- WhiteEdward Lasker
- BlackGeorge Alan Thomas
- WhereLondon
- WhenOctober 29, 1912
- EventCasual game with a clock at the City of London Chess Club
- Result1–0, White won
- OpeningDutch Defense (A40)
- Length18 moves
In 1912 the young German engineer Edward Lasker came to London to learn English. His first visit, he wrote later, was of course to the City of London Chess Club, and there he won this game against the club champion, George Thomas. It was a casual game with a clock, with an unusual rule: neither player could at any point have used more than five minutes more than his opponent.
The date, October 29, 1912, is in the French magazine La Stratégie of January 1913 and in Lasker's own notebook. That matters, because few famous games have been given so carelessly. It has been dated to anywhere from 1910 to 1921, and several books have claimed that it was played by world champion Emanuel Lasker, a distant relative of Edward's.
According to Edward Lasker, Emanuel Lasker published the game in his column in the Berlin newspaper B.Z. am Mittag, under a heading that called it the tragicomic journey of the black king.
The players
Edward Lasker (1885–1981) was born in Kempen in Prussia and trained as a mechanical and electrical engineer in Berlin. In 1914 he moved to the United States, where he won the U.S. Open five times and wrote books about chess, go and checkers. In the 1920s he invented a mechanical breast pump that saved the lives of many premature babies.
George Alan Thomas (1881–1972), later Sir George Thomas, was an all-round sportsman. He was British chess champion twice, won 21 titles at the All England badminton championships and played at Wimbledon. The Thomas Cup, badminton's world team championship for men, is named after him. Lasker later praised how gracious Thomas was in defeat.
The game move by move
Step through with the arrows or tap a move. Moves with a dot have a comment.
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Play like Lasker
Guess the moves Lasker played, one at a time. The move from the game earns two points, and a move Lavi thinks is about as good earns one. The other side's moves and the game's notes come as you go.
The moments that decided it
The end
The game has been given with at least nine different move orders in the opening, with the wrong year and sometimes with 18.O-O-O# as the last move. Here we follow Lasker's own notebook, which dates the game to October 29, 1912, agrees with the earliest publications and ends with 18.Kd2#.
Why the game is famous
The game is one of the best-known examples of a king hunt. After the queen sacrifice, the black king is driven check after check across the whole board, from g8 to g1, where it is mated among White's own pieces. Lasker himself considered it “the most beautiful I ever played,” even though it was not a tournament game.
It is also an example of how hard it can be to get a famous game right. Edward Winter has found at least nine versions of the opening moves, and Lasker himself added to the confusion with accounts that contradicted each other. That is why we follow his notebook from 1912 here.
The whole game with notes, as text
1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 A Dutch Defense, by a different move order. Black wants to control e4. 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 The bishop attacks the knight on f6, which guards e4. 4… Be7 5. Bxf6 White trades off the defender of e4 and can now play e4. 5… Bxf6 6. e4 fxe4 7. Nxe4 White has opened up the center. 7… b6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. Bd3 Bb7 10. Qh5 The queen aims at h7. 10… Qe7 A fatal mistake. With 10…Bxe5 Black would have won a pawn instead. According to a German magazine from 1912, Lasker announced mate right here. 11. Qxh7+ The queen sacrifice. The king has to take, and then it is driven forward, check after check. 11… Kxh7 12. Nxf6+ Double check: the knight checks from f6 and the bishop on d3 from the other side. 12… Kh6 After 12…Kh8 it would have been mate at once with 13.Ng6#. 13. Neg4+ The king has only one square left and is driven further forward. 13… Kg5 14. h4+ 14.f4+ was faster, something Lasker learned years later in a letter from Australia. 14… Kf4 15. g3+ Kf3 16. Be2+ Alexander Alekhine pointed out the following year that 16.Kf1 or 16.O-O would have mated a move faster, with 17.Nh2#. 16… Kg2 17. Rh2+ Kg1 The king has gone from g8 to g1, right in among White's pieces. 18. Kd2# Mate with a king move: the king steps aside, and the rook on a1 gives discovered check along the whole first rank. Castling queenside would also have been mate. Fifty years later Lasker wrote: “I actually considered castling, but the efficiency-minded engineer in me got the better of it and I played K-Q2 which required moving only one piece.” K-Q2 is the old way of writing Kd2.
PGN – the game as text for other chess programs
[Event "Casual game with a clock at the City of London Chess Club"] [Site "London"] [Date "1912.10.29"] [Round "?"] [White "Edward Lasker"] [Black "George Alan Thomas"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "A40"] 1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. e4 fxe4 7. Nxe4 b6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. Bd3 Bb7 10. Qh5 Qe7 11. Qxh7+ Kxh7 12. Nxf6+ Kh6 13. Neg4+ Kg5 14. h4+ Kf4 15. g3+ Kf3 16. Be2+ Kg2 17. Rh2+ Kg1 18. Kd2# 1-0
Sources
- Chessgames.com, Ed. Lasker–Thomas 1912
- Wikipedia: Edward Lasker
- Edward Winter: Chaos in a Miniature (Lasker v Thomas)
The moves compared in two sources (Chessgames, Wikipedia): identical, 35 half-moves. Edward Winter shows that the same move order is in Lasker's notebook, dated October 29, 1912, and in the earliest publications (Deutsches Wochenschach, December 8, 1912). The date is also in La Stratégie, January 1913. Every move has also been replayed by computer and checked against the rules of chess.
Updated November 6, 2026
Edward Lasker has the white pieces, George Alan Thomas the black.