The Crippled Majority: How Lasker Beat Capablanca on Structure

Good day, chess world!

The fifth game in Capablanca's own Chess Fundamentals is one of the most famous strategic games ever played, and this time Capablanca is on the losing end, as Black, against Emanuel Lasker.

Needing a win to catch Capablanca at St. Petersburg 1914, Lasker chose the Exchange Ruy Lopez: he trades queens at once and heads for the quiet looking ending Capablanca loved, but he plants a permanent flaw first. Capablanca is left with a queenside majority that can never make a passed pawn, because his c-pawns are doubled, while Lasker keeps a clean four-against-three on the kingside that will march all the way home.
The lesson is to count a majority by its output, not its headcount: more pawns with no future is scenery, fewer pawns with a passer is a winning plan. Watch how Lasker brings his king up, parks a knight on an outpost the bad bishop can never touch, and rolls the healthy majority forward.

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Four exercises from the game

Try to solve each before you watch. Capablanca has Black and is slowly ground down, so every question asks for White's move, the method Lasker used to turn a pawn-structure fact into a full point. The answers are in the full game at the bottom, in the video, and in the website lesson above.
Exercise 1. White to play (move 4). This is a Ruy Lopez. Which capture saddles Black with doubled c-pawns and steers into a queenless middlegame where White's clean kingside majority becomes the long-term trump?

Exercise 2. White to play (move 16). The dark-squared bishops are gone and Black's light bishop is hemmed in by its own pawns. Where does the knight land to become a permanent outpost the bishop can never challenge
Exercise 3. White to play (move 35). The king has walked up to g3, the knights and rooks are massed behind the pawns, and the healthy kingside majority is ready. Which central break rips the position open at the perfect moment?

Exercise 4. White to play (move 38). The break has landed and the knights have poured in. Which capture wins the exchange and leaves Black's king bare?

Play through the full game with my notes here:

Questions, or a move you would have played differently? Tell me in the comments. Good day, chess world.

Watch the video and go deeper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwqN6b2-Wo4

I have built a free interactive lesson for this game on my website, with board diagrams and six puzzles: https://chessexcellence.com/f/chess-pawn-majority-doubled-pawns-lasker-capablanca-1914.html

And two free note sets to go deeper, each one gets you on my email list: the Capablanca series PDF at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfVtlFBDTaYahWI-VcpZOUIGn7ly5R4mYnjoEgg2OOgHn1tzQ/viewform and my Logical Chess study sheets at https://forms.gle/nEt1DWY5pKGq7T3n6