World Championship 1910: Lasker – Schlechter

Carl Schlechter, the gentle Austrian famed for his draws, pushed Lasker closer to defeat than anyone had in sixteen years. Leading with one game to play, Schlechter — mysteriously — spurned the draw that might have made him champion, pressed for a win, and lost. The match finished tied 5–5, and Lasker kept the crown.

◇A draw away from the title

Schlechter, whose reputation as a peaceable drawing master belied real depth, won the fifth game after a Lasker blunder and carried a one-point lead into the tenth and final game. A draw there would, by most accounts, have made him World Champion.

Lasker sensed the danger. Two days before the last game he wrote to the New York Evening Post: "it appears probable that for the first time in my life I shall be the loser. If that should happen a good man will have won the World Championship."

◇The mystery of game ten

Instead of steering for the draw, Schlechter played sharply for a win — and lost. Historians still debate why: some cite a possible clause requiring the challenger to win by two points; others believe the scrupulously honourable Schlechter simply refused to take the title on the back of a single lucky game.

Lasker's victory levelled the match at 5–5, and he retained the championship he would hold until 1921. Schlechter never got another chance; he died, in poverty, in 1918.

“It appears probable that for the first time in my life I shall be the loser. If that should happen a good man will have won the World Championship.”