"PeteCasso" wrote in message m:

"Capablanca dominated for about decade and has achieved the greatest
domination over his contemporaries, i.e. the highest ELO rating ever
.... I might add that Lasker was world champion for 27 years, much
longer than even Kasparov, but Lasker had generally an even lower
level of domination over his contemporaries than Kasparov, except for
a 3 year peak period."

I'm not sure whether the above is Mr. Casso's opinion, or his
summary of Mr. Sonas'. Either way one can argue strongly that,
compared to Capablanca, Lasker showed greater dominance over his
contemporaries, over Capablanca in particular. During Lasker's reign
as world champion, 1894-1921, he played in 10 major tournaments,
taking 7 clear firsts, one shared first, one shared second, and one
third. In some of these, e.g. Paris 1899 which he won by 4½ points, he
was "more than first," in Reuben Fine's phrase. He also won 8 of 10
matches, the others being drawn (Janowski, 1909, and Schlechter,
1910).
Capablanca in 5 major tournaments as champion (1921-1927) had 3
clear firsts, one second and one third, a slightly less impressive
record, or at least no better. Also, he played no matches as champion
until losing the title in 1927. Most strikingly, of the 5 tournaments
in which they both took part (St. Petersburg 1914, New York 1924,
Moscow 1925, Moscow 1935, Nottingham 1936), Lasker finished ahead of
Capablanca in all but the last, when he was pushing 70.
Depending on one's assumptions and criteria, one can make a case for
putting any of about two dozen players in the all-time Top 10, and
rank them any number of ways. By any standard, though, Lasker's record
speaks for itself. Some say he's #6, some say #3, some say even #1.

Taylor Kingston