José Raúl Capablanca
Encyclopedia
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (19 November 1888 – 8 March 1942) was a Cuba
n chess
player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play. Due to his achievements in the chess world, mastery over the board and his relatively simple style of play he was nicknamed the "Human Chess Machine".
on November 19, 1888. According to Capablanca, he learned the rules of the game at the age of four by watching his father play, pointed out an illegal move by his father, and then beat his father twice. At the age of eight he was taken to Havana Chess Club, which had hosted many important contests, but on the advice of a doctor he was not allowed to play frequently. Between November and December 1901, he narrowly beat the Cuban Chess Champion, Juan Corzo
, in a match. However in April 1902 he only came fourth out of six in the National Championship, losing both his games against Corzo. In 1905 Capablanca passed with ease the entrance examinations for Columbia University
in New York City, where he wished to play for Columbia's strong baseball
team, and soon was selected as shortstop
on the freshman
team. In the same year he joined the Manhattan Chess Club
, and was soon recognized as the club's strongest player. He was particularly dominant in rapid chess, winning a tournament ahead of the reigning World Chess Champion, Emanuel Lasker
, in 1906. In 1908 he left the university to concentrate on chess.
According to Columbia University, Capablanca enrolled at Columbia's School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry in September, 1910, to study chemical engineering. Later, his financial support was withdrawn because he preferred playing chess to studying engineering. He left Columbia after one semester to devote himself to chess full time.
s, and his increasing reputation in these events led to a USA-wide tour in 1909. Playing 602 games in 27 cities, he scored 96.4% – a much higher percentage than those of, for example, Géza Maróczy
's 88% and Frank Marshall's 86% in 1906. This performance gained him sponsorship for an exhibition match that year against Marshall, the US champion
, who had won the 1904 Cambridge Springs
tournament ahead of World Champion Emanuel Lasker
and Dawid Janowski
, and whom Chessmetrics
ranks as one of the world's top three players at his peak. Capablanca beat Marshall by 15–8 (8 wins, 1 loss, 14 draws
) – a margin comparable to what Emanuel Lasker
achieved against Marshall (8 wins, no losses, 7 draws) in winning his 1907 World Championship match
. After the match, Capablanca said that he had never opened a book on chess opening
s. Following this match, Chessmetrics rates Capablanca the world's third strongest player for most of the period from 1909 through 1912.
Capablanca won six games and drew one in the 1910 New York
State Championship. Both Capablanca and Charles Jaffe won their four games in the knock-out preliminaries and met in a match to decide the winner, who would be the first to win two games. The first game was drawn and Capablanca won the second and third game. It is incorrectly said in Golombek's book on Capablanca that Capablanca won all seven games. After another gruelling series of simultaneous exhibitions, Capablanca placed second, with 9½ out of 12, in the 1911 National Tournament at New York
, half a point behind Marshall, and half a point ahead of Charles Jaffe
and Oscar Chajes
. Marshall, invited to play in a tournament at San Sebastián
, Spain, in 1911, insisted that Capablanca also be allowed to play.
According to David Hooper
and Ken Whyld
, San Sebastián 1911
was "one of the strongest five tournaments held up to that time", as all the world's leading players competed except the World Champion, Lasker. At the beginning of the tournament, Ossip Bernstein
and Aron Nimzowitsch
objected to Capablanca's presence because he had not fulfilled the entry condition of winning at least third prize in two master tournaments. Capablanca won brilliantly against Bernstein in the very first round, more simply against Nimzowitsch, and astounded the chess world by taking first place, with a score of six wins, one loss and seven draws, ahead of Akiba Rubinstein
, Milan Vidmar
, Marshall, Carl Schlechter
and Siegbert Tarrasch
, et al. His loss, against Rubinstein, was one of the most brilliant achievements of the latter's career. Some European critics grumbled that Capablanca's style was rather cautious, though he conceded fewer draws than any of the next six finishers in the event. Capablanca was now recognized as a serious contender for the world championship.
for the World Chess Championship
. Lasker accepted his challenge while proposing 17 conditions for the match. Capablanca objected to some of the conditions, which favored Lasker, and the match did not take place.
In 1913, Capablanca won a tournament in New York
with 11/13, half a point ahead of Marshall. Capablanca then finished second to Marshall in Capablanca's hometown, Havana, scoring 10 out of 14, and losing one of their individual games. The 600 spectators naturally favored their native hero, but sportingly gave Marshall "thunderous applause". In a further tournament in New York in 1913, at the Rice Chess Club, Capablanca won all thirteen games.
In September 1913, Capablanca received a job in the Cuban Foreign Office, which made him financially secure for life. Hooper and Whyld write that, "He had no specific duties, but was expected to act as a kind of ambassador-at-large, a well-known figure who would put Cuba on the map wherever he travelled." His first instructions were to go to Saint Petersburg
, where he was due to play in a major tournament. On his way, he gave simultaneous exhibition
s in London, Paris and Berlin, where he also played two-game matches against Richard Teichmann
and Jacques Mieses
, winning all his games. In Saint Petersburg, he played similar matches against Alexander Alekhine
, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky
and Fyodor Duz-Chotimirsky, losing one game to Znosko-Borovsky and winning the rest.
The St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament
was the first in which Capablanca played World Champion Emanuel Lasker under normal tournament conditions. This event was arranged in an unusual way: after a preliminary single round-robin tournament
involving 11 players, the top five were to play a second stage in double round-robin
format, with scores from the preliminary tournament carried forward to the second contest. Capablanca placed first in the preliminary tournament, 1½ points ahead of Lasker, who was out of practice and made a shaky start. Despite a determined effort by Lasker, Capablanca still seemed on course for ultimate victory. However, in their second game of the final, Lasker reduced Capablanca to a helpless position and Capablanca was so shaken by this that he blundered away his next game to Siegbert Tarrasch
. Lasker thus finished half a point ahead of Capablanca and 3½ ahead of Alekhine.
Alekhine commented:
After the breakdown of his attempt to negotiate a title match in 1911, Capablanca drafted rules for the conduct of future challenges, which were agreed by the other top players at the 1914 Saint Petersburg tournament, including Lasker, and approved at the Mannheim
Congress later that year. The main points were: the champion must be prepared to defend his title once a year; the match should be won by the first player to win six or eight games, whichever the champion preferred; and the stake should be at least £1,000 (worth about £347,000 or $700,000 in 2006 terms).
opening. It is often said that Marshall had kept this secret for use against Capablanca since his defeat in their 1909 match; however, Edward Winter
discovered several games between 1910 and 1918 where Marshall passed up opportunities to use the Marshall Attack against Capablanca; and an 1893 game that used a similar line. This gambit
is so complex that Garry Kasparov
used to avoid it, and Marshall had the advantage of using a prepared variation. Nevertheless, Capablanca found a way through the complications and won. Capablanca was challenged to a match in 1919 by Borislav Kostić
, who had come through the 1918 tournament undefeated to take second place. The match was to go to the first player to win eight games, but Kostić resigned the match after losing five straight games. Capablanca considered that he was at his strongest around this time.
Victory tournament of 1919 was the first international competition on Allied soil since 1914. The field was not strong, and Capablanca won with 10½ points out of 11, one point ahead of Kostić.
In January 1920, Emanuel Lasker and Capablanca signed an agreement to play a World Championship match in 1921, noting that Capablanca was not free to play in 1920. Because of the delay, Lasker insisted that if he resigned the title, then Capablanca should become World Champion. Lasker had previously included in his agreement before World War I to play Akiba Rubinstein
for the title a similar clause that if he resigned the title, it should become Rubinstein's. Lasker then resigned the title to Capablanca on June 27, 1920, saying, "You have earned the title not by the formality of a challenge, but by your brilliant mastery." When Cuban enthusiasts raised $20,000 to fund the match provided it was played in Havana
, Lasker agreed in August 1920 to play there, but insisted that he was the challenger as Capablanca was now the champion. Capablanca signed an agreement that accepted this point, and soon afterwards published a letter confirming it.
The match was played in March–April 1921; Lasker resigned it after just fourteen games, having lost four games and won none. Reuben Fine
and Harry Golombek
attributed the one-sided result to Lasker's being in mysteriously poor form. Fred Reinfeld
mentioned speculations that Havana's humid climate weakened Lasker and that he was depressed about the outcome of World War I, especially as he had lost his life savings. On the other hand, Vladimir Kramnik
thought that Lasker played quite well and the match was an "even and fascinating fight" until Lasker blundered in the last game. Kramnik explained that Capablanca was twenty years younger, a slightly stronger player, and had more recent competitive practice.
Edward Winter, after a lengthy summary of the facts, concludes that, "The press was dismissive of Lasker's wish to confer the title on Capablanca, even questioning the legality of such an initiative, and in 1921 it regarded the Cuban as having become world champion by dint of defeating Lasker over the board." Reference works invariably give Capablanca's reign as titleholder as beginning in 1921, not 1920. The only challenger besides Capablanca to win the title without losing a game is Kramnik, in the Classical World Chess Championship 2000
against Garry Kasparov
.
Capablanca won the London tournament of 1922 with 13 points from 15 games with no losses, ahead of Alexander Alekhine
on 11½, Milan Vidmar
(11), and Akiba Rubinstein
(10½). During this event, Capablanca proposed the "London Rules" to regulate future World Championship negotiations: the first player to win six games would win the match; playing sessions would be limited to 5 hours; the time limit would be 40 moves in 2½ hours; the champion must defend his title within one year of receiving a challenge from a recognized master; the champion would decide the date of the match; the champion was not obliged to accept a challenge for a purse of less than US $10,000 (worth about $349,000 in 2006 terms); 20% of the purse was to be paid to the title holder and the remainder divided, 60% going to the winner of the match, and 40% to the loser; the highest purse bid must be accepted. Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubow
, Géza Maróczy
, Richard Reti
, Rubinstein, Tartakower
and Vidmar promptly signed them. Between 1921 and 1923 Alekhine, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch
all challenged Capablanca, but only Alekhine could raise the money, in 1927.
In 1922, Capablanca also gave a simultaneous exhibition in Cleveland against 103 opponents, the largest in history up to that time, winning 102 and drawing
one – setting a record for the best winning percentage ever in a large simultaneous exhibition.
After beginning with four draws, followed by a loss, Capablanca placed second at the New York 1924 chess tournament
with the score of 14/20 (+10 −1 =9), 1½ points behind Emanuel Lasker, and 2 ahead of third-placed Alekhine. Capablanca's defeat at the hands of Richard Reti
in the fifth round was his first in serious competition in eight years. He made another bad start at the Moscow 1925 chess tournament
, and could only fight back to third place, two points behind Bogoljubow and ½ point behind Emanuel Lasker. Capablanca won at Lake Hopatcong
, 1926 with 6 points out of 8, ahead of Abraham Kupchik
(5) and Maroczy (4½).
A group of Argentinian businessmen, backed by a guarantee from the president of Argentina
, promised the funds for a World Championship match between Capablanca and Alekhine in 1927. Since Nimzowitsch had challenged before Alekhine, Capablanca gave Nimzowitsch until January 1, 1927 to deposit a forfeit in order arrange a match. When this did not materialize, a Capablanca–Alekhine match
was agreed, to begin in September 1927.
In the New York 1927 chess tournament
, played from February 19 to March 23, 1927, six of the world's strongest masters played a quadruple round robin, with the others being Alekhine, Rudolf Spielmann
, Milan Vidmar
, Nimzowitsch and Marshall, with Bogoljubow and Emanuel Lasker not present. Before the tournament, Capablanca wrote that he had "more experience but less power" than in 1911, that he had peaked in 1919 and that some of his competitors had become stronger in the meantime; however, he finished undefeated, winning the mini-matches with each of his rivals, 2½ points ahead of second-place Alekhine, and won the "best game" prize for a win over Spielmann.
In December 1921, shortly after becoming World Champion, Capablanca married Gloria Simoni Betancourt. They had a son, José Raúl Jr., in 1923 and a daughter, Gloria, in 1925. According to Capablanca's second wife, Olga, his first marriage broke down fairly soon, and he and Gloria had affairs. Both his parents died during his reign, his father in 1923 and mother in 1926.
Since Capablanca had won the New York 1927 chess tournament
overwhelmingly and had never lost a game to Alekhine, the Cuban was regarded by most pundits as the clear favorite in their World Chess Championship 1927
match. However, Alekhine won the match, played from September to November 1927 at Buenos Aires, by 6 wins, 3 losses, and 25 draws – the longest formal World Championship match until the contest in 1984–85
between Anatoly Karpov
and Garry Kasparov
. Alekhine's victory surprised almost the entire chess world. After Capablanca's death, Alekhine expressed surprise at his own victory, since in 1927 he had not thought he was superior to Capablanca, and he suggested that Capablanca had been over-confident. Capablanca entered the match with no technical or physical preparation, while Alekhine got himself into good physical condition, and had thoroughly studied Capablanca's play. According to Kasparov, Alekhine's research uncovered many small inaccuracies, which occurred because Capablanca was unwilling to concentrate intensely. Vladimir Kramnik
commented that this was the first contest in which Capablanca had no easy wins. Luděk Pachman
suggested that Capablanca, who was unaccustomed to losing games or to any other type of setback, became depressed over his unnecessary loss of the eleventh game, a long, gruelling endgame, featuring errors by both players.
Immediately after winning the match, Alekhine announced that he was willing to give Capablanca a return match, on the same terms that Capablanca had required as champion – the challenger must provide a stake of US $10,000, of which more than half would go to the defending champion even if he was defeated. Alekhine had challenged Capablanca in the early 1920s but Alekhine could not raise the money until 1927. After Capablanca's death, Alekhine wrote that Capablanca's demand for a $10,000 stake was an attempt to avoid challenges. Negotiations dragged on for several years, often breaking down when agreement seemed in sight. Their relationship became bitter, and Alekhine demanded much higher appearance fees for tournaments in which Capablanca also played.
After losing the World Championship in late 1927, Capablanca played more often in tournaments, hoping to strengthen his claim for a rematch. From 1928 through 1931, he won six first prizes, also finishing second twice and one joint second. His competitors included rising stars such as Max Euwe
and Isaac Kashdan
, as well as players who had been established in the 1920s, but Capablanca and Alekhine never played in the same tournament during this period, and would next meet only at the Nottingham
, 1936 tournament, after Alekhine had lost the world title to Euwe the preceding year. In late 1931, Capablanca also won a match (+2 −0 =8) against Euwe, whom Chessmetrics
ranks sixth in the world at the time.
Despite these excellent results, Capablanca's play showed signs of decline: his play slowed from the speed of his youth, with occasional time trouble
; although he continued to produce many superb games, he also made some gross blunders. Chessmetrics nonetheless ranks Capablanca as the second strongest player in the world (after Alekhine) from his loss of the title through to autumn 1932, except for a brief appearance in the top place.
After winning an event at New York in 1931, he withdrew from serious chess, perhaps disheartened by his inability to secure a return match against Alekhine, and played only less serious games at the Manhattan Chess Club
and simultaneous displays. On 6 December 1933, Capablanca won all 9 of his games in one of the club's weekly rapid chess tournaments, finishing 2 points ahead of Samuel Reshevsky
, Reuben Fine
and Milton Hanauer
.
Starting his comeback at the Hastings tournament of 1934–35, Capablanca finished fourth, although coming ahead of Mikhail Botvinnik
and Andor Lilienthal
. He placed second by ½ point in the Margate tournaments of 1935 and 1936. At Moscow in 1935 Capablanca finished fourth, 1 point behind the joint winners, while Emanuel Lasker
's third place at the age of 66 was hailed as "a biological miracle." The following year, Capablanca won an even stronger tournament in Moscow, one point ahead of Botvinnik and 3½ ahead of Salo Flohr
, who took third place; A month later, he shared first place with Botvinnik at Nottingham, with a score of (+5 −1 =8), losing only to Flohr, because of having been disturbed in time trouble by the bystanding Max Euwe
; Alekhine placed sixth, only one point behind the joint winners. These tournaments of 1936 were the last two that Lasker played, and the only ones in which Capablanca finished ahead of Lasker, now 67.
During these triumphs Capablanca began to suffer symptoms of high blood pressure
. He tied for second place at Semmering
in 1937, then could only finish seventh of the eight players at the 1938 AVRO
tournament, an élite contest designed to select a challenger for Alekhine's world title. Capablanca's high blood pressure was not correctly diagnosed and treated until after the AVRO tournament, and caused him to lose his train of thought towards the end of playing sessions.
After winning at Paris in 1938 and placing second in a slightly stronger tournament at Margate in 1939, Capablanca played for Cuba in the 8th Chess Olympiad
, held in Buenos Aires, and won the gold medal for the best performance on the top board. While Capablanca and Alekhine were both representing their countries in Buenos Aires, Capablanca made a final attempt to arrange a World Championship match. Alekhine declined, saying he was obliged to be available to defend his adopted homeland, France, as World War II had just broken out. Alekhine also sat out the match when the teams from Cuba and France faced each other in the Buenos Aires Olympiad, thus declining an opportunity to play Capablanca once more.
in New York City, when he asked for help removing his coat, and collapsed shortly afterwards. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital
, where he died at 6 a.m. the next morning. The cause of death was given as "a cerebral haemorrhage provoked by hypertension
". Capablanca's great rival Emanuel Lasker
had died in the same hospital only a year earlier. Capablanca's body was given a public funeral in Havana's Colón Cemetery on March 15, 1942.
His bitter rival Alekhine wrote in a tribute to Capablanca:
Emanuel Lasker once said: "I have known many chess players, but only one chess genius: Capablanca."
An annual Capablanca Memorial
tournament has been held in Cuba, most often in Havana, since 1962.
in the New York 1916 tournament, to March 21, 1924, when he lost to Richard Réti in the New York
International tournament. During this streak, which included his 1921 World Championship match against Lasker, Capablanca played 63 games, winning 40 and drawing 23. In fact, only Marshall, Lasker, Alekhine and Rudolf Spielmann
won two or more serious games from the mature Capablanca, though in each case, their overall lifetime scores were minus (Capablanca beat Marshall +20 −2 =28, Lasker +6 −2 =16, Alekhine +9 −7 =33), except for Spielmann who was level (+2 −2 =8). Of top players, only Keres had a narrow plus score against him (+1 −0 =5). Keres' win was at the AVRO 1938 chess tournament, during which tournament Capablanca turned 50, while Keres was 22.
Statistical ranking systems place Capablanca high among the greatest players of all time. Nathan Divinsky
and Raymond Keene
's book Warriors of the Mind (1989) ranks him fifth, behind Garry Kasparov
, Anatoly Karpov
, Bobby Fischer
and Mikhail Botvinnik
– and immediately ahead of Emanuel Lasker
. In his 1978 book The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, Arpad Elo
gave retrospective ratings to players based on their performance over the best five-year span of their career. He concluded that Capablanca was the strongest of those surveyed, with Lasker and Botvinnik sharing second place. Chessmetrics
(2006) is rather sensitive to the length of the periods being compared, and ranks Capablanca between third and fourth strongest of all time for peak periods ranging in length from one to fifteen years. Its author, the statistician Jeff Sonas
, concluded that Capablanca had more years in the top three than anyone except Lasker, Anatoly Karpov
and Garry Kasparov
– although Alexander Alekhine
had more years in the top two positions. A 2006 study claimed to show that Capablanca was the most accurate of all the World Champions when compared with computer analysis of World Championship match games. However, this analysis was criticized for using a second-rank chess program, Crafty
, modified to limit its calculations to six moves by each side, and for favoring players whose style matched that of the program.
Boris Spassky
, World Champion from 1969 to 1972, considered Capablanca the best player of all time. Bobby Fischer, who held the title from 1972 to 1975, admired Capablanca's "light touch" and ability to see the right move very quickly. Fischer reported that in the 1950s, older members of the Manhattan Chess Club
spoke of Capablanca's performances with awe.
Capablanca excelled in simple positions and endgames, and his positional judgment was outstanding, so much so that most attempts to attack him came to grief without any apparent defensive efforts on his part. However, he could play great tactical chess when necessary – most famously in the 1918 Manhattan Chess Club Championship tournament (in New York) where Marshall sprang a deeply-analyzed prepared variation on him, which he refuted while playing under the normal time limit (although ways have since been found to strengthen the Marshall Attack). He was also capable of using aggressive tactical play to drive home a positional advantage, provided he considered it safe and the most efficient way to win, for example against Spielmann
in the 1927 New York tournament.
. Botvinnik also wrote how much he learned from Capablanca, and pointed out that Alekhine had received much schooling from him in positional play, before their fight for the world title made them bitter enemies.
As a chess writer, Capablanca did not present large amounts of detailed analysis, instead focusing on the critical moments in a game. His writing style was plain and easy to understand. Botvinnik regarded Capablanca's book Chess Fundamentals as the best chess book ever written. Capablanca in a lecture and in his book A Primer of Chess pointed out that while the bishop
was usually stronger than the knight
, queen and knight was usually better than queen and bishop, especially in endings — the bishop merely mimics the queen's diagonal move, while the knight can immediately reach squares the queen cannot. Research is divided over Capablanca's conclusion: in 2007, Glenn Flear
found little difference, while in 1999, Larry Kaufman
, analysing a large database
of games, concluded that results very slightly favored queen plus knight. John Watson
wrote in 1998 that an unusually large proportion of queen and knight versus queen and bishop endings are drawn, and that most decisive games are characterized by the winning side having one or more obvious advantages in that specific game.
wrote that he knew Capablanca well and could vouch that he was not conceited. In du Mont's opinion critics should understand the difference between the merely gifted and the towering genius of Capablanca, and the contrast between the British tendency towards false modesty and the Latin and American tendency to say "I played this game as well as it could be played" if he honestly thought that it was correct. Fischer also admired this frankness.
Du Mont also said that Capablanca was rather sensitive to criticism, and chess historian Edward Winter documented a number of examples of self-criticism in My Chess Career.
Despite his achievements Capablanca appeared more interested in baseball than in chess, which he described as "not a difficult game to learn and it is an enjoyable game to play." His second wife, Olga, thought he resented the way in which chess had dominated his life, and wished he could have studied music or medicine.
. However he was concerned that the accelerating development of chess technique and opening knowledge might cause such stagnation in 50 years' time. Hence he suggested the adoption of a 10x8 board with 2 extra pieces per side:
He thought this would prevent technical knowledge from becoming such a dominant factor, at least for a few centuries.
Capablanca and Edward Lasker
experimented with 10x10 and 10x8 boards, using the same expanded set of pieces. They preferred the 8-rank version as it encouraged combat to start earlier, and their games typically lasted 20 to 25 moves. Contrary to the claims of some critics, Capablanca proposed this variant while he was world champion, not as sour grapes
after losing his title.
Similar 10x8 variants had previously been described in 1617 by Pietro Carrera
and in 1874 by Henry Bird, differing only in how the new pieces were placed in each side's back row. Subsequent variants inspired by Capablanca's experimentation have been proposed, including Grand chess
(which uses a 10x10 board and has pawns on the third rank), Gothic Chess
(which used to be patented), and Embassy Chess
(the Grand chess setup on a 10x8 board).
At the 1939 Chess Olympiad
in Buenos Aires, Capablanca took the medal for best performance on a country's first board.
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play. Due to his achievements in the chess world, mastery over the board and his relatively simple style of play he was nicknamed the "Human Chess Machine".
Childhood
José Raúl Capablanca, the second surviving son of a Spanish army officer, was born in HavanaHavana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
on November 19, 1888. According to Capablanca, he learned the rules of the game at the age of four by watching his father play, pointed out an illegal move by his father, and then beat his father twice. At the age of eight he was taken to Havana Chess Club, which had hosted many important contests, but on the advice of a doctor he was not allowed to play frequently. Between November and December 1901, he narrowly beat the Cuban Chess Champion, Juan Corzo
Juan Corzo
Juan Corzo y Principe was a Spanish–Cuban chess master, champion of Cuba immediately preceding José Capablanca....
, in a match. However in April 1902 he only came fourth out of six in the National Championship, losing both his games against Corzo. In 1905 Capablanca passed with ease the entrance examinations for Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City, where he wished to play for Columbia's strong baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
team, and soon was selected as shortstop
Shortstop
Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball fielding position between second and third base. Shortstop is often regarded as the most dynamic defensive position in baseball, because there are more right-handed hitters in baseball than left-handed hitters, and most hitters have a tendency to pull the...
on the freshman
Freshman
A freshman or fresher is a first-year student in secondary school, high school, or college. The term first year can also be used as a noun, to describe the students themselves A freshman (US) or fresher (UK, India) (or sometimes fish, freshie, fresher; slang plural frosh or freshmeat) is a...
team. In the same year he joined the Manhattan Chess Club
Manhattan Chess Club
The Manhattan Chess Club in Manhattan was the second-oldest chess club in the United States . The club was founded in 1877 and started with three dozen players; membership later reached into the hundreds before the club ended its existence in 2002...
, and was soon recognized as the club's strongest player. He was particularly dominant in rapid chess, winning a tournament ahead of the reigning World Chess Champion, Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
, in 1906. In 1908 he left the university to concentrate on chess.
According to Columbia University, Capablanca enrolled at Columbia's School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry in September, 1910, to study chemical engineering. Later, his financial support was withdrawn because he preferred playing chess to studying engineering. He left Columbia after one semester to devote himself to chess full time.
Early adult career
Capablanca's skill in rapid chess lent itself to simultaneous exhibitionSimultaneous exhibition
A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition in which one player plays multiple games at a time with a number of other players. Such an exhibition is often referred to simply as a "simul".In a regular simul, no chess clocks are used...
s, and his increasing reputation in these events led to a USA-wide tour in 1909. Playing 602 games in 27 cities, he scored 96.4% – a much higher percentage than those of, for example, Géza Maróczy
Géza Maróczy
Géza Maróczy was a leading Hungarian chess Grandmaster, one of the best players in the world in his time. He was also a practicing engineer.-Early career:...
's 88% and Frank Marshall's 86% in 1906. This performance gained him sponsorship for an exhibition match that year against Marshall, the US champion
U.S. Chess Championship
The U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the national chess champion of the United States. Since 1936, it has been held under the auspices of the U.S. Chess Federation. Until 1999, the event consisted of a round-robin tournament of varying size...
, who had won the 1904 Cambridge Springs
Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania
Cambridge Springs is a borough in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,363 at the 2000 census.- History :The village of Cambridge was settled in 1822 and was named for the town of Cambridge, Massachusetts...
tournament ahead of World Champion Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
and Dawid Janowski
Dawid Janowski
Dawid Markelowicz Janowski was a leading Polish chess master and subsequent French citizen....
, and whom Chessmetrics
Chessmetrics
Chessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo rating system.-Implementation:...
ranks as one of the world's top three players at his peak. Capablanca beat Marshall by 15–8 (8 wins, 1 loss, 14 draws
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
) – a margin comparable to what Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
achieved against Marshall (8 wins, no losses, 7 draws) in winning his 1907 World Championship match
World Chess Championship 1907
Emanuel Lasker had virtually retired after retaining the Chess World Championship in 1897, but defended against Frank J. Marshall from January 26 to April 6, 1907, in the USA, games being played in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago and Memphis...
. After the match, Capablanca said that he had never opened a book on chess opening
Chess opening
A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...
s. Following this match, Chessmetrics rates Capablanca the world's third strongest player for most of the period from 1909 through 1912.
Capablanca won six games and drew one in the 1910 New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
State Championship. Both Capablanca and Charles Jaffe won their four games in the knock-out preliminaries and met in a match to decide the winner, who would be the first to win two games. The first game was drawn and Capablanca won the second and third game. It is incorrectly said in Golombek's book on Capablanca that Capablanca won all seven games. After another gruelling series of simultaneous exhibitions, Capablanca placed second, with 9½ out of 12, in the 1911 National Tournament at New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, half a point behind Marshall, and half a point ahead of Charles Jaffe
Charles Jaffe
Charles Jaffé was a Belarusian-American chess master, of virtually Grandmaster strength at his peak in the 1910s, when he was one of the world's top players. Jaffe was also a chess writer....
and Oscar Chajes
Oscar Chajes
Oscar Chajes was an Austrian, then American chess player.-Biography:Chajes was Jewish and was born in Brody, Galicia, in what is now Ukraine. In 1909, he won in Excelsior, Minnesota . In 1910, he took 2nd in Chicago. In January/February 1911, he tied for 3rd-4th in New York...
. Marshall, invited to play in a tournament at San Sebastián
San Sebastián
Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...
, Spain, in 1911, insisted that Capablanca also be allowed to play.
According to David Hooper
David Vincent Hooper
David Vincent Hooper , born in Reigate, was a British chess player and writer. As an amateur, he tied for fifth place in the 1949 British Championship at Felixstowe. He was the British correspondence chess champion in 1944 and the London Chess Champion in 1948...
and Ken Whyld
Ken Whyld
Kenneth Whyld was a British chess author and researcher, best known as the co-author of The Oxford Companion to Chess, the standard single-volume chess reference work in English....
, San Sebastián 1911
San Sebastian chess tournament
-San Sebastian 1911:The tournament was held from February 20 to March 17, 1911. The event was organized by Jacques Mieses, who insisted that all of the expenses of the masters were paid....
was "one of the strongest five tournaments held up to that time", as all the world's leading players competed except the World Champion, Lasker. At the beginning of the tournament, Ossip Bernstein
Ossip Bernstein
Ossip Samoilovich Bernstein was a Russian chess grandmaster and a financial lawyer.-Biography:...
and Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch was a Russian-born Danish unofficial chess grandmaster and a very influential chess writer...
objected to Capablanca's presence because he had not fulfilled the entry condition of winning at least third prize in two master tournaments. Capablanca won brilliantly against Bernstein in the very first round, more simply against Nimzowitsch, and astounded the chess world by taking first place, with a score of six wins, one loss and seven draws, ahead of Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein was a famous Polish chess Grandmaster at the beginning of the 20th century. He was scheduled to play a match with Emanuel Lasker for the world championship in 1914, but it was cancelled because of the outbreak of World War I...
, Milan Vidmar
Milan Vidmar
Milan Vidmar was a Slovene electrical engineer, chess player, chess theorist, philosopher, and writer. He was a specialist in power transformers and transmission of electric current.- Biography :...
, Marshall, Carl Schlechter
Carl Schlechter
Carl Schlechter was a leading Austrian chess master and theoretician at the turn of the 20th century. He is best known for drawing a World Chess Championship match with Emanuel Lasker.-Early life:...
and Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch was one of the strongest chess players and most influential chess teachers of the late 19th century and early 20th century....
, et al. His loss, against Rubinstein, was one of the most brilliant achievements of the latter's career. Some European critics grumbled that Capablanca's style was rather cautious, though he conceded fewer draws than any of the next six finishers in the event. Capablanca was now recognized as a serious contender for the world championship.
World title contender
In 1911, Capablanca challenged Emanuel LaskerEmanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
for the World Chess Championship
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
. Lasker accepted his challenge while proposing 17 conditions for the match. Capablanca objected to some of the conditions, which favored Lasker, and the match did not take place.
In 1913, Capablanca won a tournament in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
with 11/13, half a point ahead of Marshall. Capablanca then finished second to Marshall in Capablanca's hometown, Havana, scoring 10 out of 14, and losing one of their individual games. The 600 spectators naturally favored their native hero, but sportingly gave Marshall "thunderous applause". In a further tournament in New York in 1913, at the Rice Chess Club, Capablanca won all thirteen games.
In September 1913, Capablanca received a job in the Cuban Foreign Office, which made him financially secure for life. Hooper and Whyld write that, "He had no specific duties, but was expected to act as a kind of ambassador-at-large, a well-known figure who would put Cuba on the map wherever he travelled." His first instructions were to go to Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, where he was due to play in a major tournament. On his way, he gave simultaneous exhibition
Simultaneous exhibition
A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition in which one player plays multiple games at a time with a number of other players. Such an exhibition is often referred to simply as a "simul".In a regular simul, no chess clocks are used...
s in London, Paris and Berlin, where he also played two-game matches against Richard Teichmann
Richard Teichmann
Richard Teichmann was a German chess master.He was known as "Richard the Fifth" because he often finished in fifth place in tournaments. But in Karlsbad 1911, he scored a convincing win, crushing Akiba Rubinstein and Carl Schlechter with the same line of the Ruy Lopez...
and Jacques Mieses
Jacques Mieses
----Jacques Mieses was a German-born Jewish chess Grandmaster and writer. He became a naturalized British citizen after World War II.p258-Chess career:...
, winning all his games. In Saint Petersburg, he played similar matches against Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky
Eugene Znosko-Borovsky
Eugene Alexandrovich Znosko-Borovsky was a Russian chess master, music and drama critic, teacher and author. Born in Saint Petersburg, he settled in Paris in 1920, and lived there for the rest of his life.-Biography:...
and Fyodor Duz-Chotimirsky, losing one game to Znosko-Borovsky and winning the rest.
The St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament
St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament
The tournament celebrated the tenth anniversary of the St. Petersburg Chess Society. The president of the organizing committee was Peter Petrovich Saburov. Members of the committee were: Boris Maliutin, Peter Alexandrovich Saburov, and O. Sossnitzky...
was the first in which Capablanca played World Champion Emanuel Lasker under normal tournament conditions. This event was arranged in an unusual way: after a preliminary single round-robin tournament
Round-robin tournament
A round-robin tournament is a competition "in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn".-Terminology:...
involving 11 players, the top five were to play a second stage in double round-robin
Round-robin tournament
A round-robin tournament is a competition "in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn".-Terminology:...
format, with scores from the preliminary tournament carried forward to the second contest. Capablanca placed first in the preliminary tournament, 1½ points ahead of Lasker, who was out of practice and made a shaky start. Despite a determined effort by Lasker, Capablanca still seemed on course for ultimate victory. However, in their second game of the final, Lasker reduced Capablanca to a helpless position and Capablanca was so shaken by this that he blundered away his next game to Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch was one of the strongest chess players and most influential chess teachers of the late 19th century and early 20th century....
. Lasker thus finished half a point ahead of Capablanca and 3½ ahead of Alekhine.
Alekhine commented:
- His real, incomparable gifts first began to make themselves known at the time of St. Petersburg, 1914, when I too came to know him personally. Neither before nor afterwards have I seen – and I cannot imagine as well – such a flabbergasting quickness of chess comprehension as that possessed by the Capablanca of that epoch. Enough to say that he gave all the St. Petersburg masters the odds of 5–1 in quick games – and won! With all this he was always good-humoured, the darling of the ladies, and enjoyed wonderful good health – really a dazzling appearance. That he came second to Lasker must be entirely ascribed to his youthful levity – he was already playing as well as Lasker.
After the breakdown of his attempt to negotiate a title match in 1911, Capablanca drafted rules for the conduct of future challenges, which were agreed by the other top players at the 1914 Saint Petersburg tournament, including Lasker, and approved at the Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
Congress later that year. The main points were: the champion must be prepared to defend his title once a year; the match should be won by the first player to win six or eight games, whichever the champion preferred; and the stake should be at least £1,000 (worth about £347,000 or $700,000 in 2006 terms).
During World War I
World War I began in midsummer 1914, bringing international chess to a virtual halt for more than four years. Capablanca won tournaments in New York in 1914, 1915, 1916 (with preliminary and final round-robin stages) and 1918, losing only one game in this sequence. In the 1918 event Frank James Marshall, playing Black against Capablanca, unleashed a complicated counter-attack, later known as the Marshall Attack, against the Ruy LopezRuy Lopez
The Ruy Lopez, also called the Spanish Opening or Spanish Game, is a chess opening characterised by the moves:-History:The opening is named after the 16th century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura, who made a systematic study of this and other openings in the 150-page book on chess Libro del...
opening. It is often said that Marshall had kept this secret for use against Capablanca since his defeat in their 1909 match; however, Edward Winter
Edward Winter (chess historian)
Edward Winter is an English journalist, archivist, historian, collector and author about the game of chess. He writes a regular column on that subject, Chess Notes, and is also a regular columnist for ChessBase.-Chess Notes:...
discovered several games between 1910 and 1918 where Marshall passed up opportunities to use the Marshall Attack against Capablanca; and an 1893 game that used a similar line. This gambit
Gambit
A gambit is a chess opening in which a player, most often White, sacrifices material, usually a pawn, with the hope of achieving a resulting advantageous position. Some well-known examples are the King's Gambit , Queen's Gambit , and Evans Gambit...
is so complex that Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
used to avoid it, and Marshall had the advantage of using a prepared variation. Nevertheless, Capablanca found a way through the complications and won. Capablanca was challenged to a match in 1919 by Borislav Kostić
Borislav Kostic
Borislav Kostić was a Serbian professional chess grandmaster from Vršac , then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire ....
, who had come through the 1918 tournament undefeated to take second place. The match was to go to the first player to win eight games, but Kostić resigned the match after losing five straight games. Capablanca considered that he was at his strongest around this time.
World Champion
The HastingsHastings International Chess Congress
The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
Victory tournament of 1919 was the first international competition on Allied soil since 1914. The field was not strong, and Capablanca won with 10½ points out of 11, one point ahead of Kostić.
In January 1920, Emanuel Lasker and Capablanca signed an agreement to play a World Championship match in 1921, noting that Capablanca was not free to play in 1920. Because of the delay, Lasker insisted that if he resigned the title, then Capablanca should become World Champion. Lasker had previously included in his agreement before World War I to play Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein was a famous Polish chess Grandmaster at the beginning of the 20th century. He was scheduled to play a match with Emanuel Lasker for the world championship in 1914, but it was cancelled because of the outbreak of World War I...
for the title a similar clause that if he resigned the title, it should become Rubinstein's. Lasker then resigned the title to Capablanca on June 27, 1920, saying, "You have earned the title not by the formality of a challenge, but by your brilliant mastery." When Cuban enthusiasts raised $20,000 to fund the match provided it was played in Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, Lasker agreed in August 1920 to play there, but insisted that he was the challenger as Capablanca was now the champion. Capablanca signed an agreement that accepted this point, and soon afterwards published a letter confirming it.
The match was played in March–April 1921; Lasker resigned it after just fourteen games, having lost four games and won none. Reuben Fine
Reuben Fine
Reuben Fine was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the early 1930s through the 1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology.Fine won five medals in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S...
and Harry Golombek
Harry Golombek
Harry Golombek OBE , was a British chess International Master and honorary grandmaster, chess arbiter, and chess author. He was three times British chess champion, in 1947, 1949, and 1955 and finished second in 1948. He became a grandmaster in 1985.He was the chess correspondent of The Times...
attributed the one-sided result to Lasker's being in mysteriously poor form. Fred Reinfeld
Fred Reinfeld
Fred Reinfeld was an American chess master and a prolific writer on chess and many other subjects, whose books are still read today.-Biography:...
mentioned speculations that Havana's humid climate weakened Lasker and that he was depressed about the outcome of World War I, especially as he had lost his life savings. On the other hand, Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007...
thought that Lasker played quite well and the match was an "even and fascinating fight" until Lasker blundered in the last game. Kramnik explained that Capablanca was twenty years younger, a slightly stronger player, and had more recent competitive practice.
Edward Winter, after a lengthy summary of the facts, concludes that, "The press was dismissive of Lasker's wish to confer the title on Capablanca, even questioning the legality of such an initiative, and in 1921 it regarded the Cuban as having become world champion by dint of defeating Lasker over the board." Reference works invariably give Capablanca's reign as titleholder as beginning in 1921, not 1920. The only challenger besides Capablanca to win the title without losing a game is Kramnik, in the Classical World Chess Championship 2000
Classical World Chess Championship 2000
The Classical World Chess Championship 2000, known at the time as the Braingames World Chess Championships, was held from October 8, 2000 – November 4, 2000 in London, United Kingdom. Garry Kasparov, the defending champion, played Vladimir Kramnik...
against Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
.
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
on 11½, Milan Vidmar
Milan Vidmar
Milan Vidmar was a Slovene electrical engineer, chess player, chess theorist, philosopher, and writer. He was a specialist in power transformers and transmission of electric current.- Biography :...
(11), and Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein was a famous Polish chess Grandmaster at the beginning of the 20th century. He was scheduled to play a match with Emanuel Lasker for the world championship in 1914, but it was cancelled because of the outbreak of World War I...
(10½). During this event, Capablanca proposed the "London Rules" to regulate future World Championship negotiations: the first player to win six games would win the match; playing sessions would be limited to 5 hours; the time limit would be 40 moves in 2½ hours; the champion must defend his title within one year of receiving a challenge from a recognized master; the champion would decide the date of the match; the champion was not obliged to accept a challenge for a purse of less than US $10,000 (worth about $349,000 in 2006 terms); 20% of the purse was to be paid to the title holder and the remainder divided, 60% going to the winner of the match, and 40% to the loser; the highest purse bid must be accepted. Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubow
Efim Bogoljubow
Efim Dmitriyevich Bogolyubov was a Russo-German chess grandmaster who won numerous events and played two matches with Alexander Alekhine for the world championship.-Early career:...
, Géza Maróczy
Géza Maróczy
Géza Maróczy was a leading Hungarian chess Grandmaster, one of the best players in the world in his time. He was also a practicing engineer.-Early career:...
, Richard Reti
Richard Réti
Réti composed one of the most famous chess studies, shown in this diagram. It was published in Ostrauer Morgenzeitung 4 December 1921. It seems impossible for the white king to catch the advanced black pawn, while the white pawn can be easily stopped by the black king...
, Rubinstein, Tartakower
Savielly Tartakower
Ksawery Tartakower was a leading Polish and French chess Grandmaster. He was also a leading chess journalist of the 1920s and 30s...
and Vidmar promptly signed them. Between 1921 and 1923 Alekhine, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch was a Russian-born Danish unofficial chess grandmaster and a very influential chess writer...
all challenged Capablanca, but only Alekhine could raise the money, in 1927.
In 1922, Capablanca also gave a simultaneous exhibition in Cleveland against 103 opponents, the largest in history up to that time, winning 102 and drawing
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
one – setting a record for the best winning percentage ever in a large simultaneous exhibition.
After beginning with four draws, followed by a loss, Capablanca placed second at the New York 1924 chess tournament
New York 1924 chess tournament
New York 1924 was an elite chess tournament held in the Alamac Hotel in New York City from March 6 to April 18, 1924. It was organized by the Manhattan Chess Club. The competitors included world champion José Raúl Capablanca and his predecessor Emanuel Lasker. Nine other top players from Europe...
with the score of 14/20 (+10 −1 =9), 1½ points behind Emanuel Lasker, and 2 ahead of third-placed Alekhine. Capablanca's defeat at the hands of Richard Reti
Richard Réti
Réti composed one of the most famous chess studies, shown in this diagram. It was published in Ostrauer Morgenzeitung 4 December 1921. It seems impossible for the white king to catch the advanced black pawn, while the white pawn can be easily stopped by the black king...
in the fifth round was his first in serious competition in eight years. He made another bad start at the Moscow 1925 chess tournament
Moscow 1925 chess tournament
This international super-tournament, organised by Nikolai Krylenko, was held in Moscow, the Soviet Union, from 10 November to 8 December 1925. It was the world's first state-sponsored chess tournament. There were eleven foreign stars and ten Soviet masters. World champion José Raúl Capablanca and...
, and could only fight back to third place, two points behind Bogoljubow and ½ point behind Emanuel Lasker. Capablanca won at Lake Hopatcong
Lake Hopatcong
Lake Hopatcong is the largest freshwater body in the state of New Jersey, USA, approximately 4 square miles in area. The lake is located in the mountains of northern New Jersey, north of Netcong and along the border between Sussex and Morris counties.The lake is within the borders of four...
, 1926 with 6 points out of 8, ahead of Abraham Kupchik
Abraham Kupchik
Abraham Kupchik was an American chess master.Abraham Kupchik was born into a Jewish family in Brest . His family emigrated to the USA in 1903....
(5) and Maroczy (4½).
A group of Argentinian businessmen, backed by a guarantee from the president of Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, promised the funds for a World Championship match between Capablanca and Alekhine in 1927. Since Nimzowitsch had challenged before Alekhine, Capablanca gave Nimzowitsch until January 1, 1927 to deposit a forfeit in order arrange a match. When this did not materialize, a Capablanca–Alekhine match
World Chess Championship 1927
The 1927 World Chess Championship was played between José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine. It was played in Buenos Aires from September 16 to November 29, 1927...
was agreed, to begin in September 1927.
In the New York 1927 chess tournament
New York 1927 chess tournament
The New York 1927 chess tournament was an elite chess tournament held in New York City from February 19 to March 23, 1927. Play was held in the magnificent surroundings of the Trade Banquet Hall of the Hotel, Manhattan Square. Julius Finn was the president of the event. The prizes were on lavish...
, played from February 19 to March 23, 1927, six of the world's strongest masters played a quadruple round robin, with the others being Alekhine, Rudolf Spielmann
Rudolf Spielmann
Rudolf Spielmann was an Austrian-Jewish chess player of the romantic school, and chess writer.-Career:He was a lawyer but never worked as one....
, Milan Vidmar
Milan Vidmar
Milan Vidmar was a Slovene electrical engineer, chess player, chess theorist, philosopher, and writer. He was a specialist in power transformers and transmission of electric current.- Biography :...
, Nimzowitsch and Marshall, with Bogoljubow and Emanuel Lasker not present. Before the tournament, Capablanca wrote that he had "more experience but less power" than in 1911, that he had peaked in 1919 and that some of his competitors had become stronger in the meantime; however, he finished undefeated, winning the mini-matches with each of his rivals, 2½ points ahead of second-place Alekhine, and won the "best game" prize for a win over Spielmann.
In December 1921, shortly after becoming World Champion, Capablanca married Gloria Simoni Betancourt. They had a son, José Raúl Jr., in 1923 and a daughter, Gloria, in 1925. According to Capablanca's second wife, Olga, his first marriage broke down fairly soon, and he and Gloria had affairs. Both his parents died during his reign, his father in 1923 and mother in 1926.
Losing the title
New York 1927 chess tournament
The New York 1927 chess tournament was an elite chess tournament held in New York City from February 19 to March 23, 1927. Play was held in the magnificent surroundings of the Trade Banquet Hall of the Hotel, Manhattan Square. Julius Finn was the president of the event. The prizes were on lavish...
overwhelmingly and had never lost a game to Alekhine, the Cuban was regarded by most pundits as the clear favorite in their World Chess Championship 1927
World Chess Championship 1927
The 1927 World Chess Championship was played between José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine. It was played in Buenos Aires from September 16 to November 29, 1927...
match. However, Alekhine won the match, played from September to November 1927 at Buenos Aires, by 6 wins, 3 losses, and 25 draws – the longest formal World Championship match until the contest in 1984–85
World Chess Championship 1984
The World Chess Championship 1984 was a match between challenger Garry Kasparov and defending champion Anatoly Karpov for the World Chess Championship title...
between Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once...
and Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
. Alekhine's victory surprised almost the entire chess world. After Capablanca's death, Alekhine expressed surprise at his own victory, since in 1927 he had not thought he was superior to Capablanca, and he suggested that Capablanca had been over-confident. Capablanca entered the match with no technical or physical preparation, while Alekhine got himself into good physical condition, and had thoroughly studied Capablanca's play. According to Kasparov, Alekhine's research uncovered many small inaccuracies, which occurred because Capablanca was unwilling to concentrate intensely. Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007...
commented that this was the first contest in which Capablanca had no easy wins. Luděk Pachman
Ludek Pachman
Luděk Pachman was a Czechoslovak-German chess grandmaster, chess writer, and political activist. In 1972, after being imprisoned and tortured almost to death by the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, he was allowed to emigrate to West Germany...
suggested that Capablanca, who was unaccustomed to losing games or to any other type of setback, became depressed over his unnecessary loss of the eleventh game, a long, gruelling endgame, featuring errors by both players.
Immediately after winning the match, Alekhine announced that he was willing to give Capablanca a return match, on the same terms that Capablanca had required as champion – the challenger must provide a stake of US $10,000, of which more than half would go to the defending champion even if he was defeated. Alekhine had challenged Capablanca in the early 1920s but Alekhine could not raise the money until 1927. After Capablanca's death, Alekhine wrote that Capablanca's demand for a $10,000 stake was an attempt to avoid challenges. Negotiations dragged on for several years, often breaking down when agreement seemed in sight. Their relationship became bitter, and Alekhine demanded much higher appearance fees for tournaments in which Capablanca also played.
Post-championship and partial retirement
Max Euwe
Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...
and Isaac Kashdan
Isaac Kashdan
Isaac Kashdan was an American chess grandmaster and chess writer. Kashdan was one of the world's best players in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was twice U.S. Open champion...
, as well as players who had been established in the 1920s, but Capablanca and Alekhine never played in the same tournament during this period, and would next meet only at the Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
, 1936 tournament, after Alekhine had lost the world title to Euwe the preceding year. In late 1931, Capablanca also won a match (+2 −0 =8) against Euwe, whom Chessmetrics
Chessmetrics
Chessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo rating system.-Implementation:...
ranks sixth in the world at the time.
Despite these excellent results, Capablanca's play showed signs of decline: his play slowed from the speed of his youth, with occasional time trouble
Time trouble
In chess played with a time control, time trouble, time pressure, or its German translation Zeitnot, is the situation where a player has little time to complete the required moves. When forced to play quickly, the probability of making blunders is increased, so handling the clock is an important...
; although he continued to produce many superb games, he also made some gross blunders. Chessmetrics nonetheless ranks Capablanca as the second strongest player in the world (after Alekhine) from his loss of the title through to autumn 1932, except for a brief appearance in the top place.
After winning an event at New York in 1931, he withdrew from serious chess, perhaps disheartened by his inability to secure a return match against Alekhine, and played only less serious games at the Manhattan Chess Club
Manhattan Chess Club
The Manhattan Chess Club in Manhattan was the second-oldest chess club in the United States . The club was founded in 1877 and started with three dozen players; membership later reached into the hundreds before the club ended its existence in 2002...
and simultaneous displays. On 6 December 1933, Capablanca won all 9 of his games in one of the club's weekly rapid chess tournaments, finishing 2 points ahead of Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...
, Reuben Fine
Reuben Fine
Reuben Fine was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the early 1930s through the 1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology.Fine won five medals in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S...
and Milton Hanauer
Milton Hanauer
Milton Loeb Hanauer was a public school principal, chess master and Marshall Chess Club official.Born in Harrison, New York, He is best known for running the New York school competition that became known as the Hanauer League and for writing the book Chess Made Simple.His playing career is not...
.
Return to competitive chess
At first Capablanca did not divorce his first wife, as he had not intended to re-marry. Olga, Capablanca's second wife, wrote that she met him in the late spring of 1934; by late October the pair were deeply in love, and Capablanca recovered his ambition to prove he was the world's best player. In 1938 he divorced his first wife and then married Olga on October 20, 1938, about a month before the AVRO tournament.Starting his comeback at the Hastings tournament of 1934–35, Capablanca finished fourth, although coming ahead of Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...
and Andor Lilienthal
Andor Lilienthal
Andor Arnoldovich Lilienthal was a Hungarian and Soviet chess Grandmaster. In his long career, he played against ten male and female world champions, beating Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, and Vera Menchik...
. He placed second by ½ point in the Margate tournaments of 1935 and 1936. At Moscow in 1935 Capablanca finished fourth, 1 point behind the joint winners, while Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
's third place at the age of 66 was hailed as "a biological miracle." The following year, Capablanca won an even stronger tournament in Moscow, one point ahead of Botvinnik and 3½ ahead of Salo Flohr
Salo Flohr
Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr was a leading Czech and later Soviet chess grandmaster of the mid-20th century, who became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. His name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, slippers and eau-de-cologne...
, who took third place; A month later, he shared first place with Botvinnik at Nottingham, with a score of (+5 −1 =8), losing only to Flohr, because of having been disturbed in time trouble by the bystanding Max Euwe
Max Euwe
Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...
; Alekhine placed sixth, only one point behind the joint winners. These tournaments of 1936 were the last two that Lasker played, and the only ones in which Capablanca finished ahead of Lasker, now 67.
During these triumphs Capablanca began to suffer symptoms of high blood pressure
Hypertension
Hypertension or high blood pressure is a cardiac chronic medical condition in which the systemic arterial blood pressure is elevated. What that means is that the heart is having to work harder than it should to pump the blood around the body. Blood pressure involves two measurements, systolic and...
. He tied for second place at Semmering
Semmering
For the town of the same name, see Semmering, Austria.Semmering is a mountain pass in the Eastern Northern Limestone Alps connecting Lower Austria and Styria, between which it forms a natural border.-Location:...
in 1937, then could only finish seventh of the eight players at the 1938 AVRO
Avro
Avro was a British aircraft manufacturer, with numerous landmark designs such as the Avro 504 trainer in the First World War, the Avro Lancaster, one of the pre-eminent bombers of the Second World War, and the delta wing Avro Vulcan, a stalwart of the Cold War.-Early history:One of the world's...
tournament, an élite contest designed to select a challenger for Alekhine's world title. Capablanca's high blood pressure was not correctly diagnosed and treated until after the AVRO tournament, and caused him to lose his train of thought towards the end of playing sessions.
After winning at Paris in 1938 and placing second in a slightly stronger tournament at Margate in 1939, Capablanca played for Cuba in the 8th Chess Olympiad
8th Chess Olympiad
The 8th Chess Olympiad, organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs , comprised an 'open' tournament, as well as a Women's World Championship contest...
, held in Buenos Aires, and won the gold medal for the best performance on the top board. While Capablanca and Alekhine were both representing their countries in Buenos Aires, Capablanca made a final attempt to arrange a World Championship match. Alekhine declined, saying he was obliged to be available to defend his adopted homeland, France, as World War II had just broken out. Alekhine also sat out the match when the teams from Cuba and France faced each other in the Buenos Aires Olympiad, thus declining an opportunity to play Capablanca once more.
Death
On 7 March 1942, Capablanca was observing a skittles game and chatting with friends at the Manhattan Chess ClubManhattan Chess Club
The Manhattan Chess Club in Manhattan was the second-oldest chess club in the United States . The club was founded in 1877 and started with three dozen players; membership later reached into the hundreds before the club ended its existence in 2002...
in New York City, when he asked for help removing his coat, and collapsed shortly afterwards. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital
Mount Sinai Hospital, New York
Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is one of the oldest and largest teaching hospitals in the United States. In 2011-2012, Mount Sinai Hospital was ranked as one of America's best hospitals by U.S...
, where he died at 6 a.m. the next morning. The cause of death was given as "a cerebral haemorrhage provoked by hypertension
Hypertension
Hypertension or high blood pressure is a cardiac chronic medical condition in which the systemic arterial blood pressure is elevated. What that means is that the heart is having to work harder than it should to pump the blood around the body. Blood pressure involves two measurements, systolic and...
". Capablanca's great rival Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
had died in the same hospital only a year earlier. Capablanca's body was given a public funeral in Havana's Colón Cemetery on March 15, 1942.
His bitter rival Alekhine wrote in a tribute to Capablanca:
- … Capablanca was snatched from the chess world much too soon. With his death, we have lost a very great chess genius whose like we shall never see again.
Emanuel Lasker once said: "I have known many chess players, but only one chess genius: Capablanca."
An annual Capablanca Memorial
Capablanca Memorial
The Capablanca Memorial is a chess tournament that has been held annually in Cuba since 1962.José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a famous Cuban chess master who was World Champion from 1921 to 1927. The Capablanca Memorial became the best paid tournament in the world...
tournament has been held in Cuba, most often in Havana, since 1962.
Playing strength and style
As an adult, Capablanca lost only 34 serious games. He was undefeated from February 10, 1916, when he lost to Oscar ChajesOscar Chajes
Oscar Chajes was an Austrian, then American chess player.-Biography:Chajes was Jewish and was born in Brody, Galicia, in what is now Ukraine. In 1909, he won in Excelsior, Minnesota . In 1910, he took 2nd in Chicago. In January/February 1911, he tied for 3rd-4th in New York...
in the New York 1916 tournament, to March 21, 1924, when he lost to Richard Réti in the New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
International tournament. During this streak, which included his 1921 World Championship match against Lasker, Capablanca played 63 games, winning 40 and drawing 23. In fact, only Marshall, Lasker, Alekhine and Rudolf Spielmann
Rudolf Spielmann
Rudolf Spielmann was an Austrian-Jewish chess player of the romantic school, and chess writer.-Career:He was a lawyer but never worked as one....
won two or more serious games from the mature Capablanca, though in each case, their overall lifetime scores were minus (Capablanca beat Marshall +20 −2 =28, Lasker +6 −2 =16, Alekhine +9 −7 =33), except for Spielmann who was level (+2 −2 =8). Of top players, only Keres had a narrow plus score against him (+1 −0 =5). Keres' win was at the AVRO 1938 chess tournament, during which tournament Capablanca turned 50, while Keres was 22.
Statistical ranking systems place Capablanca high among the greatest players of all time. Nathan Divinsky
Nathan Divinsky
Nathan Joseph Divinsky is a Canadian mathematician, chess master, and chess writer, who is also known for being the former husband of the 19th Prime Minister of Canada, Kim Campbell. Divinsky and Campbell were married from 1972 to 1983....
and Raymond Keene
Raymond Keene
Raymond Dennis Keene OBE is an English chess Grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.p196 He won the British Chess Championship in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974. In 1976 he became the second...
's book Warriors of the Mind (1989) ranks him fifth, behind Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
, Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once...
, Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
and Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...
– and immediately ahead of Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
. In his 1978 book The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, Arpad Elo
Árpád Élo
Arpad Emrick Elo is the creator of the Elo rating system for two-player games such as chess. Born in Egyházaskesző, Austro-Hungarian Empire, he moved to the United States with his parents as a child in 1913.Elo was a professor of physics at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was...
gave retrospective ratings to players based on their performance over the best five-year span of their career. He concluded that Capablanca was the strongest of those surveyed, with Lasker and Botvinnik sharing second place. Chessmetrics
Chessmetrics
Chessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo rating system.-Implementation:...
(2006) is rather sensitive to the length of the periods being compared, and ranks Capablanca between third and fourth strongest of all time for peak periods ranging in length from one to fifteen years. Its author, the statistician Jeff Sonas
Jeff Sonas
Jeff Sonas is known as a statistical chess analyst who invented the Chessmetrics system for rating chess players, which is intended as an improvement on the Elo rating system. He is the founder and proprietor of the Chessmetrics.com website, which gives Sonas' calculations of the ratings of current...
, concluded that Capablanca had more years in the top three than anyone except Lasker, Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once...
and Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
– although Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
had more years in the top two positions. A 2006 study claimed to show that Capablanca was the most accurate of all the World Champions when compared with computer analysis of World Championship match games. However, this analysis was criticized for using a second-rank chess program, Crafty
Crafty
Crafty is a chess program written by UAB professor Dr. Robert Hyatt. It is directly derived from Cray Blitz, winner of the 1983 and 1986 World Computer Chess Championships....
, modified to limit its calculations to six moves by each side, and for favoring players whose style matched that of the program.
Boris Spassky
Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky is a Soviet-French chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from late 1969 to 1972...
, World Champion from 1969 to 1972, considered Capablanca the best player of all time. Bobby Fischer, who held the title from 1972 to 1975, admired Capablanca's "light touch" and ability to see the right move very quickly. Fischer reported that in the 1950s, older members of the Manhattan Chess Club
Manhattan Chess Club
The Manhattan Chess Club in Manhattan was the second-oldest chess club in the United States . The club was founded in 1877 and started with three dozen players; membership later reached into the hundreds before the club ended its existence in 2002...
spoke of Capablanca's performances with awe.
Capablanca excelled in simple positions and endgames, and his positional judgment was outstanding, so much so that most attempts to attack him came to grief without any apparent defensive efforts on his part. However, he could play great tactical chess when necessary – most famously in the 1918 Manhattan Chess Club Championship tournament (in New York) where Marshall sprang a deeply-analyzed prepared variation on him, which he refuted while playing under the normal time limit (although ways have since been found to strengthen the Marshall Attack). He was also capable of using aggressive tactical play to drive home a positional advantage, provided he considered it safe and the most efficient way to win, for example against Spielmann
Rudolf Spielmann
Rudolf Spielmann was an Austrian-Jewish chess player of the romantic school, and chess writer.-Career:He was a lawyer but never worked as one....
in the 1927 New York tournament.
Influence on the game
Capablanca founded no school per se, but his style was very influential in the games of two world champions: Fischer and Anatoly KarpovAnatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once...
. Botvinnik also wrote how much he learned from Capablanca, and pointed out that Alekhine had received much schooling from him in positional play, before their fight for the world title made them bitter enemies.
As a chess writer, Capablanca did not present large amounts of detailed analysis, instead focusing on the critical moments in a game. His writing style was plain and easy to understand. Botvinnik regarded Capablanca's book Chess Fundamentals as the best chess book ever written. Capablanca in a lecture and in his book A Primer of Chess pointed out that while the bishop
Bishop (chess)
A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
was usually stronger than the knight
Knight (chess)
The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
, queen and knight was usually better than queen and bishop, especially in endings — the bishop merely mimics the queen's diagonal move, while the knight can immediately reach squares the queen cannot. Research is divided over Capablanca's conclusion: in 2007, Glenn Flear
Glenn Flear
Glenn Curtis Flear is a British chess grandmaster now living in Montpellier, France. He is the author of several books, some on chess openings and some on the endgame....
found little difference, while in 1999, Larry Kaufman
Larry Kaufman
Lawrence C. "Larry" Kaufman is a Grandmaster of chess. He is also a mathematics professor and currently lives in Potomac, Maryland. In 2008, as an International Master, Kaufman won the World Senior Championship which automatically earned him the Grandmaster title.A long time researcher in...
, analysing a large database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
of games, concluded that results very slightly favored queen plus knight. John Watson
John L. Watson
John Leonard Watson is a chess International Master and author.Watson was born in Milwaukee and grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. He was educated at Brownell-Talbot, Harvard, and the University of California at San Diego, where he took his degree in engineering...
wrote in 1998 that an unusually large proportion of queen and knight versus queen and bishop endings are drawn, and that most decisive games are characterized by the winning side having one or more obvious advantages in that specific game.
Personality
Early in his chess career, Capablanca had received some criticism, mainly in Britain, for the allegedly conceited description of his accomplishments in his first book, My Chess Career. He therefore took the unprecedented step of including virtually all of his tournament and match defeats up to that time in Chess Fundamentals, together with an instructive group of his victories. Nevertheless his preface to the 1934 edition of Chess Fundamentals is confident that the "reader may therefore go over the contents of the book with the assurance that there is in it everything he needs." However Julius du MontJulius du Mont
Julius du Mont was a pianist, piano teacher, chess player, journalist, editor and writer. He studied music at the Frankfurt Conservatoire and at Heidelberg, and became a concert pianist. He emigrated to England as a young man and became a successful piano teacher. Amongst his pupils was Edna Iles...
wrote that he knew Capablanca well and could vouch that he was not conceited. In du Mont's opinion critics should understand the difference between the merely gifted and the towering genius of Capablanca, and the contrast between the British tendency towards false modesty and the Latin and American tendency to say "I played this game as well as it could be played" if he honestly thought that it was correct. Fischer also admired this frankness.
Du Mont also said that Capablanca was rather sensitive to criticism, and chess historian Edward Winter documented a number of examples of self-criticism in My Chess Career.
Despite his achievements Capablanca appeared more interested in baseball than in chess, which he described as "not a difficult game to learn and it is an enjoyable game to play." His second wife, Olga, thought he resented the way in which chess had dominated his life, and wished he could have studied music or medicine.
Capablanca chess
In an interview in 1925 Capablanca denied reports that he thought chess had already currently reached its limit because it was easy for top players to obtain a drawDraw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
. However he was concerned that the accelerating development of chess technique and opening knowledge might cause such stagnation in 50 years' time. Hence he suggested the adoption of a 10x8 board with 2 extra pieces per side:
- a chancellor
Fairy chess pieceA fairy chess piece or unorthodox chess piece is a piece analogous to a chess piece. It is not used in conventional chess, but is used in certain chess variants and some chess problems...
that moves as both a rookRook (chess)A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes...
and a knightKnight (chess)The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
; - an archbishop that moves as both a bishop
Bishop (chess)A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
and a knightKnight (chess)The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
. This piece would be able to deliver checkmateCheckmateCheckmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
on its own, which none of the conventional pieces can do.
He thought this would prevent technical knowledge from becoming such a dominant factor, at least for a few centuries.
Capablanca and Edward Lasker
Edward Lasker
Edward Lasker was a leading German-American chess and Go player. He was awarded the title of International Master of chess by FIDE. Lasker was an engineer by profession, and an author.-Background:...
experimented with 10x10 and 10x8 boards, using the same expanded set of pieces. They preferred the 8-rank version as it encouraged combat to start earlier, and their games typically lasted 20 to 25 moves. Contrary to the claims of some critics, Capablanca proposed this variant while he was world champion, not as sour grapes
The Fox and the Grapes
"The Fox and the Grapes" is one of the traditional Aesop's fables and can be held to illustrate the concept of cognitive dissonance. In this view, the premise of the fox that covets inaccessible grapes is taken to stand for a person who attempts to hold incompatible ideas simultaneously...
after losing his title.
Similar 10x8 variants had previously been described in 1617 by Pietro Carrera
Pietro Carrera
Pietro Carrera, chess player, historian, priest and author, born in Sicily, in Militello in Val di Catania , located in the Valley of Noto; here he grew up in the old colony of San Vito. He was born on July 12, 1573, he was the son of Donna Antonia Severino and Mariano Carrera, a traditional...
and in 1874 by Henry Bird, differing only in how the new pieces were placed in each side's back row. Subsequent variants inspired by Capablanca's experimentation have been proposed, including Grand chess
Grand chess
Grand chess is a popular large-board chess variant invented by Dutch games designer Christian Freeling in 1984. It is played on a 10×10 board, with each side having two additional pawns and two new pieces: the marshall and the cardinal....
(which uses a 10x10 board and has pawns on the third rank), Gothic Chess
Gothic chess
Gothic Chess is a chess variant derived from Capablanca Chess by Ed Trice. It was patented in 2002, but the patent expired in 2006.It is played on the same 10×8 board and additional pieces as in Capablanca Chess...
(which used to be patented), and Embassy Chess
Embassy Chess
Embassy chess is a chess variant created in 2005 by Kevin Hill. It borrows the opening setup from Grand chess by Christian Freeling and adapts it to the 10x8 board....
(the Grand chess setup on a 10x8 board).
Notable chess games
- Jose Raul Capablanca vs L Molina, Buenos Aires 1911, Queen's Gambit Declined: Modern. Knight Defense (D52), 1-0 An impressive Greco's sacrifice along with deceptive simplicity and effortless endgame.
- Jose Raul Capablanca vs Frank James Marshall, ch Manhattan CC, New York 1918, Spanish Game: Marshall Attack. Original Marshall Attack (C89), 1-0 One of the most famous games of Capablanca. That Marshall unveiled this attack after having kept it secret for years is a myth. Perfect example of defending against an extremely aggressive attack.
- Jose Raul Capablanca vs Professor Marc Fonaroff, New York 1918, Spanish Game: Berlin Defense. Hedgehog Variation (C62), 1-0 A freaky ending with amazing accuracy.
- Emanuel Lasker vs Jose Raul Capablanca, Lasker-Capablanca World Championship Match, Havana 1921. Queen's Gambit Declined: Orthodox Defense. Rubinstein Variation (D61), 0-1 A strategic masterpiece and instructive endgame which should be on everybody's list. Capablanca out-playing the great Lasker in the endgame with simple and perfect maneuvering of pieces. A must-see game for chess endgame fans.
- Jose Raul Capablanca vs Savielly Tartakower, New York 1924, Dutch Defense, Horwitz Variation: General (A80), 1–0 A brilliant endgame from the natural genius. Dubbed as "Rook Before you Leap". Demonstrates the exceptional endgame skills of Capablanca with flawless artistry.
- Jose Raul Capablanca vs Rudolf Spielmann, New York 1927, Queen's Gambit Declined: Barmen Variation (D37), 1-0 A remarkable tactical game which earned the "Brilliancy Price" for Capablanca. This is a showcase of Capablanca's tactical skills complementing positional supremacy.
- Jose Raul Capablanca vs Andor Lilienthal, Moscow 1936, Reti Opening: Anglo-Slav. Bogoljubow Variation (A12), 1–0 A perfect endgame and pawn play utilizing the space against material advantage.
- Ilia Abramovich Kan vs Jose Raul Capablanca, Moscow 1936, Vienna Game: Anderssen Defense (C25), 0-1 Another demonstration of Capablanca's endgame supremacy. This game seems a drawn game, but witness how Capablanca ekes out a win using his positional mastery.
- Date missing: prior to 1929, Capablanca v. historian/educator/businessman Henry E. ChambersHenry E. ChambersHenry Edward Chambers, Sr. , was an educator and historian from New Orleans, Louisiana, known principally for his 1925 work, History of Louisiana: State and People, a principal source for much on the 19th and early 20th centuries.-Background:Chambers was born to Captain Joseph Chambers and the...
in New Orleans, LouisianaNew Orleans, LouisianaNew Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
. Each won a match.
Writings
- Havana 1913, by José Raúl Capablanca. This is the only tournament book he wrote. It was originally published in Spanish in 1913 in Havana. Edward Winter translated it into English, and it appeared as a British Chess MagazineBritish Chess MagazineBritish Chess Magazine is the world's oldest chess magazine in continuous publication. First published in January 1881, it has appeared at monthly intervals ever since. It is frequently known in the chess world as BCM....
reprint, Quarterly #18, in 1976. - A Primer of Chess by José Raúl Capablanca (preface by Benjamin AndersonBenjamin AndersonBenjamin McAlester Anderson, Jr. was an American economist in the Austrian tradition of Carl Menger.-Early life and education:...
). Originally published in 1935. Republished in 2002 by Harvest Books, ISBN 0156028077. - Chess Fundamentals by José Raúl Capablanca (Originally published in 1921. Republished by Everyman Chess, 1994, ISBN 1857440730. Revised and updated by Nick de FirmianNick de FirmianNicholas Ernest de Firmian , is a chess grandmaster and three-time U.S. chess champion, winning in 1987 , 1995, and 1998. He also tied for first in 2002, but Larry Christiansen won the playoff...
in 2006, ISBN 0-8129-3681-7.)-- available at Gutenberg.org in multiple formats - My Chess Career by José Raúl Capablanca (Originally published by Macmillan in 1921. Republished by Dover in 1966. Republished by Hardinge Simpole Limited, 2003, ISBN 1843820919.)
- The World's Championship Chess Match between José Raul Capablanca and Dr. Emanuel Lasker, with an introduction, the scores of all the games annotated by the champion, together with statistical matter and the biographies of the two masters, 1921 by José Raul Capablanca. (Republished in 1977 by Dover, together with a book on the 1927 match with annotations by Frederick YatesFrederick YatesFrederick Dewhurst Yates was an English chess master who won the British Chess Championship on six occasions...
and William WinterWilliam Winter (chess player)William Winter was a British chess player. He won the British Open Chess Championship in 1934 and the British Chess Championship in 1935 and 1936. An acolyte of Siegbert Tarrasch, his sound, strategic play enabled him to defeat a number of the world's top players, including David Bronstein, Aron...
, as World's Championship Matches, 1921 and 1927 by José Raúl Capablanca. ISBN 0486231895.) - Last Lectures by José Raúl Capablanca (Simon and Schuster, January 1966, ASIN B0007DZW6W)
Tournament results
The following table gives Capablanca's placings and scores in tournaments. The first "Score" column gives the number of points out of the total possible. In the second "Score" column, "+" indicates the number of won games, "−" the number of losses, and "=" the number of draws.| Date | Location | Place | |Score | 1911 | New York New York City New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and... |
2nd | 9½/12 | +8 −1 =3 | Marshall was 1st ahead of Capablanca. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Sebastián San Sebastián Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its... (Spain) |
1st | 9½/14 | +6 −1 =7 | Ahead of Akiba Rubinstein Akiba Rubinstein Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein was a famous Polish chess Grandmaster at the beginning of the 20th century. He was scheduled to play a match with Emanuel Lasker for the world championship in 1914, but it was cancelled because of the outbreak of World War I... and Milan Vidmar Milan Vidmar Milan Vidmar was a Slovene electrical engineer, chess player, chess theorist, philosopher, and writer. He was a specialist in power transformers and transmission of electric current.- Biography :... (9), Frank James Marshall (8½) and 11 other world-class players. His only loss was to Rubinstein, and his win against Ossip Bernstein Ossip Bernstein Ossip Samoilovich Bernstein was a Russian chess grandmaster and a financial lawyer.-Biography:... was awarded the brilliancy prize. |
|
| 1913 | New York | 1st | 11/13 | +10 −1 =2 | Ahead of Marshall (10½), Charles Jaffe Charles Jaffe Charles Jaffé was a Belarusian-American chess master, of virtually Grandmaster strength at his peak in the 1910s, when he was one of the world's top players. Jaffe was also a chess writer.... (9½) and Dawid Janowski Dawid Janowski Dawid Markelowicz Janowski was a leading Polish chess master and subsequent French citizen.... (9) |
| Havana Havana Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous... |
2nd | 10/14 | +8 −2 =4 | Behind Marshall (10½); ahead of Janowski (9) and five others. | |
| New York | 1st | 13/13 | +13 −0 =0 | Ahead of Oldřich Duras Oldrich Duras Oldřich Duras was a leading Czech chess master of the early 20th century... |
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| 1914 | St. Petersburg | 2nd | 13/18 | +10 −2 =6 | Behind Emanuel Lasker Emanuel Lasker Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years... (13½); ahead of Alexander Alekhine Alexander Alekhine Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played... (10), Siegbert Tarrasch Siegbert Tarrasch Siegbert Tarrasch was one of the strongest chess players and most influential chess teachers of the late 19th century and early 20th century.... (8½) and Marshall (8). This tournament had an unusual structure: there was a preliminary tournament in which eleven players played each other player once; the top five players then played a separate final tournament in which each player who made the "cut" played the other finalists twice; but their scores from the preliminary tournament were carried forward. Even the preliminary tournament would now be considered a "super-tournament". Capablanca "won" the preliminary tournament by 1½ points without losing a game, but Lasker achieved a plus score against all his opponents in the final tournament and finished with a combined score ½ point ahead of Capablanca's. |
| 1915 | New York | 1st | 13/14 | +12 −0 =2 | Ahead of Marshall (12) and six others. |
| 1916 | New York | 1st | 14/17 | +12 −1 =4 | Ahead of Janowski (11) and 11 others. The structure was similar to that of St. Petersburg 1914. |
| 1918 | New York | 1st | 10½/12 | +9 −0 =3 | Ahead of Boris Kostić (9), Marshall (7), and four others |
| 1919 | Hastings Hastings International Chess Congress The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the... |
1st | 10½/11 | +10 −0 =1 | Ahead of Kostić (9½), Sir George Thomas George Alan Thomas Sir George Alan Thomas, Bart. was a British badminton, tennis and chess player. He was twice British Chess Champion and a 21-time All-England Badminton champion. He also played in the semi-finals of the men's tennis doubles at Wimbledon in 1911... (7), Frederick Yates Frederick Yates Frederick Dewhurst Yates was an English chess master who won the British Chess Championship on six occasions... (7) and eight others |
| 1922 | London | 1st | 13/15 | +11 −0 =4 | Ahead of Alekhine (11½), Vidmar (11), Rubinstein (10½), Efim Bogoljubow Efim Bogoljubow Efim Dmitriyevich Bogolyubov was a Russo-German chess grandmaster who won numerous events and played two matches with Alexander Alekhine for the world championship.-Early career:... (9), and 11 other players, mostly very strong |
| 1924 | New York | 2nd | 14½/20 | +10 −1 =9 | Behind Lasker (16); ahead of Alekhine (12), Marshall (11), Richard Réti Richard Réti Réti composed one of the most famous chess studies, shown in this diagram. It was published in Ostrauer Morgenzeitung 4 December 1921. It seems impossible for the white king to catch the advanced black pawn, while the white pawn can be easily stopped by the black king... (10½) and six others, mostly very strong |
| 1925 | Moscow | 3rd | 13½/20 | +9 −2 =9 | Behind Bogojubow (15½) and Lasker (14); ahead of Marshall (12½) and a mixture of strong international players and rising Soviet Soviet Union The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.... players |
| 1926 | Lake Hopatcong Lake Hopatcong Lake Hopatcong is the largest freshwater body in the state of New Jersey, USA, approximately 4 square miles in area. The lake is located in the mountains of northern New Jersey, north of Netcong and along the border between Sussex and Morris counties.The lake is within the borders of four... |
1st | 6/8 | +4 −0 =4 | Ahead of Abraham Kupchik Abraham Kupchik Abraham Kupchik was an American chess master.Abraham Kupchik was born into a Jewish family in Brest . His family emigrated to the USA in 1903.... (5), Géza Maróczy Géza Maróczy Géza Maróczy was a leading Hungarian chess Grandmaster, one of the best players in the world in his time. He was also a practicing engineer.-Early career:... (4½), Marshall (3) and Edward Lasker Edward Lasker Edward Lasker was a leading German-American chess and Go player. He was awarded the title of International Master of chess by FIDE. Lasker was an engineer by profession, and an author.-Background:... (1½) |
| 1927 | New York | 1st | 14/20 | +8 −0 =12 | Ahead of Alekhine (11½), Aron Nimzowitsch Aron Nimzowitsch Aron Nimzowitsch was a Russian-born Danish unofficial chess grandmaster and a very influential chess writer... (10½), Vidmar (10), Rudolf Spielmann Rudolf Spielmann Rudolf Spielmann was an Austrian-Jewish chess player of the romantic school, and chess writer.-Career:He was a lawyer but never worked as one.... (8) and Marshall (6). |
| 1928 | Bad Kissingen Bad Kissingen Bad Kissingen is a spa town in the Bavarian region of Lower Franconia and is the seat of the district Bad Kissingen. Situated to the south of the Rhön Mountains on the Franconian Saale river, it is a world-famous health resort.- Town structure :... |
2nd | 7/11 | +4 −1 =6 | Behind Bogojubow (8); ahead of Max Euwe Max Euwe Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam... (6½), Rubinstein (6½), Nimzowitsch (6) and seven other strong masters |
| Budapest Budapest Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter... |
1st | 7/9 | +5 −0 =4 | Ahead of Marshall (6), Hans Kmoch Hans Kmoch Johann "Hans" Joseph Kmoch was an Austrian-Dutch-American chess International Master , International Arbiter , and a chess journalist and author, for which he is best known.... (5), Spielmann (5) and six others |
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| Berlin | 1st | 8½/12 | +5 −0 =7 | Ahead of Nimzowitsch (7), Spielmann (6½) and four other very strong players | |
| 1929 | Ramsgate Ramsgate Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Ports. It has a population of around 40,000. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline and its main... |
1st | 5½/7 | +4 −0 =3 | Ahead of Vera Menchik Vera Menchik Vera Menchik was a British-Czech chess player who gained renown as the world's first women's chess champion. She also competed in chess tournaments with some of the world's leading male chess masters, defeating many of them, including future World Champion Max Euwe.The daughter of a Czech father... (5), Rubinstein (5), and four others |
| Carlsbad Karlovy Vary Karlovy Vary is a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately west of Prague . It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370... |
2nd= | 14½/21 | +10 −2 =9 | Behind Nimzowitsch (15); tied with Spielmann; ahead of Rubinstein (13½) and 18 others, mostly very strong | |
| Budapest | 1st | 10½/13 | +8 −0 =5 | Ahead of Rubinstein (9½), Savielly Tartakower Savielly Tartakower Ksawery Tartakower was a leading Polish and French chess Grandmaster. He was also a leading chess journalist of the 1920s and 30s... (8) and 11 others |
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| Barcelona Barcelona Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of... |
1st | 13½/14 | +13 −0 =1 | Ahead of Tartakower (11½) and 13 others | |
| 1929–30 | Hastings | 1st | 6½/9 | +4 -0 =5 | |
| 1930–31 | Hastings | 2nd | 6½/9 | +5 −1 =3 | Behind Euwe (7); ahead of eight others |
| 1931 | New York | 1st | 10/11 | +9 −0 =2 | Ahead of Isaac Kashdan Isaac Kashdan Isaac Kashdan was an American chess grandmaster and chess writer. Kashdan was one of the world's best players in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was twice U.S. Open champion... (8½) and 10 others |
| 1934–35 | Hastings | 4th | 5½/9 | +4 −2 =3 | Behind Thomas, (6½), Euwe (6½) and Salo Flohr Salo Flohr Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr was a leading Czech and later Soviet chess grandmaster of the mid-20th century, who became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. His name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, slippers and eau-de-cologne... (6½); ahead Mikhail Botvinnik Mikhail Botvinnik Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while... (5), Andor Lilienthal Andor Lilienthal Andor Arnoldovich Lilienthal was a Hungarian and Soviet chess Grandmaster. In his long career, he played against ten male and female world champions, beating Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, and Vera Menchik... (5) and four others |
| 1935 | Moscow | 4th | 12/19 | +7 −2 =10 | Behind Botvinnik (13), Flohr (13) and Lasker (12½); ahead of Spielmann (11) and 15 others, mainly Soviet players |
| Margate Margate -Demography:As of the 2001 UK census, Margate had a population of 40,386.The ethnicity of the town was 97.1% white, 1.0% mixed race, 0.5% black, 0.8% Asian, 0.6% Chinese or other ethnicity.... |
2nd | 7/9 | +6 −1 =2 | Behind Samuel Reshevsky Samuel Reshevsky Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster... (7½); ahead of eight others. |
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| 1936 | Margate | 2nd | 7/9 | +5 −0 =4 | Behind Flohr (7½); ahead of Gideon Ståhlberg Gideon Ståhlberg Anders Gideon Tom Ståhlberg was a Swedish chess grandmaster.He won the Swedish Chess Championship of 1927, became Nordic champion in 1929, and held it until 1939.... and eight others. |
| Moscow | 1st | 13/18 | +8 −0 =10 | Ahead of Botvinnik (12), Flohr (9½), Lilienthal (9), Viacheslav Ragozin (8½), Lasker (8) and four others | |
| Nottingham Nottingham Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group... |
1st= | 10/14 | +7 −1 =6 | Tied with Botvinnik; ahead of Euwe (9½), Reuben Fine Reuben Fine Reuben Fine was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the early 1930s through the 1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology.Fine won five medals in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S... (9½), Reshevsky (9½), Alekhine (9), Flohr (8½), Lasker (8½) and seven other strong opponents |
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| 1937 | Semmering Semmering, Austria Semmering is a town in the district of Neunkirchen in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. It is famous for its skiing, and has hosted the Alpine skiing World Cup several times. When the famous Semmering Railway was completed in 1854, it brought many tourists from Vienna to here. Today, tourists... |
3rd= | 7½/14 | +2 −1 =11 | Behind Paul Keres Paul Keres Paul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster, and a renowned chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s.... (9), Fine (8); tied with Reshevsky; ahead of Flohr (7), Erich Eliskases Erich Eliskases Erich Gottlieb Eliskases was a chess Grandmaster of the 1930s and 1940s, who represented Austria, Germany and Argentina in international competition.... (6), Ragozin (6) and Vladimirs Petrovs Vladimirs Petrovs Vladimirs Petrovs or Vladimir Petrov was a Latvian chess master.He was born in Riga, Latvia. Though he learned the game of chess relatively late, at age thirteen, Petrovs made rapid progress. By 1926, at age 19, he won the Riga Championship and finish third in the national championship... (5) |
| 1938 | Paris | 1st= | 8/10 | +6 −0 =4 | Ahead of Nicolas Rossolimo (7½) and four others |
| AVRO tournament AVRO tournament The AVRO tournament was a chess tournament held in the Netherlands in 1938, sponsored by the Dutch broadcasting company AVRO. The event was a double round-robin tournament... , at ten cities in the Netherlands |
7th | 6/14 | +2 -4 =8 | Behind Keres (8½), Fine (8½), Botvinnik (7½), Alekhine (7), Euwe (7) and Reshevsky (7); ahead of Flohr (4½) | |
| 1939 | Margate | 2nd= | 6½/9 | +4 −0 =5 | Behind Keres (7½); tied with Flohr; ahead of seven others |
At the 1939 Chess Olympiad
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...
in Buenos Aires, Capablanca took the medal for best performance on a country's first board.
Match results
Here are Capablanca's results in matches. The first "Score" column gives the number of points on the total possible. In the second "Score" column, "+" indicates the number of won games, "−" the number of losses, and "=" the number of draws.| Date | Opponent | Result | | Location | |Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1901 | Juan Corzo Juan Corzo Juan Corzo y Principe was a Spanish–Cuban chess master, champion of Cuba immediately preceding José Capablanca.... |
Won | Havana | 7–6 | +4 −3 =6 | Corzo was the reigning champion of Cuba. |
| 1909 | Frank James Marshall | Won | New York | 15–8 | +8 −1 =14 | |
| 1912 | Charles Jaffe Charles Jaffe Charles Jaffé was a Belarusian-American chess master, of virtually Grandmaster strength at his peak in the 1910s, when he was one of the world's top players. Jaffe was also a chess writer.... |
Won | New York | 2½–½ | +2-0=1 | |
| 1912 | Oscar Chajes Oscar Chajes Oscar Chajes was an Austrian, then American chess player.-Biography:Chajes was Jewish and was born in Brody, Galicia, in what is now Ukraine. In 1909, he won in Excelsior, Minnesota . In 1910, he took 2nd in Chicago. In January/February 1911, he tied for 3rd-4th in New York... |
Won | New York | 1-0 | +1-0=0 | |
| 1913 | Richard Teichmann Richard Teichmann Richard Teichmann was a German chess master.He was known as "Richard the Fifth" because he often finished in fifth place in tournaments. But in Karlsbad 1911, he scored a convincing win, crushing Akiba Rubinstein and Carl Schlechter with the same line of the Ruy Lopez... |
Won | Berlin | 2–0 | +2-0=0 | |
| 1913 | Jacques Mieses Jacques Mieses ----Jacques Mieses was a German-born Jewish chess Grandmaster and writer. He became a naturalized British citizen after World War II.p258-Chess career:... |
Won | Berlin | 2–0 | +2-0=0 | |
| 1913 | Eugene Znosko-Borovsky Eugene Znosko-Borovsky Eugene Alexandrovich Znosko-Borovsky was a Russian chess master, music and drama critic, teacher and author. Born in Saint Petersburg, he settled in Paris in 1920, and lived there for the rest of his life.-Biography:... |
Drawn | St. Petersburg | 1–1 | +1-1=0 | The three matches against Russian masters were played for stakes. Besides the stake-money there was a gold cup to be awarded for the series, either to Capablanca if he won all his games, or to the player who made the best score against him. The cup went to Znosko-Borovsky. |
| 1913 | Alexander Alekhine Alexander Alekhine Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played... |
Won | St. Petersburg | 2–0 | +2-0=0 | |
| 1913 | Fedor Duz-Khotimirsky | Won | St. Petersburg | 2–0 | +2-0=0 | |
| 1914 | Ossip Bernstein Ossip Bernstein Ossip Samoilovich Bernstein was a Russian chess grandmaster and a financial lawyer.-Biography:... |
Won | Moscow | 1½–½ | +1-0=1 | |
| 1914 | Savielly Tartakower Savielly Tartakower Ksawery Tartakower was a leading Polish and French chess Grandmaster. He was also a leading chess journalist of the 1920s and 30s... |
Won | Vienna | 1½–½ | +1-0=1 | |
| 1914 | Andre Aurbach | Won | Paris | 2–0 | +2-0=0 | |
| 1919 | Boris Kostić | Won | Havana | 5–0 | +5 −0 =0 | |
| 1921 | Emanuel Lasker Emanuel Lasker Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years... |
Won | Havana | 9–5 | +4 −0 =10 | For the World Chess Championship World Chess Championship The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title.... . |
| 1927 | Alexander Alekhine Alexander Alekhine Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played... |
Lost | Buenos Aires Buenos Aires Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent... |
15½–18½ | +3 −6 =25 | For the World Chess Championship World Chess Championship The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title.... . |
| 1931 | Max Euwe Max Euwe Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam... |
Won | Netherlands | 6–4 | +2 −0 =8 | Euwe became World Champion 1935–1937. |
See also
- List of people who have beaten José Raúl Capablanca in chess
- World Chess Championship 1927World Chess Championship 1927The 1927 World Chess Championship was played between José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine. It was played in Buenos Aires from September 16 to November 29, 1927...
- List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s – 7 Dec. 1925
Further reading
- Harold Schonberg (1973). Grandmasters of Chess. New York: W W Norton & Co Inc.
- Edward WinterEdward Winter (chess historian)Edward Winter is an English journalist, archivist, historian, collector and author about the game of chess. He writes a regular column on that subject, Chess Notes, and is also a regular columnist for ChessBase.-Chess Notes:...
(1981). World Chess Champions. London, UK: Pergamon Press. - Irving ChernevIrving ChernevIrving Chernev was a prolific Russian-American chess author. He was born in Priluki in the Russian Empire and emigrated to the United States in 1920. Chernev was a national master strength player, and was obsessed with chess...
(1982). Capablanca's Best Chess Endings. New York: Dover Publications. - Harry GolombekHarry GolombekHarry Golombek OBE , was a British chess International Master and honorary grandmaster, chess arbiter, and chess author. He was three times British chess champion, in 1947, 1949, and 1955 and finished second in 1948. He became a grandmaster in 1985.He was the chess correspondent of The Times...
(1947). Capablanca's Hundred Best Games of Chess. London, UK: Bell. - Fred ReinfeldFred ReinfeldFred Reinfeld was an American chess master and a prolific writer on chess and many other subjects, whose books are still read today.-Biography:...
(1990). The Immortal Games of Capablanca. New York: Dover Publications. - Dale Brandreth & David Hooper (1993). The Unknown Capablanca. New York: Dover Publications.
- Edward Winter (1989). Capablanca: A Compendium of Games, Notes, Articles, Correspondence, Illustrations and Other Rare Archival Materials on the Cuban Chess Genius José Raúl Capablanca, 1888–1942. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company.
- Garry KasparovGarry KasparovGarry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
(2003). My Great PredecessorsMy Great PredecessorsMy Great Predecessors is a series of chess books written by World Champion Garry Kasparov. The five volumes in the My Great Predecessors series are about the players who preceded Kasparov in being official World Champions. The series of books continued with the Modern Chess volumes that covers...
: part 1. Everyman Chess, ISBN 1-85744-330-6. - Isaak Linder and Vladimir Linder (2009). José Raúl Capablanca: Third World Chess Champion. Russell Enterprises, ISBN 978-1888690569.
External links
- Biography on Chesscorner.com
- Lasker's Chess Magazine (Feb 1905) recognizes Capablanca at age 16
- Capablanca biography
- Capablanca's Chess — a program implementation.
- The Genius and the Princess by Edward Winter (1999), with considerable input by Capablanca's widow Olga on his life.
- Edward Winter, List of Books About Capablanca and Alekhine