American-German Edward Lasker was born on 3 December 1885 in Kempen. Besides being an acknowledged chess player he also played Go (a Chinese board game). Engineer by profession, Lasker won the Berlin city chess tournament in 1909 at the age of 24 and two years later he wrote his first book on chess strategies. His chess background as a child is not known but his chess teacher was Arnold Schottländer at the beginning of the 20th century in Wrocław. His peak World Ranking was 18th (in two different months from June 1923 to July 1923). According to Chessmetrics his highest rating is 2583.

Although he never won the World Champion title or played in a Candidates Tournament, he played a draw with the World Champion, Emanuel Lasker. This game was extraordinary as Emanuel Lasker lost his advantage and could only hold the draw by showing that the inferior side can also win if in the endgame a pawn and a rook stand against a knight. The game consisted of 103 moves and changed the endgame theory as nobody has seen a draw played before in this particular standing neither in theory, nor in practice. 

Lasker was the sole amateur in a strong professional circuit. He did not participate in any Chess Olympiads either as German or American.

Interesting facts:

He cultivated a strong friendship with Emanuel Lasker. Edward Laker’s memoirs about the 1924 New York match were published in the Chess Life magazine in 1974. He also talked about that he had had no idea about his family relation to Emanuel Lasker until Emanuel told him not long before his death that he saw a Lasker family tree with Edward on it.

He died on 25 March 1981 in New York.