Lasker Plagiarises the Great Morphy

In these lectures, in this book, Lasker plagiarised the great Morphy and his ideas about the
fight for the centre and about attack in and for itself. For the idea of attack as
something optimistic, something creative, was entirely unfamiliar to Lasker the chess
master and in this regard he was the natural successor to Steinit, the greatest grotes!ue
the history of chess had to endure.
What is Jewish Chess, the Jewish chess idea in its real essence? It is
not hard to answer this question:-
1. Material profit at all costs
!. "pportunis# - an opportunis# pushed to the hi$hest point with the ai# of
eli#inatin$ e%en the shadow of a potential dan$er and which consequentl& re%eals an idea 'if
one can appl& the word (idea) to this* na#el& (defence, in and for itself.) +s far as future
possibilities are concerned, Jewish chess has du$ its own $ra%e in de%elopin$ this (idea) which,
in an& for# of co#bat whate%er cannot #ean an&thin$ else, finall& than suicide. ,or by merely
defending one"s self, one may occasionally #and how often$% avoid defeat & but how does
one win$ 'here is a possible answer( by a mistake on one"s opponent"s part. )hat if the
opponent fails to make this mistake$ *ll that the defender&at&all&costs can then do is whine
in complaint of this absence of errors.
+t is not easy to e,plain how the defence idea succeeded in gaining so many adherents. *s
far as -urope is concerned, there came, between the matches La .ourdonnais and
Macdonald /sic&0S1 fought with remarkable enthusiasm and spirit, and the appearances
of *nderssen and Morphy, a very characteristic period of chess chess dawn &
culminating probably in the match between Staunton and Saint&*mant.
2ndoubtedly, there are a few true and correct elements in 3iemtsovitch"s doctrines4 but
whatever is correct is no his own but was created by others, old masters as well as
contemporaries, and he plagiarised it, consciously or unconsciously.
Correct were
5. 'he idea of battle for the centre, a Morphy conception4 this had
previously been illustrated by 'chigorin"s best achievements as well as
the games of 6illsbury and 7harousek.
8.and 9. 'he truths of M. de la 6alisse, namely that it is of advantage to occupy the
seventh rank and, finally that it is better to be able to take advantage of two weaknesses in
the opponent"s camp than only one.
'hese were truths. :n the other hand, there were many inaccuracies which were a direct
conse!uence of his attitude toward chess, for whatever was half&way to being original had
a cadaverous smell denying all that is creative. -,amples( #5% manoeuvring is nothing
more than the Steinit&Lasker idea of waiting until one"s opponent blunders4 #8%
overprotection #a premature protection of supposedly weak points% is again a purely
;ewish idea contradicting the whole spirit of struggle, i.e., being afraid of battle. <oubt in
one"s own spiritual powers & truly, this is a sad picture of intellectual self&humiliation=
'o the .ratislava master, >ichard >eti, the chess world owes, without a doubt, gratitude
for having proved the 3iemtsovitch idea of overprotection to be an absurdity. For he
applied the theory of concentrating on an opponent"s weaknesses from the very beginning,
no matter how that opponent built up his game..
>eti was applauded by the plurality of *nglo&;ewish intellectuals for his work Modern
+deas in 7hess, ?ust as 3iemtsovitch had been for My System, and these people were
particularly impressed by the absurd cry >eti invented, namely )e, the young masters
#he was then 9@% are not interested in rules but in e,ceptions. +f this sentence makes
sense at all, it means )e #or rather, +% know the rules governing the game of chess much
too well. 'o carry on with further research in this field will be, in future, the task of the
more feeble&minded of the chess community. .ut, +, the grandmaster, will devote myself
e,clusively to the more delicate filigree of brilliant e,ceptions, with my own clear
elucidations. 'his cheap bluff, this shameless half&attempt at self&boosting, was swallowed
without a struggle by a chess world already doped by ;ewish ?ournalists, the e,ulting cries
of the ;ews and their friends Long Live >eti and the hyper&modern, neo&romantic chess=
finding an echo far and wide.
'he Soviet chess master .otvinnik owes, in my opinion, even more than
his *merican co&religionist to the influence of the younger >ussian school. +nstinctively
inclined
to safety first, he has slowly become a master who knows how to use the weapons of
aggression. 0ow this occurred, is a curious and typical story( not the idea of attack and , if
necessary, sacrifice, but & however, parado,ical this might seem & the idea of procuring, by
attacking possibilities, even greater security for himself, is responsible for this change.
:nly by subtle knowledge, by intensely careful study of #a% new potentialities in the
openings and #b% the attacking and sacrificial techni!ue of the old masters, .otvinnik has
succeeded in rounding off his original style and impressing it with the marks of a certain
many&sidedness. 'hat he is strong, very strong now, there can be no doubt. *ll the same,
most of .otvinnik"s games make a dry and soulless impression. 'his is easily e,plained(
there is no art in which the most perfect copy could arouse the same feelings as the original
and, as far as attack is concerned, .otvinnik"s chess is ?ust no more than an e,cellent copy
of the old masters. +n spite of these shortcomings, + should say that one can consider
.otvinnik to be an e,ception, compared with all the others we have mentioned.
0ailed as a kind of child&prodigy in his hometown #he won the championship of 7uba at
the age of twelve%, admired as a fiery attacking player with real Morphy insight at the
outset of his career, 7apablanca would have become not only the god of the Latin chess
world & as he actually was for long & but the idol of the whole world chess community, had
he not been sent, as a young man, to 7olumbia 2niversity in 3ew Aork and there
assimilated, in ;ewry"s capital, the professional methods of the chess&Aankees. >epressing
his tactical endowments, he forced himself, even as an eighteen&year&old, to regard chess
not as an end in itself, but as a means of livelihood and to pursue the ;ewish principle of
safety&first to the limit. So great were his natural gifts, that for a certain time he was
able to set himself up as a master of defence4 and so shrewd was he that he sought to
?ustify the negative principle of defensive chess, through pseudostrategical conceptions, in
numerous writings. 7ontinual transitory brilliant e,ceptions, fiery blites, occurred,
even in his world championship matches & sub&conscious reactions of his repressed
temperament.