St Petersburg 1909

ST. PETERSBURG 1909
Author: Emanuel Lasker
Russell Enterprises (2008)
190 pages
$18.95

Reviewed by John Donaldson

A year after St. Petersburg 1909, Emanuel Lasker published a book in English on this famous event annotating the 175 games played there. Recently a new edition has appeared, the first time in algebraic notation. ST. PETERSBURG 1909 differs from the original in the following ways: it is in algebraic instead of descriptive notation, more diagrams have been added, it features a two-page introduction by Tim Harding and an easier to use index of games. While it does reproduce the group photograph of the tournament participants, it does not include the seven other photographs in the original – otherwise it is faithful to the first edition.

A first edition of St. Petersburg 1909 will set you back over $100 and the 1971 Dover reprint (English Descriptive) has long been out of print, so Russell Enterprises has done the chess world a service in producing this new edition. Play over the games and watch Lasker and Rubinstein run away from the field and generate interest in a match between them that was never to be.

Click to buy (or get more information about) ST. PETERSBURG 1909