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| lblai@blackburn.edu (Louis Blair) wrote in message
news:<f8f5e7b4.0409201238.f482330@posting.google.com>...(to George Mirijanian):
quote:
> (snipped)
Some ignorant people have claimed (including in this thread) that
Emanuel Lasker was a 'strong Go player'. But the available evidence
(as described by Edward Lasker) supports the opposite conclusion.
quote:
> From Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters by Edward Lasker:
>
> "He (Emanuel Lasker) became utterly fascinated with this game (Go) which
> opened unexplored realms of positional and combinative play, and he arranged
> weekly 'Go meetings' at his house. One night we were invited to meet a
> Go master at the Japanese Club.
It's unclear exactly how strong was the Japanese 'Go master'.
I suppose that he should have been the equivalent of from a 1-dan to a 9-dan
in Japanese professional Go today.
quote:
> Although Emanuel Lasker, his brother Berthold, and I were to play in
> consultation, a handicap of nine moves (stones) was proposed--something
> like Queen odds in chess.
The comparison to 'Queen odds in chess' might be an exaggeration.
I am not a 'Go master', yet I have been able to give a handicap of
nine stones and win comfortably against many beginners.
quote:
> Lasker laughed and said he did not think anybody in the world could
> give him that handicap if he could take his time in studying his moves.
Evidently, Emanuel Lasker was a highly overconfident novice player.
quote:
> We had played over some games of Japanese masters and felt fairly sure
> we understood the reasons behind their play.
Evidently, Emanuel Lasker was highly deluded about his understanding of Go.
quote:
> But our opponent smiled and suggested that we let him try it anyway.
> Our confidence was indeed considerably ruffled from the start.
> The Japanese master answered our deep-laid plots without ever taking more
> than a fraction of a second for his reply.
It's hardly surprising that a Japanese Go master would be able to perceive
a quite different game, almost immediately, than some consulting Go novices.
quote:
> To make the story short--the fellow completely demolished us,
> and Emanuel Lasker was the most downcast of men.
I have observed an experienced amateur Go player (though far from being a
'Go master') accept a handicap of fewer than nine stones (he began with *less*
of an advantage than the Laskers had) and defeat a professional 9-dan player
(who probably would have been at least as strong as the Laskers' opponent).
quote:
> On the way home he proposed that we should try to arrange to go to
> Japan for a few months and play a great deal with their masters.
*If* Emanuel Lasker imagined that he could become a 'Go master' (in a
Japanese professional sense) after *only* 'a few months' of practice
with Japanese Go masters, then he was being absurdly optimistic.
Michael Redmond (whom I have played) has become the first 'Westerner' to reach
9-dan in Japanese professional Go. At age 14, he began his full-time training
(as an 'insei') in Japan to become a professional Go player, and he became a
professional 9-dan Go player at the age of 37.
quote:
> He said: 'The Japanese haven't as yet produced a mathematician who compares
> with the best we can muster. I am convinced that we can, ultimately, beat
> them at Go, the ideal game for a mathematical mind.'"
Based on the available evidence, Emanuel Lasker was a novice Go player
with an extremely optimistic perception of his own strength at Go.
--Nick
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