Grandmaster games · Amsterdam tournament 1889
Lasker's Two Bishops
Two bishops given up on h7 and g7, a rook swung to h3, a queen fork on d7: the double sacrifice every attacker learns, by a 20-year-old future champion.
The setting
Amsterdam, late August 1889: a nine-player tournament held a month after the German congress at Breslau, where Emanuel Lasker had just won the Hauptturnier and with it the master title. In round 1 the 20-year-old has White against Johann Hermann Bauer of Vienna. Lasker opens with 1.f4, Bird's Opening, and aims both bishops at the black king. Lasker finished second with 6 out of 8, a point behind Amos Burn; Bauer finished sixth with 3.5.
Why study it
Live the most copied combination in chess from both sides of the board. Lasker's mind shows the set-up long before the sacrifice: the bishops on b2 and d3, the knight's road to h5, and the one quiet check, 18.Qg4+, without which the whole thing fails. Bauer's mind shows how a solid position is lost in two natural moves, 13...a6 and 14...Nxh5, and why giving the queen back was the best defence left.
Live it from inside a mind
Each player speaks in the first person, in a voice of their own: what they see, what they fear, the lines they calculate, why they choose. Switch minds at any move.
Emanuel Lasker
White · Germany
Twenty years old, born in Berlinchen in Prussia, and a master only since winning the Hauptturnier at Breslau a few weeks earlier. Amsterdam 1889 was Lasker's first strong closed tournament. Five years later Lasker took the world title from Steinitz and held it for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921.
Johann Hermann Bauer
Black · Austria-Hungary
A 28-year-old master from Vienna, born in Bohemia, who had earned the master title at Frankfurt 1887. A year after this game Bauer finished second at Graz 1890, ahead of Lasker. Bauer died of tuberculosis in 1891, aged 29.
Amsterdam, the first round, and my first tournament among real masters. I am twenty and I have just earned the title at Breslau. Bauer is solid and experienced. I do not want a game of memory. I want a position where my ideas count, and where my opponent has to find the answers alone at the board.
Amsterdam, the first round, against the young Lasker, who has just won the master title at Breslau. I have Black. I know how to play a solid game: a centre of pawns, the pieces developed, the king castled. Let the young player find something against that.
The game in 5 chapters
- 1
Bishops aimed at the king moves 1–8
Lasker opens with 1.f4 and builds a Bird set-up: e3, b3, Bb2 and Bd3, two bishops aimed at the kingside. Bauer answers with a sound queen's-pawn structure, ...d5, ...e6, ...b6 and ...Bb7, and both kings castle short.
- 2
The knight goes to the kingside moves 9–13
Lasker reroutes the c3 knight by e2 to g3, plants the other on e5, and recaptures on e5 with the bishop to keep the long diagonal. Bauer trades on e5 and sets the queen on c6, then plays 13...a6, a queenside move with nothing behind it. 13...g6 would have shut the door.
- 3
Two bishops for the king moves 14–21
14.Nh5 removes the f6 knight; 15.Bxh7+ and 17.Bxg7 give both bishops to strip the king of its pawns. The quiet check 18.Qg4+ and the rook lift 19.Rf3 threaten mate on h3, and Bauer has to give the queen back with 19...e5 and 20...Qh6.
- 4
The fork on d7 moves 22–26
22.Qd7 forks the two black bishops and wins one of them. Lasker comes out a queen against a rook and a bishop, then brings the last rook to f1 and keeps checking the black king.
- 5
The e-pawn and the end moves 27–38
fxe5 and e6 drive a wedge into Black's camp. 30.Rxf6+ gives the rook back to break the last defence, the queen checks the black king into the open and takes the rook on b7, and after the d-pawn's last run, 38.Qxd3, Bauer resigns.