist. Um korrekt zu sein, muß man sich der Meinung der anderen anpassen; man darf keine eigenen moralischen oder ethischen Grundsätze haben, sondern muß die der Umgebung annehmen. In seiner Kleidung, in seinen öffentlichen Reden und Handlungen ist Dr. Tarrasch immer "korrekt".

Dr. Tarrasch's strength or weakness, if you want, is his pronounced self-love. Without her, he would have become only a very mediocre chessplayer. But with his unusual gift, he became a giant. His self-love is so great, that he needed some field to excel in. The game of chess offered to him the appropriate field, and about chess he loves in the main his own chess play. He wrote two chess books and now writes a third, all just about himself, his victories, his opinions, his life, his career. He writes very funny and entertaining, but his naive self-adulation often tarnishes his verdict on people and things, even chess positions.

On the whole world there exists no chess game by anyone - except for Dr. Tarrasch himself - in which he wouldn't find a mistake or faster way to win or any improvement.

In his critical remarks, his personality plays the leading part. This is the great weakness of his critical judgement. In his private life, he is, like many Germans of the upper classes, "always" correct. Correct means in Germany the stance of a man, whose behaviour is according to his neighbours' judgement in accordance with his position. In order to be correct, you have to adapt to the opinion of the others; you mustn't have own moral or ethical principles, but have to adopt those of your surroundings. In his clothing, in his public speeches and actions, Dr. Tarrasch is always "correct".

For sure, Dr. Lasker takes many digs at him, but there could be no doubt about Tarrasch's enormous playing strength. Even the Marshall match was taken to compare these two.

I suggest you actually use the full direct quote:

<Dr. Tarrasch's strength or weakness, if you want, is his pronounced self-love. Without her, he would have become only a very mediocre chessplayer. But with his unusual gift, he became a giant.>

This isn't a long quote, but it disambiguates the issue at hand.

Only now after reading that quote in context do I understand the paraphrase in your original draft, which was accurate but too terse to explain the point, and it would remain so in the new form:

<and said that the former had become a giant in chess thanks to his self love>

What you wrote is not inaccurate, it just doesn't supply enough information to carry the point from your source- Lasker's actual words.

But Lasker's quote does the job quite nicely. I think in this case we should let him speak for himself, since it's a very important piece of information in the story. It heightens the drama and it happens to be true.

They have just uploaded a new raft of <correct pronunciation> files created by <AnnieK>, to be placed on the bios of the players.

There are tons of them now.

Our website is the only chess site in existence that offers this service, thanks to <Annie> and Daniel.

I feel the same way as you about this believe me. I almost drove my chess history video narrator Richard insane by insisting that he rehearse each name over and over until he could pronounce it as properly as possible.

But it wasn't until <Annie> started making the pronunciation files that Richard really had something he could work with.

That's why the only decent approximations of correct pronunciations are the ones on the last video he narrated, the biography of <Nezhmetdinov> here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Not a year ago I was running around <Cg.com> posting the name "Aljechin" until somebody told me to cut it out, because the English spelling had been universally standardized and now fixed as "Alekhine." I think he called me a "pretentious twat" or something like that.

Ouch! "Which one of you twats called this twat a twat?"

It's really a spelling/standardization issue, and if I recall the last go-round on this correctly, the majority consensus was that we should follow the spelling of the player names that Cg.com uses?

Anyways I fully understand you and your concerns about this.

"Aljechin" is a German version gives the English reader a better idea of the correct way to pronounce his name. "Alekhine" is a French version that the "uncouth bastard" who called you a "pretentious twat" probably uses and is too lazy or stupid to think about changing. It wasn't <AJ> was it? As Tony would say "Go Alyekhin".

:)

As I said earlier I can live with the editorial changes but I was hoping that this historical project would really be the chance to make real revolutionary history and set things to rights. You and I live in hope that we will not always be enslaved by the lowest common denominator. This site might be based in an English speaking country but it truly is a Global site and hopefully global in its outlook.

It's nice to think that somebody thinks I've got class even if it may not be true.

You are correct. We should try to find the original in "Lasker's Chess Magazine."

I will look for it, but it's getting harder and harder to find stuff on the internets since the copyright lobbies starting shutting down filesharing and data locker sites.

That's why I have 11 external hard drives full of stuff. "Just in case" it all gets shut down.

At any rate, I'm going in for a look. That quote is too good to pass up.

You could email him and ask about your idea.

The think is, I doubt he's going to put 10 different sound files on the intro to a games collection.

If we put a Johnny Alekine file on the <New York 1927> intro then we'd have to put one on for everyone else, no?

But, if your link system idea could be created, then it might be easy to do eh? Because then we editors could do it by copy and paste.

Find same notes on page 95-96,

Title Wiener Schachzeitung, Volume 10
Contributor Internationale Schachmeister-vereinigung
Published 1907
Original from the University of Michigan
Digitized Oct 10, 2008

http://books.google.com/books?id=t2...

No, I doubt it would. After all, we also provide the source so anybody could look up the original. It was rather a minor point that came to my mind as a means to improve it further. So if anybody has ready access to these, it would be good but we certainly shouldn't waste too much energy on it.

<Alien>

Also, as I just mentioned over in your forum, I'll have all of <Lasker's Chess Magazines> in about 3 months. I think <The Focus> has them already but we can't be bugging him all the time for references (even though I just did- heh). He's really busy right now uploading rare games and creating amazing new collections for the <Tournament Page>. Check out the Bistro to see the latest flock he has submitted!

I doubt we're going to finish re-drafting all of the intros in the next 3 months, so we can hold off on "promoting" your Game Collection: WCC: Lasker-Tarrasch 1908 to the real WCC pages until I can check the original source.

There are 2 volumes of <Lasker's Chess Magazine> that cover 1906 or parts of it: https://www.moravian-chess.cz/katal...

In the mean time, I think we can safely put your translation of <Lasker's> quote into your edit now.

I bet your translation of a translation will translate perfectly word for word to the original!

I think there might be a close connection between German and English because Lasker writes beautifully with perfect grammar in English, a second language for him.

I am honored to be considered as a draftee to be named later. However I have no references and am not housebroken.

Yes, you were right about that, but it is only part of the story. I think there can hardly be any doubt about Dr. Lasker being sincere in this aticle - though he probably exaggerated a bit in order to tease Tarrasch (after all, the latter could be very outspoken also).

<David Janowski> was born in Wołkowysk, Poland (today Vawkavysk, Belarus) but later relocated to France. From the end of the 19th century onwards, he was a regular participant in strong international tournaments [(1)]. Among his successes are a win in <Janowski vs. Marshall, Match 1 (1899)> and a shared first place with <Geza Maroczy> at the <Barmen Meisterturnier A (1905)>. He became known for his strong combinational skills [(2)]. The games of his heyday were described as showing the "lion's claw" and he was well-known for the low percentage of draws [(3)]

Financed by his wealthy patron <Leo Nardus>, Janowski played an exhibition match against world champion <Emanuel Lasker> in Paris, in May 1909, which ended drawn (+2 -2 =0). Enthusiastic about the outcome of the match, Nardus proposed a match for the world championship and while Lasker had no objection in principle, he had to leave France [(4)]. They played a second exhibition match [(5)] in Paris from October to November, which saw Lasker emerge as the clear winner (+7 -1 =2) ([(6)]. It's possible that Lasker's contract with <Carl Schlechter> and his departure for America did not allow for negotiations for a world championship match with Janowski in 1909.

Despite of the last setback, Janowski got his shot at the title in late 1910, after Lasker had defended his crown in the drawn <Lasker – Schlechter World Championship Match (1910)> in January and February. Janowski was eager to take revenge and claimed to have studied hundreds of games by Lasker. He considered the world champion's play to be weak but his opponents tried to cash in the victory prematurely. Janowski wanted to demonstrate to the world that "Lasker's game was not chess, but dominoes." [(2)] During their title match, Lasker characterized Janowski the following way: "Independently he searches for the beautiful, ingenious, deep and hidden. Sadly, he goes too far therein. He pays not the slightest attention to ordinariness. In fact, this gives his play a special appeal, at the same time it is also his weak spot." [(7)]

The match for the world championship was held from November 8 to December 8 in the Kerkau-Palast in Berlin. Leo Nardus donated a prize of 5,000 Francs for the winner, declared to be the first to score 8 victories. Lasker needed only eleven games to achieve that goal, without losing a single game (+8 -0 =3). The match received little attention as Lasker had secured the copyright for the games which therefore couldn't be printed. The games were also criticized as being of low quality with Nardus' sponsorship being the only thing "grandmasterly" about the contest. [(8)]

[(1)] http://www.edochess.ca/players/p487...

[(2)] Wiener Schachzeitung, July-August 1910, page 252

[(3)] Neue Wiener Schachzeitung, February 1927, page 29

[(4)] Wiener Schachzeitung, August 1909, pages 234-236

[(5)] http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

[(6)] Wiener Schachzeitung, December 1909, pages 410-413

[(7)] Ost und West, December 1910, page 825

Reserved!

Game Collection: WCC: Capablanca-Alekhine 1927

Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Bogoljubov 1934

Game Collection: WCC: Alekhine-Euwe 1935

David Janowski was born in Wołkowysk, Poland (today Vawkavysk, Belarus) but later relocated to France. From the end of the 19th century onwards, he was a regular participant in strong international tournaments [(1)]. Among his successes were a win in the Janowski vs. Marshall, Match 1 (1899) and a shared first place with Geza Maroczy at the Barmen Meisterturnier A (1905). He became known for his strong combinational skills [(2)]. The games of his heyday were described as showing the "lion's claw" and he was well-known for his low percentage of draws [(3)]

Financed by his wealthy patron Leo Nardus, in May 1909 Janowski played an exhibition match against world champion Emanuel Lasker in Paris, which ended drawn (+2 -2 =0). Enthusiastic about the outcome of the match, Nardus proposed a match for the world championship and while Lasker had no objection in principle, he had to leave France [(4)]. They played a second exhibition match [(5)] in Paris from October to November, which saw Lasker emerge as the clear winner (+7 -1 =2) ([(6)]. It's possible that Lasker's contract with Carl Schlechter and his departure for America did not allow for negotiations for a world championship match with Janowski in 1909.

Despite of the last setback, Janowski got his shot at the title in late 1910, after Lasker had defended his crown in the drawn Lasker-Schlechter World Championship Match (1910) in January and February. Janowski was eager to take revenge and claimed to have studied hundreds of games by Lasker. He considered the world champion's play to be weak, but that Lasker looked stronger than he really was because he benefited from his his opponents trying to cash in on a victory prematurely. Janowski wanted to demonstrate to the world that "Lasker's game was not chess, but dominoes." [(2)] During their title match, Lasker characterized Janowski in the following way: "Independently he searches for the beautiful, ingenious, deep and hidden. Sadly, he goes too far therein. He pays not the slightest attention to ordinariness. In fact, this gives his play a special appeal, at the same time it is also his weak spot." [(7)]

The match for the world championship was held from November 8 to December 8 in the Kerkau-Palast in Berlin. Leo Nardus donated a prize of 5,000 Francs for the winner, declared to be the first to score 8 victories. Lasker needed only eleven games to achieve that goal, without losing a single game (+8 -0 =3). The match received little attention as Lasker had secured the copyright for the games which therefore couldn't be printed. The games were also criticized as being of low quality with Nardus' sponsorship being the only thing "grandmasterly" about the contest. [(8)]

[(1)] http://www.edochess.ca/players/p487...

[(2)] Wiener Schachzeitung, July-August 1910, page 252

[(3)] Neue Wiener Schachzeitung, February 1927, page 29

[(4)] Wiener Schachzeitung, August 1909, pages 234-236

[(5)] http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

[(6)] Wiener Schachzeitung, December 1909, pages 410-413

[(7)] Ost und West, December 1910, page 825