Skip to main content

Just common sense

Who is the greatest chess player of all time? Hard to say. But one of the people on the list is arguably Emanuel Lasker. He was the second official world champion and held his title for a massive 27 years. Apart from this achievement, a significant part of his legacy is the book Common Sense in Chess which was first published more than a hundred years ago. This review is an attempt to present this classic book with all the respect that it deserves.

If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details.
Become a Patron!

What can you expect from this book?

Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941) was a German chess player, mathematician and philosopher who was one of the world's greatest chess players.  He won the World Championship title against Steinitz in 1894 and kept it for 27 years until he lost it to Capablanca in 1921. Besides being the longest reigning world champion of all time, he had some outstanding tournament results. For instance in Moscow 1935, he was undefeated and finished 3rd place behind Botvinnik and Flohr at the age of 66, which is quite remarkable.

Lasker was mostly known as a chess player, and not so much as an author. In addition to Common sense in chess, he has written the well-respected Lasker's Manual of Chess. But apart from these books, his publications are both few and mostly unknown.

Common sense in chess was first published in 1896 as an abstract of 12 lectures given to club players in London 1895. This was later republished in 1924 with the German title Gesunder Menschenverstand im Schach. I have read the Swedish version Sunt förnuft i Schack published in 1964. Apparently, the translator Bengt Hörberg, decided to exclude some of the opening lines were because they were considered outdated, a similar decision as was made with Questions of Modern Chess Theory. The original book was of course in descriptive notation, but the Swedish translation is in algebraic notation, which is nice.

The book is divided into five chapter, each concerning a different topic:
  • General principles of opening play
  • Principles of attack
  • Principles of defensive play
  • The endgame
  • Different playing styles in chess
In the chapter on opening play Lasker presents some principles that should be well-known to most chess players of today:
  1. Do not move any pawns in the opening of a game but the king and the queen pawn.
  2. Do not move any piece twice in the opening, but put it at once upon the right square (usually post the knights on c3, f3, c6 or f6 and the kingside bishop somewhere on its original diagonal if not exposed to exchange at c4).
  3. Bring your knights out before developing the bishops, especially the queen's bishop.
  4. Do not pin the adverse king knight by Bg5 before your opponent has castled.
Lasker says that chess is a fight and states that the opening should not take more than six moves and the purpose is to mobilize our troops to seize important lines and points which are yet wholly unoccupied. Then he gives some short example games which explains what happens if the principles are not followed.

In the middlegame part he explains some principles or themes to know when and what to attack. For example weak king, mobility, weak pawns, Steinitz definition of the balance of the position. He talks about stalling an attack until the opponent's pieces are poorly placed. And then he has some games with comments to clarify this.

The endgame part consists of several examples that are winning or drawing and are carefully selected to enlight different themes in the endgame like the passed pawn, the active king, zugzwang, corresponding squares etc. I really liked this part because for me his carefully selected positions and striking comments makes it quite easy to remember the positions.

In the last chapter which is a bit philosophical he defines five different types of playing styles and exemplifies with some of his contemporary opponents. The value of doing this is for me a bit unclear, and gives a rather philosophical impression. Lasker states that only masters can have a style, and that he has never seen an amateur play a consistent game from start to finish. So perhaps one can use Lasker's categorization of the old masters to find role models to study. Or maybe one could just skip that chapter altogether. Either way is fine. 

Laskers writing style is clear and easy to comprehend, and the Swedish version is just 70 pages. I was a bit surprised that such an old book was so well written and that it does not seem dated, being from 1895. The fundamental principles in it seem universal and stand the test of time. The openings are perhaps a bit old fashioned, but I do not think Lasker´s point was to make a repertoire book with the best moves, instead using examples to show principles.

Common sense in chess is a surprisingly good book. The book is well-written and presents some of the fundamental classical chess principles in a very accessible way. Also, the examples are clear and well selected. And the book is very compact, so it has a high amount of content per page.

Who should read this book?

I think this book is best suited for players who have learned the basic rules but need some structure to their games. So if you are a post-beginner, with a playing strength of about 1200-1600, this might be a good book for you. The book is also a must read for anyone interested in chess history and the classic publications of the old masters. It is well worth the read.

About this book

Author:Emanuel Lasker
Title:Common sense in chess
Type of book:Middlegame
Level:Beginner/Intermediate


Guest review by Boll.

Comments

Popular reviews

Master of strategy

During the past two years, I’ve been working on improving my strategic/positional play. In this process, I have read a number of books, and two books that have long been on my reading list are the strategy books by Johan Hellsten. So when the Swedish chess federation requested reviewers for two of these books, I didn’t hesitate. I am happy that I was given the opportunity to review these books, and hope this review can be of help to you as a reader. If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from these books? Johan Hellsten has created a name for himself as one of the leading experts of chess strategy in modern times. His series of strategy books ( Mastering Opening Strategy , Mastering Chess Strategy and Mastering Endgame Strategy ) have received glowing reviews from many parts of the chess world. So it feels good to finally dig into these nuggets. His endgame book is still in my boo...

Winning chess strategies

Chess strategy is one of the most elusive and difficult parts of chess. Compared to the direct and transparent world of chess tactics, strategy can be confusing and opaque. At the patzer level, tactical strikes that gain material or lead to checkmate can be obvious (provided that one understands the tactic). However, in many cases, strong players claim that a move is obvious although it doesn't result in material gain or even a semblance of an attack. We, the patzers of the world, scratch our heads and wonder how on earth anyone can find such moves obvious. How can we take steps towards this deeper level of chess understanding? Picking up a basic strategy book is a good first step. And that's what I did here. If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from this book? As a part of my ambition to deepen my understanding of chess strategy, I took on a mission of reading (and rev...

Stop and reassess!

In my very first post on this blog, I reviewed The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman. That was my first step to understand chess strategy. And I actually bought another one of Silman's book at the same time, but for some reason, it took me more than ten years to read. I finally decided to go through it and now I am ready to share my thoughts with you. (It feels like I've written this before.) If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from this book? Before writing this review, I had a few candidates. I am always reading several books in parallel, and I have a number that I'm about to finish. So I asked the Twitter community for input on which book they would like me to review as number 50. And this came out on top. So far I have reviewed 49 books on #patzersreview . Which one should be number 50? My candidates are: - Silman: Reassess your chess workbook - Nunn: Solving in...

Not only for kids

Do you read children's books? If you're and adult, you will probably steer clear of any book that has the phrase "for kids" in it. Since it's for kids, and you're not a kid. Right? Well there are some exceptions, and this is one of them. Author Jeff Coakley has written a number of books "for kids": Winning chess strategy for kids , Winning chess exercises for kids and Winning chess puzzles for kids (vol 1 and 2). Although the titles suggest otherwise, these books are highly instructive and useful for players of all ages. In this review, I have chosen to focus on the first book in his series, Winning chess strategy for kids . What can you expect from this book? Immediately when seeing this book, you will realize that there is one major feature that is "for kids", and that is the artwork. Apart from that, there is no reason to assume that this book cannot be used for adult improvers. I used this book as a part of my tactics training p...

Judgement and planning

Some books "fly under the radar" and do not get the same attention as the evergreen classics. But sometimes, there is gold in old mines. And I found a little golden nugget while shopping for used books. A book written for amateurs, by (arguably) the best amateur of all time; former world champion Max Euwe. Sounds promising, right? If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from this book? In my previous review of Chess Fundamentals , said that few world champions have written books for beginners and intermediate players. Capablanca is, of course, one exception. And another is Max Euwe. Euwe is not the most well-known world champion. He was in his prime in the 1930s and 1940s, most notably in 1935 when he dethroned none other than the great Alexander Alekhine. Although many have suggested that Alekhine only lost because of heavy use of alcohol, beating him is no small feat (rega...