Moravska Ostrava 1923
Two years after losing his crown to Capablanca, the 54-year-old Emanuel Lasker was coaxed out of near-retirement by a Czechoslovak ironworks to play his first tournament since 1918. Across thirteen rounds against a formidable field he did not lose a single game, finishing undefeated on 10½/13 — a full point ahead of Richard Réti — in a display of escape and resourcefulness that Capablanca would still be marvelling at years later.
◈A champion coaxed back
After his 1921 match loss to Capablanca it seemed safe to assume that Emanuel Lasker, then in his fifties, would quietly retire; he had always kept chess at arm's length and had gone years at a stretch without competition. In the summer of 1923 a sizeable contract from the Witkowitzer Eisenwerke — the great Vítkovice ironworks — brought him back for an international tournament in Mährisch-Ostrau, Czechoslovakia (Mährisch is German for Moravian, Ostrau for Ostrava).
The fourteen masters were billeted at the Hotel Royal, and the games were played from 1 to 18 July in Witkowitz, a suburb of Ostrava. It was Lasker's first tournament appearance since 1918, and the field around him was strong: Réti, Grünfeld, Euwe, Tartakower, Bogoljubow, Tarrasch, Spielmann and Rubinstein all took part.
◈Vintage Lasker, undefeated
Lasker put on a staggering performance — eight wins, five draws, no losses — to finish on 10½/13, a full point clear of Réti, who lost only in his individual game against the old champion. It was vintage Lasker: a series of daring escapes and resourceful defences, coffee-house chess raised to a transcendent level. His win over Siegbert Tarrasch, the last of some thirty games in one of the sport's great rivalries, so impressed Capablanca that he singled it out years afterward as a sacrifice like no other he had seen. The tournament also gave Lasker his first encounter with the 22-year-old Max Euwe, a future world champion left simply bewildered.
Réti, then in his most adamantly hypermodern phase, opened every game as White with 1.Nf3 and took clear second. Grünfeld finished undefeated in third; Alexey Selezniev scored the best result of his career in fourth. Rubinstein, by contrast, continued his decline with a losing score in tenth, redeemed only by a brilliant King's Gambit win. Tarrasch took the brilliancy prize for defeating Spielmann's King's Gambit — a loss that so unsettled Spielmann, one of the opening's great modern champions, that he published an article wondering whether it had at last been refuted.
◈Escapes, sketches, and a rivalry's last act
Mährisch-Ostrau confirmed that Lasker, even in semi-retirement, remained a force at the very top of the game. It also carried a quiet cultural legacy: David Friedmann, a lithographer native to the town, sketched the leading players at the event. The originals were later seized by the Gestapo and, in many cases, painstakingly tracked down after the war — among the enduring visual records of the classical era.
For Lasker the tournament was both a triumphant return and a farewell to old rivals; his win over Tarrasch closed a rivalry that had run for decades. It reminded the chess world that a former champion, coaxed back for a fee, remained exactly the escape artist and fighter they remembered.
◈Final Standings
| # | Player | Score | Record | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lasker, Emanuel | 10½/13 | +8 -0 =5 | games → |
| 2 | Reti, Richard | 9½/13 | +7 -1 =5 | games → |
| 3 | Gruenfeld, Ernst | 8½/13 | +4 -0 =9 | games → |
| 4 | Selezniev, Alexey Sergeevich | 7½/13 | +4 -2 =7 | games → |
| 5 | Euwe, Max | 7/13 | +4 -3 =6 | games → |
| 6 | Tartakower, Saviely | 7/13 | +3 -2 =8 | games → |
| 7 | Bogoljubow, Efim | 6½/13 | +5 -5 =3 | games → |
| 8 | Tarrasch, Siegbert | 6½/13 | +4 -4 =5 | games → |
| 9 | Spielmann, Rudolf | 6/13 | +4 -5 =4 | games → |
| 10 | Rubinstein, Akiba | 5½/13 | +2 -4 =7 | games → |
| 11 | Pokorny, Amos | 5/13 | +2 -5 =6 | games → |
| 12 | Hromadka, Karel | 4½/13 | +3 -7 =3 | games → |
| 13 | Wolf, Heinrich | 4½/13 | +2 -6 =5 | games → |
| 14 | Walter, Max | 2½/13 | +0 -8 =5 | games → |
Cross Table
| Rank | Player | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lasker, Emanuel | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | |
| 2 | Reti, Richard | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 3 | Gruenfeld, Ernst | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | |
| 4 | Selezniev, Alexey Sergeevich | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | |
| 5 | Euwe, Max | 0 | ½ | ½ | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 6 | Tartakower, Saviely | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | |
| 7 | Bogoljubow, Efim | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| 8 | Tarrasch, Siegbert | 0 | ½ | ½ | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ½ | 1 | |
| 9 | Spielmann, Rudolf | ½ | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 1 | |
| 10 | Rubinstein, Akiba | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | |
| 11 | Pokorny, Amos | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | |
| 12 | Hromadka, Karel | ½ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 1 | ½ | |
| 13 | Wolf, Heinrich | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | |
| 14 | Walter, Max | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 |
Each cell shows the row player's per-game results against the column player (in round order). ● = same player.
“Lasker sacrificed a pawn. But what a sacrifice! I have seen no such sacrifice in any modern games! … As the saying goes, it shook the board.”
“It is not possible to learn from Lasker; one can only stand and wonder.”