Input Solicited

This year, my weekly scholastic lessons feature a select group of great players. In addition to learning strategy and tactics, young players will learn a bit of chess history. From mid-September through the end of October, the lessons have been from the games of Akiba Rubinstein.

Rubinstein is considered the brightest proponent of the Steinitz School of chess strategy. He also studied thoroughly Seigbert Tarrasch, Dreihundert Schachpartien (1896). For the lessons from early November until the winter holiday, which player should I feature? Readers may vote in the poll in the sidebar to the right.

If Tarrasch, the lessons will come from his annotations in the English translation of Dreihndert Schachpartien: Sol Schwartz, trans., Three Hundred Chess Games (1999). In addition, Tarrasch, The Game of Chess (1935) explicates the principles of the Steinitz School.

Alternately, I might explore the principles of the Steinitz school through the words and games of William Steinitz himself. Steinitz's The Modern Chess Instructor (1889) lays out his elementary principles.

Lasker founded no school, but his Lasker's Manual of Chess (1925) has been a source for lessons in the past, and he defeated Steinitz to become the second official World Champion. Common Sense in Chess (1910) also puts forth some principles that are commonly quoted by chess teachers today.

Paul Morphy was the best player before Steinitz's discovery of positional play, and yet Valeri Beim argues that Morphy's tactical brilliance was possible because he understood those positional principles that would be articulated only after he had given up playing chess. Beim's Paul Morphy: A Modern Perspective (2005) would be my primary resource.

Your input can influence my decision.