(1885-1981)
U.S. Chess
Hall of Fame
Inducted 2017
In 1914, Edward Lasker emigrated from Germany to the United States, where he soon became one of America’s top early 20th-century players. Lasker won five U.S. Open Chess Championships (1916, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921), which were then known as the Western Open. In 1923, he challenged Frank Marshall to a match for the U.S. Chess Championship and narrowly lost, 8.5-9.5. Lasker popularized chess through his books, including Chess for Fun & Chess for Blood (1942), Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters (1951), and The Adventure of Chess (1959). His Schachstrategie (1911), later published in English as Chess Strategy (1915), was an influential primer on the game that went through many editions.
