Lasker's Manual of Chess is a book on the game of chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 written in 1925 by former World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker

Emanuel Lasker

Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...

. The content of the book, as Lasker himself writes, is most influenced by the theories put forth by Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian and then American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894. From the 1870s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz was effectively the champion earlier...

, as well as Staunton

Howard Staunton

Howard Staunton was an English chess master who is generally regarded as having been the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, largely as a result of his 1843 victory over Saint-Amant. He promoted a chess set of clearly distinguishable pieces of standardised shape—the Staunton pattern—that...

's The Chess-Player's Handbook.

Contents

The book is divided into six sections: The Elements of Chess, The Theory of the Openings, The Combination, Position Play, The Aesthetic Effect in Chess, and Examples and Models.

The Elements of Chess opens with a description of the chess board, the various rules of chess, and the relative values of the pieces. Lasker quickly moves on to the fundamentals of chess strategy and tactics, and ends the section with examples of some of the basic mates

Checkmate

Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...

. He also explains how to read descriptive chess notation

Descriptive chess notation

Descriptive notation is a notation for recording chess games, and at one time was the most popular notation in English-speaking and Spanish-speaking countries , . It was used in Europe until it was superseded by abbreviated algebraic notation, which was introduced by Philipp Stamma in 1737...

, which is used throughout the book.

The Theory of the Openings begins with an explanation of the general principles of opening

Chess opening

A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...

 play and how openings affect the course of the middlegame and endgame. The rest of the section attempts to cover many of the major openings, providing example games and analyses of each. This section ends by detailing the increasing value of pawns

Pawn (chess)

The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...

 as they advance in rank, in contrast to their value in the opening.

The Combination covers combinational play

Combination (chess)

In chess, a combination is a sequence of moves, often initiated by a sacrifice, which leaves the opponent few options and results in tangible gain. At most points in a chess game, each player has several reasonable options from which to choose, which makes it difficult to plan ahead except in...

 (also called "tactical play" or "tactics"), beginning with explanations of some basic combinations, and moving on to detail a number of games meant to exemplify combinational style. Lasker goes on to explain how combinations can be most effectively countered, and what common "motifs" emerge from combinational play. He also spends considerable time on the subject of piece sacrifices

Sacrifice (chess)

In chess, a sacrifice is a move giving up a piece in the hopes of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value....

 and passed pawns.

Position Play is prefaced with an exposition on the difference between positional play and combinational play, and Lasker stresses their diametrical opposition. He explains the importance of having a clear "plan" of the game, and provides a number of example games. The rest of the section is concerned with identifying and describing the various "features" and "advantages" of a position, such as its pawn structure and potential for piece cooperation. In the closing pages of this section Lasker criticizes the hypermodern school of chess

Hypermodernism (chess)

Hypermodernism is a school of chess that emerged after World War I. It featured challenges on the chess ideologies presented by central European masters, such as on Wilhelm Steinitz’ approach to the centre. It also challenged in particular the dogmatic rules set down by Siegbert Tarrasch...

 for disregarding many accepted principles of positional play.

The Aesthetic Effect in Chess finds Lasker expounding on the ways that the subjective "aesthetic valuations" of a "spectator" cause him or her to have vastly different opinions of the same game. The rest of this section comprises various famously uncanny games, such as the Immortal game

Immortal game

The Immortal Game was a chess game played by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky on 21 June 1851 in London, during a break of the first international tournament. The very bold sacrifices made by Anderssen to finally secure victory have made it one of the most famous chess games of all time...

 and the Evergreen game

Evergreen game

The Evergreen game is a famous chess game played in Berlin in 1852 between Adolf Anderssen and Jean Dufresne.Adolf Anderssen was one of the strongest players of his time, and was considered by many to be the world champion after winning the London 1851 tournament. Jean Dufresne, a popular author of...

, with some analysis from Lasker.

Examples and Models, the book's final section, consists entirely of a number of illustrative games, each with a thorough analysis.

The book closes with a short essay titled Final Reflections, in which Lasker describes the state of education in the world as "frightfully wasteful of time and values", and states that this "sickness" is responsible for the difficulties many players face in learning chess. Lasker also goes on to speculate about the mathematics of chess, the "physics of contest", and the correctness of Steinitz's theories.