Emanuel Lasker and Harry Pillsbury
There have been more than a couple new threads in the General Chat forum that I have let slip by me, mainly because they accumulate posts at the ridiculous rate of 5 pages in one 24 hour period after they've been created, which was probably just a little after I signed off last! so I wanted to create a thread, in which I'll participate and follow, the topic of which as occurred to me the other night studying chess. It is about the two gentlemen mentioned in the title, of whom I was originally more interested in the latter, in regards to discussion on the forum here, until I learned another fact about the fomer: he's a philosopher! So, without further ado, as you probably know, they are both chess players. Emanuel Lasker was the second world champion, and though I could list all the world champions from my memory without any reference, off the top of my head I can only approximate how many there have been, around 20, of all of whom Emanuel still holds the record for holding the title longest. Pillsbury is, in relation to him, a perhaps even more brilliant player, similar to Rubinstein in being one of the brilliant world class players never to have a shot at the world title. Rubinstein was defeated by the first world war, while Pillsbury lost his greatest potential to the illness of syphilis, which struck him in 1895, crippled his chess, and eventually killed him in 1906.
Anyway, this thread is for chess and non-chess players, for anyone who wants to discuss these two men. I haven't read biographies of them, probably only little more than a couple paragraphs. As chess players, I honestly rate them close to equal, with a slight favouring of Pillsbury. I haven't studied their matches THAT deeply, but although their tournament record against each other is an even score, it seems the Pillsbury's wins are more convincing, but of course, this is just my opinion.
So as I said it's interesting to note that Emanuel Lasker was also a philosopher, and, as it says in his wikipedia entry, he was a personal friend of Albert Einstein. That's written here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_lasker , and Pillsbury's entry (for the lazy among you) is this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Nelson_Pillsbury
:)
So anyway, that's what I'd love to talk about, if anyone is interested. The genius of Pillsbury! The brilliance! And that's what I've been doing lately, anyway, studying Lasker's games.
Okay thx!! Any replies welcome...
