(The following series of letters is reprinted from the "Letters Section" of the August, 1981 issue of Chess Life Magazine, reprinted with the kind permission of the publication). They are self explanatory and display yet another facet to the broad background of Mordechai Rechtman, principal bassoonist of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. You chess enthusiasts should be particularly interested in this. In a recent letter to IDRS President, Sol Schoenbach, Mr. Rechtman noted that he is currently playing a correspondence game with 70 years old Samuel Reshevsky who is qualified for the World Cup IV semi finals group 3, Chess Championship. Ed.)
Dear Mr. Hoban:
It was not until last evening when I learned of Edward Lasker's passing, after conversations with Harry Lyman and Arthur Bisguier on the telephone. Wonderful memories are still fresh in my mind of my 3 1/2 hours visit with Mr. Lasker in his apartment on March 10 of this year.
I thought it would be of service to our chess community and to Chess Life to submit what I believe to be the final (correspondence) game of Edward Lasker -- still incomplete at the time of his death -- an "unfinished symphony" so to speak! It was being played against my very dear friend Mordechai Rechtman, principal bassoonist of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. I send to you a copy of Lasker's touching and beautiful letter to me, agreeing to play the game with Mordechai -- also a copy of an aerogram by Mordechai to me while he was in Montreal giving master classes last month. He had just spoken to Lasker by telephone about the game -- and the subsequent letter of March 18 confirms the position through 20 moves. At the moment I cannot locate the most recent move (and final ones) of 21.Q-B2 and 21 . . .B-Q1.
I hope you will consider publishing the game as a final tribute (a last "snapshot" of Lasker's chess) to your dear friend over the years and my "newly found" friend -- Edward Lasker.
Dear Mr. Altman:
Your suggestions that I play a correspondence game with your friend Mordechai Rechtman has raised quite a problem for me, because I have all my life had somehow more writing to do than my spare time permitted me, but as Mr. Rechtman is a musician, and music has always been my main hobby and I have certainly devoted more time to listening to it than to playing chess, I am glad to accept your proposal. However, I have never played chess professionally, and I will of course not charge a fee for playing a game with Mr. Rechtman. I am 94 years old, and having retired from serious tournament play almost 30 years ago, I doubt that I will be able to give our friend the masterful opposition he may expect. When invited to take part in a match now and then in these years against an opponent playing for some foreign team, I am sorry I have usually played rather badly, no doubt partly because of my age one thinks considerably more slowly than one used to before a few thousand neurons a day started to quit and were not automatically regenerated.
At any rate, I will try to answer every move I receive no later than the following day and to play a lively game so that it will be likely to end before I do myself.
Kindest regards,
Edward Lasker
P.S. I see you were present at the Manhattan Chess Club during the London New York match in which Sir Philip Stuart Milner-Barry played a King's Gambit against me. On my last trip to Europe I called on him and we had lunch together. He told me he has made a special study of that opening and I had chosen a lost variation. No wonder, for I had never played the opening myself, as far as I could remember, except perhaps when I was a boy at school.
Would you kindly ask your friend to have someone in Ramat-Aviv hold a white and a black pawn in his hands and have him choose the color he will play? If he draws White, he could give me his first move when he writes me his first message.