That was torture. I found myself willing Marshall to resign just to end the pain. The two pawn advances near the end were just rubbing salt into the wound...

Brilliant game and outstanding narration!

Another great video, thanks. Just in one of your sidelines: after Qxa6 the black can immediately play Qxe1+ and mate rather than play dxe3

Thanks Sam, I learned a lot from this endgame. Clear and well explained, as always.

Somehow, in the end, Lasker is my favourite player from the past. He is not a fancy player, not hyper modern, not super attacking, but you feel every one of his moves is just slightly unpleasant to the opponent, you only don’t quite get why. And then, with such accurate play, he is grabbing his opponent at the throat, not letting him go. His play embodies the true spirit of chess, it is fantastic!

So when you say Marshall could’ve chosen to enter that endgame after Qd2 instead of g3, does that mean both players saw all that?! 🤯 I saw two games before where super GMs (Nakamarua and Mamedyarov) took risks against lower rated players and could’ve/did enter endgames where it was possible to be drawn, but they gave up all winning prospects with those risks (Nakamura beat “Baules,” I believe, because Baules didn’t go in for that and Nakamura ended up checking him, and SM lost to Firouzja when Ali actually went into that endgame and Shak blundered). Really interesting. Marshall maybe just really didn’t want to grind down in this first game of their match. :D

Was it in Marshall's Chess Swindles? I doubt he highlighted his losses in his book.

So it appears you will not share any of my suggestions. know this is a superb endgame, But overall, most of your choices for the first decade of the twentieth century have been pretty deep cuts.

First