Book Review: John Nunn's Chess Course

And, why you should study Emanuel Lasker's games

How come folks don’t talk about Lasker?

A bit over a year and a half ago I had decided to study chess master games in chronological order, with the basic plan of going through each World Champion. That eventually evolved to include important players around each World Champion’s reign. But one player I had a hard time finding any clear information about was Emanuel Lasker.

I had started with Paul Morphy (who never became an official World Champion but defeated every single strong player first in America and then in Europe). After that, I moved on to Steinitz, who did eventually become the first official World Champion. The nice thing about Morphy and Steinitz is that their contributions to the game’s theory is rather straightforward. Morphy emphasized rapid development, and the importance of activity over material. He was a combinatorial player, an exponent of the Romantic era, but his play was founded on positionally sound concepts. He was the first real positional player.

Then comes Steinitz, after Morphy quits chess and eventually dies. Steinitz is a much more “defensive” player. While his early career reflects the murky tactical play of his and Morphy’s Romantic contemporaries, his later style might become known as “pawn-grubbing”. Steinitz would espouse certain strategic principles in chess: The importance of controlling the center and accumulating small advantages as the basis of a sound attack. Steinitz’s principles would form the basis of modern chess strategy theory. Slowly but surely, Steinitz would steamroll his opposition — often goading them into questionable attacks, confident that his ideas would prove correct. Morphy gave pawns away. Steinitz took pawns and held on to them for dear life, defending heroically to prove that his ideas were sound.

Morphy might not have been a teacher, but he clearly left behind an indelible mark on how chess would be played forever. Any chess coach or teacher worth their salt will present Morphy’s games to their students to epitomize the concept of center control, rapid development, and a killer instinct when a king is weak.

Steinitz’s principles are, for the most part, still regarded as the core of chess theory. His ideas have been critiqued and improved upon, and sometimes revised almost completely by the so-called hypermoderns, but in general, Steinitz’s ideas are inescapable in any modern chess book. Steinitz was very eager to refer to his new style of chess as a school, and while eventually people moved past his “school” to more universal ways of thinking, it’s clear that his concepts inspired a generation of players who would come after him. One of those inspired players was the man who would wrest the title of World Champion from Steinitz himself: Emanuel Lasker, the 2nd official World Chess Champion.

Even over a century later, Lasker remains enigmatic. He didn’t really have a “school” named after him. While clearly an adherent to Steinitz’ own principles, he himself didn’t appear to contribute much to the growing body of chess theory, despite his own contemporaries such as Tarrasch (who took and refined Steinitz’s even further, with a much greater prioritization on development) creating their own competing schools of chess.

Lasker’s usual reputation is that of a swindling codger who hypnotized his opponents over the board. It’s not a surprise Lasker seems so strange to us. One of his fellow masters, Richard Reti, tried but could not explain Lasker, so he concluded that Lasker deliberately played bad moves in order to confuse his opponents. Fischer would report that Lasker was a “coffeehouse” player who didn’t understand positional chess.

Imagine losing chess to this guy.

John Nunn seems to have written his Chess Course to completely dispel everyone of such notions.

The book

John Nunn’s Chess Course is not, strictly speaking, a mere collection of Lasker’s best games. Instead, it’s a standalone book intended to “flesh out some of the ideas discussed in [his] earlier books Understanding Chess Move by Move and Understanding Chess Middlegames”, with an emphasis on showing how multiple strategic concepts factor into different parts of the game. He settled on Lasker “for a variety of reasons. His chess credentials are impeccable, as he was World Champion for 27 years, longer than any other person. Moreover, he had what is often termed a ‘universal’ style, in that he could handle all types of position well, and therefore a study of his games would benefit all aspects of the reader’s play. His style tended towards straightforward plans, which he executed precisely. Such clear-cut play is especially instructive, because it’s possible to understand what he was trying to do and transfer the learning to one’s own games… A final point is that there is relatively little good material available on Lasker’s games. He didn’t write much himself, and subsequent commentators have not done him full justice.”

Nunn makes a very strong argument in the first chapter in answering “Why Lasker?” Then he turns his guns on Lasker’s critics in the second chapter: “Misunderstood Genius.” I won’t give further play-by-play but suffice to say Nunn makes a convincing case in Lasker’s favor in this chapter, which is further cemented as you read through the book. By the time Nunn has finished this chapter, Lasker makes a more Carlsen-esque or Karpovian impression than before.

The book is intended to be read from front to back, because the prior concepts are recursively illuminated upon in every chapter. What you have here is roughly 100 games and game fragments (with some revisitation) analyzed and annotated with the purpose of not making you a better chess theoretician but a better chess player. Lasker was always on up to the task of creating a better position for himself whenever possible. The emphasis is on practicality, because what put Lasker at the top of the chess world was his keen ability to exploit psychological weaknesses in his opponents. Lasker always strove to find the move that set forward the opponent the most problems. This is why some people think of him as a swindler. But you will find that in many cases, he’s simply the better, more practical player.

Much of the lessons in this book are entirely practical, focusing on Lasker’s psychological assets (such has his ability to stay in emotional control, and be objective about the position rather than over-press) and his opponent’s psychological defects (not noticing a changing trend in their disfavor, passive mindset leading to passive play). The prose is a major part of the book, but to back that up, Nunn provides a lot of analysis. Readers of Nunn probably already know what to expect: almost-nauseatingly thorough variations. I played through all of them, and at the end of each of them, his point was always made. I’m just warning you: it’s a lot!

Reading through this book, the vibe I get from Lasker is that he is above all a fighter. Lasker wants to brawl and complicate and do whatever it takes to lead to chances for an advantage. Compare this with Capablanca, whose laissez-faire approach to openings led to miserable middlegames he was content to defend. Lasker was clearly a strong defender, but he always sought to present his opponents with multiple choices to increase the unpleasantness of the game. But Nunn also shows us that Lasker was a patient player, and could make practical choices to reduce his opponent’s chances with subtleties. And sometimes, Lasker could create deceptive positions (with objectively correct moves) in order to surprise his opponents with sudden activity at the right moment. In a word, Lasker was tenacious.

Because this is a collection of lessons more than a collection of games, we also get to see Lasker make mistakes and even lose games — sometimes he just pushed a little bit too far or miscalculated something and got caught with his pants down. However, there are lots of good lessons here as well. One major takeaway from these games is that even the best chess players in the world learned to take their lumps. Another is that if you keep your cool, you can bring a game back from the brink, and save a half-point or even outright win.

After the 100 lessons, you’re given a relatively quaint exercise section with 24 positions from Lasker’s games. Often a tactic, sometimes you’re asked to find an idea that Lasker missed. The annotations and answers are, as always, very instructive. It’s nice to see if you can transform the “know-what” into “know-how”.

As a player I noticed after going through this book that I had a lot less opening anxiety. In general I’m booked up for most stuff. I know a lot of chess theory for my strength, and there’s a certain comfort in knowing exactly what moves I should play in any given opening. However, watching how Lasker dealt with his opponents in the opening was rather inspiring. In part, I was beginning to learn that you can have a slight disadvantage in the opening and it really wasn’t the end of the world. And, sometimes deviating from known theory can be to your advantage if your opponent isn’t prepared to actually think for themselves about the position. Lasker’s games taught me to be less afraid of thinking for myself, and it’s been a net positive in my play ever since.

Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed my time in this book, and it not only taught me how to play chess better and more practically, but also made me a convert to the position that Lasker was one of the strongest players to ever play the game — even by today’s standards. It’s hard to estimate how well he would do in today’s chess, but his anti-dogmatic approach to the game makes me think he’d be very successful in 2023. John Nunn certainly argues well for it with this excellent book. I read this one a year ago, and I’m already considering reading through it again, because I enjoyed it that much.

5/5