His chess teacher in Breslau was Arnold Schottländer. In Berlin, he won the City Championship (1909) and wrote his first chess book on Chess Strategy (
Schachstrategie, 1911) which got many English (and German) editions.
Lasker published several books on American checkers, chess, and Go. He won five U.S. Open Chess Championships (1916, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921); this tournament was known at the time as the Western Open. His best result was his narrow 8.5–9.5 loss in a match with Frank Marshall for the U.S. Championship in 1923. For that, Lasker was invited to participate in the legendary New York 1924 chess tournament, facing world-class masters like Alekhine, Capablanca, Rubinstein, Emanuel Lasker and Réti. He finished 10th out of 11 players, but many of his games were competitive; Lasker was the only chess amateur in a very strong field of professionals.
His most famous game is probably the queen sacrifice and king hunt against Sir George Thomas. After Lasker checkmated him, Thomas said, "This was very nice." Lasker, who had yet to learn English, was touched by Thomas's sportsmanship after a spectator translated Thomas's remark into German for him. Lasker wrote that had he won the game against a leading Berlin amateur, his opponent would likely have told him, "You are just lucky! Had I played [10...Bxe5] instead of [...Qe7], you would have been lost."
Although Lasker never won against Capablanca, he drew as Black against him at New York 1924. Lasker was not usually so fortunate; for example, Capablanca once arrived one minute before he would have forfeited the game for late arrival, at New York 1915, and Lasker played the Riga variation with which he had some experience, but Capablanca found an advantageous continuation over the board.
Lasker lived on the Upper West Side of New York City until his death in 1981.
He was friends with former World chess champion Emanuel Lasker. Edward Lasker wrote in his memoirs of the New York 1924 tournament as published in the March 1974 edition of
Chess Life magazine: "I did not discover that we were actually related until he (Emanuel Lasker) told me shortly before his death that someone had shown him a Lasker family tree on one of whose branches I was dangling." In a February 8, 1973 letter to Robert B. Long, Lasker explained their exact relationship:
The genealogy, incidentally, indicates that the common forbear of Emanuel and myself was the son Samuel Lasker of the Rabbi of the Polish village Lask, whose name was originally Meier Hindels. However, later the additional name Lasker was given to him to distinguish him from another Meier Hindels also living in Lask. Samuel Lasker moved to another Polish village, Kepno, in 1769, after it had been captured by Frederick the Great and became a German township, and I am the last descendant of his who was born there. He was the greatgrandfather of my greatgrandfather. His first-born son left Kepmen [sic-Kempen] and moved to Jarotschin, another Polish village, and Emanuel Lasker was that one's greatgrandson.