What is the absolute best move in chess?

Hi all

In my analysis of Emanuel Lasker, it was often misunderstood what kind of game style Lasker had. He was considered one of the first "universal players" and often highly adaptive to who he was actually playing and under what circumstances. But in the time of Lasker, he did not have that many fans for a player of his standing. And he was the longest-running world chess champion. So was it just luck he was able to dominate the game for over 20 years - or was something else going on with Lasker that people at the time did not appreciate?

The first World chess champion "Chameleon"

It seems Lasker was the first major "chameleon" who was really adaptive to the very specific circumstances he was playing in - his opponent, how much he needed to win, and a load of other factors. Plugging in all these factors in a human to a human contest gives a potentially huge competitive advantage. Playing to your strengths and the opponent's weaknesses is just taken for granted nowadays. Even when playing computers, one can adopt an "Anti-computer" playing style - well this was effective back in the '80s and '90s in any case. Not so much nowadays!

There is a thought-provoking video here considering the question:

"What is the absolute best move in Chess?"

https://youtu.be/ByxTlsMxwn8

I hope you may find it interesting. In lichess also the clock is a major factor in many games as well as the "all you can fit in" style of tournament which often makes winning more quickly very beneficial for getting tournament victories.

So this question of the "best move" could be influenced by these kinds of factors too. You may have spent a lot of time modeling yourself on Super-GM one-day games and not really taken into consideration the entirely different game context online play represents. So maybe the video above will be thought-provoking and stimulating and relax the idea about having to try and mirror Super Grandmasters, but instead play moves which you understand, and could end up winning games more quickly especially if you love online chess compared to one-day over-the-board chess.

An iconic Lasker game example vs Capablanca

Lasker needed to win in the last round, and actually chooses the exchange variation vs Capablanca. Bobby Fischer also used this variation and must have studied also Lasker's earlier wins with the exchange variation. Sometimes people perhaps attribute psychology to the exchange variation decision but also it is a fact Lasker had a number of great wins with it before this epic encounter.

So this example is not given completely as to evidence for "psychology" vs Capablanca for trying to get him over-confident but also factor in Lasker's prior experience of this variation - which Bobby Fischer also used 3 times successfully at a key Olympiad.

A psychologist or just good moves?

Sometimes there is a funny ambiguity between Lasker the psychologist and Lasker just playing what he knows best. He was however not entirely terrified of Capablanca's legendry endgame skills.

Soon Lasker got a crushing position but also leveraged a great concept of "undoubling the opponents' pawns" to transform the advantage into something more exploitable.

f4 is on the way to a theoretically "backward" pawn if f5 is played later

e4 really made backward now but is it actually exploitable - what of the Bf4 upside?

Two aspects of advantage "exploitable" emerge - e6 square and also backward d pawn

Final position

Key takeaway points

• Factor in who you are playing sometimes - especially your "frequent opponents"
• Factor in the clock situation
• Be "appropriate" to the specific situation you are in
• Factor in opening variations you have already a great track record with
• Factor in other factors!

Want to go further? Explore all my online chess courses at https://www.chessworld.net/online-chess-courses.asp – learn openings, tactics, strategy, and more.

Cheers, K