[blind-chess] Annotated Game #140: Mikhail Botvinnik - Jose Raul Capablanca, Amsterdam 1938
- From: "Roderick Macdonald" <rjmacdonald@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Blind-Chess Mailing List" <blind-chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2013 14:34:15 -1000
Annotated Game #140:
Mikhail Botvinnik - Jose Raul Capablanca, Amsterdam 1938
Adapted and Condensed from
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
Contents:
++1. Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik
++1.A Early years
++1.B Soviet champion
++1.C World title contender
++1.D World Champion
++1.E Team tournaments
++1.F Late career
++1.G Political controversies
++1.H Assessment
++1.H1 Playing strength and style
++1.H2 Influence on the game
++1.I Other achievements
++1.I1 Electrical engineering
++1.I2 Computer chess
++1.J Writings
++1.J1 Chess
++1.J2 Computers
++1.K Notable chess games
++1.L Tournament results
++1.L1 Match results
++2. Jose Raul Capablanca y Graupera
++2.A Biography and career
++2.A1 Childhood
++2.A2 Early adult career
++2.A3 World title contender
++2.A4 During World War I
++2.A5 World Champion
++2.A6 Losing the title
++2.A7 Post-championship and partial retirement
++2.A8 Return to competitive chess
++2.A9 Final years
++2.B Assessment
++2.B1 Playing strength and style
++2.B2 Influence on the game
++2.B3 Personality
++2.C Capablanca chess
++2.D Notable chess games
++2.E Writings
++2.F Tournament results
++2.G Match results
++3. Mikhail Botvinnik - Jose Raul Capablanca, Amsterdam 1938
++1. Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. (August 17 (August 4?) 1911 -
May 5, 1995) 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 playing top-class competitive chess. He also developed a
chess-playing algorithm that tried to "think" like a top human
player, but this approach has been superseded by a brute-force
search strategy that exploits the rapid increase in the calculation
speed of modern computers.
Botvinnik was the first world-class player to develop within the
Soviet Union (Alekhine was a top player before the Russian
Revolution), putting him under political pressure but also giving
him considerable influence within Soviet chess. From time to time
he was accused of using that influence to his own advantage, but
the evidence is unclear and some suggest he resisted attempts by
Soviet officials to intimidate some of his rivals.
Botvinnik also played a major role in the organization of chess,
making a significant contribution to the design of the World Chess
Championship system after World War II and becoming a leading
member of the coaching system that enabled the Soviet Union to
dominate top-class chess during that time. His famous pupils
include World Champions Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir
Kramnik.
Playing top class chess for decades, being an eminent chess author,
one of the pioneers of computer chess, and a great chess teacher in
his late years, Botvinnik is widely regarded as the most
influential chess contributor in the 20th century.
++1.A Early years
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was born on August 17, 1911, in what
was then Kuokkala in the Russian-controlled but autonomous Grand
Duchy of Finland, but is now the district of Repino in Saint
Petersburg. Although his parents were Jewish, his father was a
dental technician and his mother a dentist, which allowed the
family to live outside the Pale of Settlement to which most Jews in
the Russian Empire were restricted at the time. As a result,
Mikhail Botvinnik grew up in Saint Petersburg's Nevsky Prospekt.
His father forbade the speaking of Yiddish at home, and Mikhail and
his older brother Issy attended Soviet schools. Mikhail Botvinnik
later said, "I am a Jew by blood, Russian by culture, Soviet by
upbringing."
In 1920, his mother became ill and his father left the family, but
maintained contact with the children, even after his second
marriage, to a Russian woman. At about the same time, Mikhail
started reading newspapers, and became a committed Communist.
In autumn 1923, at the age of twelve, Mikhail Botvinnik was taught
chess by a school friend of his older brother, using a home-made
set, and instantly fell in love with the game. He finished in mid-
table in the school championship, sought advice from another of his
brother's friends, and concluded that for him it was better to
think out "concrete concepts" and then derive general principles
from these - and went on to beat his brother's friend quite easily.
In winter 1924, Botvinnik won his school's championship, and
exaggerated his age by three years in order to become a member of
the Petrograd Chess Assembly - to which the Assembly's President
turned a blind eye. Botvinnik won his first two tournaments
organized by the Assembly. Shortly afterwards, Nikolai Krylenko, a
chess fanatic and leading member of the Soviet legal system who
later organized Joseph Stalin's show trials, began building a huge
nation-wide chess organization, and the Assembly was replaced by a
club in the city's Palace of Labor.
To test the strength of Soviet chess masters, Krylenko organized
the Moscow 1925 chess tournament. On a rest day during the event,
world champion José Raúl Capablanca gave a simultaneous exhibition
in Leningrad. Botvinnik was selected as one of his opponents, and
won their game. In 1926, he reached the final stage of the
Leningrad championship. Later that year, he was selected for
Leningrad's team in a match against Stockholm, held in Sweden, and
scored +1 =1 against the future grandmaster Gösta Stoltz. On his
return, he entertained his schoolmates with a vivid account of the
rough sea journey back to Russia. Botvinnik was commissioned to
annotate two games from the match, and the fact that his analyses
were to be published made him aware of the need for objectivity. In
December 1926, he became a candidate member of his school's
Komsomol branch. Around this time his mother became concerned about
his poor physique, and as a result he started a program of daily
exercise, which he maintained for most of his life.
Botvinnik in 1927When Botvinnik finished the school curriculum, he
was below the minimum age for the entrance examinations for higher
education. While waiting, he qualified for his first USSR
Championship final stage in 1927 as the youngest player ever at
that time, tied for fifth place and won the title of National
Master. He wanted to study Electrical Technology at the Leningrad
Polytechnical Institute and passed the entrance examination;
however, there was a persistent excess of applications for this
course and the Prolestud, which controlled admissions, had a policy
of admitting only children of engineers and industrial workers.
After an appeal by a local chess official, he was admitted in 1928
to Leningrad University's Mathematics Department. In January 1929,
Botvinnik played for Leningrad in the student team chess
championship against Moscow. Leningrad won and the team manager,
who was also Deputy Chairman of the Prolestud, secured Botvinnik a
transfer to the Polytechnic's Electromechanical Department, where
he was one of only four students who entered straight from school.
As a result, he had to do a whole year's work in five months, and
failed one of the examinations. Early in the same year he placed
joint third in the semi-final stage of the USSR Championship, and
thus failed to reach the final stage.
His early progress was fairly rapid, mostly under the training of
Soviet Master and coach Abram Model, in Leningrad; Model taught
Botvinnik the Winawer Variation of the French Defence, then
regarded as inferior for Black, but which Model and Botvinnik
analyzed more deeply, and then played with great success.
He won the Leningrad Masters' tournament in 1930 with 6½/8,
following this up the next year by winning the Championship of
Leningrad by 2½ points over former Soviet champion Peter
Romanovsky.
His wife was a Russian named Gayane (Ganna) Davidovna, the daughter
of his algebra and geometry teacher. She was a student at the
Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in Leningrad and later, a
ballerina in the Bolshoi Theatre. They had one daughter named Olga,
born in 1941.
++1.B Soviet champion
In 1931, at the age of 20, Botvinnik won his first Soviet
Championship in Moscow, scoring 13½ out of 17. He commented that
the field was not very strong, as some of the pre-Revolution
masters were absent. In late summer 1931, he graduated with a
degree in Electrical Engineering, after completing a practical
assignment on temporary transmission lines at the Dnieper
Hydroelectric Station. He stayed on at the Leningrad Polytechnical
Institute to study for a Candidate's degree.
In 1933, he repeated his Soviet Championship win, in his home city
of Leningrad, with 14/19, describing the results as evidence that
Krylenko's plan to develop a new generation of Soviet masters had
borne fruit. He and other young masters successfully requested the
support of a senior Leningrad Communist Party official in arranging
contests involving both Soviet and foreign players, as there had
been none since the Moscow 1925 chess tournament. Soon afterwards,
Botvinnik was informed that Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky, one of the
older masters and a member of the Soviet embassy in Prague, had
arranged a match between Salo Flohr and himself, with his opponent
then regarded as one of the most credible contenders for Alexander
Alekhine's World Chess Championship title. The highest-level chess
officials in the Soviet Union opposed this on the grounds that
Botvinnik stood little chance against such a strong opponent, which
caused Krylenko to insist on the match, saying that "We have to
know our real strength."
Botvinnik used what he regarded as the first version of his method
of preparing for a contest, but fell two games behind by the end of
the first six, played in Moscow. However, aided by his old friend
Ragozin and coach Abram Model, he leveled the score in Leningrad
and the match was drawn. When describing the post-match party,
Botvinnik wrote that at the time he danced the foxtrot and
Charleston to a professional standard.
In his first tournament outside the USSR, the Hastings 1934-1935,
Botvinnik achieved only a tie for 5th-6th places, with 5/9. He
wrote that, in London after the tournament, Emanuel Lasker said his
arrival only two hours before the first round began was a serious
mistake and that he should have allowed ten days for
acclimatization. Botvinnik wrote that he did not make this mistake
again.
Botvinnik placed first equal with Flohr, ½ point ahead of Lasker
and one point ahead of José Raúl Capablanca, in Moscow's second
International Tournament, held in 1935. After consulting Capablanca
and Lasker, Krylenko proposed to award Botvinnik the title
grandmaster, but Botvinnik objected that "titles were not the
point." However, he accepted a free car and a 67% increase in his
postgraduate study grant, both provided by the People's
Commissariat of Heavy Industry.
Botvinnik vs Lasker in 1936He later reported to Krylenko that the
1935 tournament made it difficult to judge the strength of the top
Soviet players, as it included a mixture of top-class and weaker
players. Botvinnik advocated a double round-robin event featuring
the top five Soviet players and the five strongest non-Soviet
players available. Despite politicking over the Soviet choices,
both Krylenko and the Central Committee of the Komsomol quickly
authorised the tournament. This was played in Moscow in June
1936,and Botvinnik finished second, one point behind Capablanca and
2 ahead of Flohr. However, he took consolation from the fact the
Soviet Union's best had held their own against top-class
competition.
In early winter, 1936, Botvinnik was invited to play in a
tournament at Nottingham, England. Krylenko authorized his
participation and, to help Botvinnik play at his best, allowed
Botvinnik's wife to accompany him - a privilege rarely extended to
chess players at any time in Soviet history. Taking Lasker's
advice, Botvinnik arrived ten days before play started. Although
his Soviet rivals forecast disaster for him, he scored an
undefeated shared first place (+6 =8) with Capablanca, ½ point
ahead of current World Champion Max Euwe and rising American stars
Reuben Fine and Samuel Reshevsky, and 1 point ahead of ex-champion
Alexander Alekhine. This was the first tournament victory by a
Soviet master outside his own country. When the result reached
Russia, Krylenko drafted a letter to be sent in Botvinnik's name to
Stalin. On returning to Russia Botvinnik discovered he had been
awarded the "Mark of Honour".
Three weeks later, he began work on his dissertation for the
Candidate's degree, obtaining this in June 1937, after his
supervisor described the dissertation as "short and good", and the
first work in its field. As a result of his efforts, he missed the
1937 Soviet championship, won by Grigory Levenfish, who was then
nearly fifty. Later in 1937, Botvinnik drew a match of thirteen
games against Grigory Levenfish. Accounts differ about how the
match was arranged: Levenfish later wrote that Botvinnik challenged
him; while Botvinnik wrote that Krylenko, angered by Botvinnik's
absence from the tournament, ordered the match.
Botvinnik won further Soviet Championship titles in 1939, 1944,
1945, and 1952, bringing his total to six - a record he shares with
Mikhail Tal. In 1945 he dominated the tournament, scoring 15/17;
however in 1952 he tied with Mark Taimanov and won the play-off
match.
++1.C World title contender
In 1938, the world's top eight players met in the Netherlands to
compete in the AVRO tournament, whose winner was supposed to get a
title match with the World Champion, Alexander Alekhine. Botvinnik
placed third, behind Paul Keres and Reuben Fine. According to
Botvinnik, Alekhine was most interested in playing an opponent who
could raise the funds. After consulting the nearest available
Soviet officials, Botvinnik discreetly challenged Alekhine, who
promptly accepted, subject to conditions that would enable him to
acclimatize in Russia and get some high-quality competitive
practice a few months before the match. In Botvinnik's opinion,
Alekhine was partly motivated by the desire for a reconciliation
with the Soviet authorities, so that he could again visit his
homeland. The match, including funding, was authorised at the
highest Soviet political level in January 1939; however, a letter
of confirmation was only sent two months later - in Botvinnik's
opinion, because of opposition by his Soviet rivals, especially
those who had become prominent before the Russian Revolution - and
the outbreak of World War II prevented a World Championship match.
In spring 1939, Botvinnik won the USSR Championship, and his book
on the tournament described the approach to preparation which he
had been developing since 1933. One striking feature of this was
emphasis on opening preparation in order to gain a permanent
positional advantage in the middle game, rather than seeking
immediate tactical surprises that could only be used once.
Botvinnik took an early lead in the 1940 USSR Championship, but
faded badly in the later stages, eventually sharing fifth place. He
attributed this to the unaccustomed difficulty of concentrating in
a party-like atmosphere filled with noise and tobacco smoke.
Botvinnik wrote to a friendly official, commenting that the
champion was to be the winner of a match between Igor Bondarevsky
and Andor Lilienthal, who had tied for first place, but had no
achievements in international competition. The official's efforts
led to a tournament for the title of "Absolute Champion of the
USSR", whose official aim was to identify a Soviet challenger for
Alekhine's title. The contestants were the top six finishers in the
Soviet Championship - Bondarevsky, Lilienthal, Paul Keres (who had
recently become a Soviet citizen), future World Champion Vasily
Smyslov, Isaac Boleslavsky and Botvinnik - who were to play a
quadruple round robin. Botvinnik's preparation with his second,
Viacheslav Ragozin, included training matches in noisy, smoky rooms
and he slept in the playing room, without opening the window. He
won the tournament, 2½ points ahead of Keres and three ahead of
Smyslov; moreover, with plus scores in the "mini-matches" against
all his rivals.
In June 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Botvinnik's
wife Gayane, a ballerina, told him that her colleagues at the Kirov
Opera and Ballet Theatre were being evacuated to the city of
Perm,then known as Molotov in honour of Vyacheslav Molotov. The
family found an apartment there, and Botvinnik obtained a job with
the local electricity supply organization at the lowest pay rate
and on condition that he did no research, as he had only a
Candidate's degree. Botvinnik's only child, a daughter named Olya,
was born in Perm in April 1942.
In the evenings, Botvinnik wrote a book in which he annotated all
the games of the "Absolute Championship of the USSR", in order to
maintain his analytic skills in readiness for a match with
Alekhine. His work included wood-cutting for fuel, which left him
with insufficient energy for chess analysis. Botvinnik obtained
from Molotov an order that he should be given three days off normal
work in order to study chess.
In 1943, after a two-year lay-off from competitive chess, Botvinnik
won a tournament in Sverdlovsk, scoring 1½ out of 2 against each of
his competitors - who included Smyslov, Vladimir Makogonov,
Boleslavsky, and Ragozin. Chessbase regards this as one of the
fifty strongest tournaments between 1851 and 1986.
Shortly afterwards, Botvinnik was urged to return to Moscow by the
People's Commissar for Power Stations, an admirer and subsequent
good friend. On his return, Botvinnik suggested a match with Samuel
Reshevsky in order to strengthen his claim for a title match with
Alekhine, but this received no political support. In December 1943,
he won the Moscow Championship, ahead of Smyslov. At the same time,
opposition to his plan for a match with Alekhine re-surfaced, on
the grounds that Alekhine was a political enemy and the only proper
course was to demand that he be stripped of the title. The dispute
ended in Botvinnik's favor, and in the dismissal of a senior chess
official, one of those to have opposed Botvinnik's plan, who was
also a KGB colonel.
After Botvinnik won the 1944 and 1945 Soviet championships, most
top Soviet players supported his desire for a World Championship
match with Alekhine. However, the allegations that Alekhine had
written anti-Semitic articles while in Nazi-occupied France made it
difficult to host the match in the USSR. Botvinnik opened
negotiations with the British Chess Federation to host the match in
England, but these were cut short by Alekhine's death in 1946.
When the Second World War ended, Botvinnik won the first high-level
post-war tournament, at Groningen in 1946, with 14½ points from
nineteen games, ½ point ahead of former World Champion Max Euwe and
two ahead of Smyslov. He and Euwe both struggled in the last few
rounds, and Botvinnik had a narrow escape against Euwe, who he
acknowledged had always been a difficult opponent for him. This was
Botvinnik's first outright victory in a tournament outside the
Soviet Union.
Botvinnik also won the very strong Mikhail Chigorin Memorial
tournament held at Moscow 1947.
++1.D World Champion
Botvinnik strongly influenced the design of the system which would
be used for World Championship competition from 1948 to 1963.
Viktor Baturinsky wrote "Now came Botvinnik's turn to defend his
title in accordance with the new qualifying system which he himself
had outlined in 1946" (this statement referred to Botvinnik's 1951
title defense).
On the basis of his strong results during and just after World War
II, Botvinnik was one of five players to contest the 1948 World
Chess Championship, which was held at The Hague and Moscow. He won
the 1948 tournament convincingly, with a score of 14/20, three
points clear, becoming the sixth World Champion. While he was on
vacation in Riga after the tournament, an eleven-year old boy
called Mikhail Tal paid a visit, hoping to play a game against the
new champion. Tal was met by Botvinnik's wife, who said the
champion was asleep, and that she had made him take a rest from
chess.
Botvinnik then held the title, with two brief interruptions, for
the next fifteen years, during which he played seven world
championship matches. In 1951, he drew with David Bronstein over 24
games in Moscow, +5 -5 =14, keeping the world title, but it was a
struggle for Botvinnik, who won the second-last game and drew the
last in order to tie the match. In 1954, he drew with Vasily
Smyslov over 24 games at Moscow, +7 -7 =10, again retaining the
title. In 1957, he lost to Smyslov by 9-12½ in Moscow, but the
rules then in force allowed him a rematch without having to go
through the Candidates' Tournament, and in 1958 he won the rematch
in Moscow; Smyslov said his health was poor during the return
match. In 1960, Botvinnik was convincingly beaten 8½-12½ at Moscow
by Tal, now 23 years old, but again exercised his right to a
rematch in 1961, and won by 13-8 in Moscow. Commentators agreed
that Tal's play was weaker in the rematch, probably due to his
health, but also that Botvinnik's play was better than in the 1960
match, largely due to thorough preparation. Botvinnik changed his
style in the rematch, avoiding the tactical complications in which
Tal excelled and aiming for closed positions and endgames, where
Tal's technique was not outstanding. Finally, in 1963, he lost the
title to Tigran Petrosian, by 9-12 in Moscow. FIDE had by then
altered the rules, and he was not allowed a rematch. The rematch
rule had been nicknamed the "Botvinnik rule", because he twice
benefited from it.
Though ranking as formal World Champion, Botvinnik had a relatively
poor playing record in the early 1950s: he played no formal
competitive games after winning the 1948 match tournament until he
defended his title, then struggled to draw his 1951 championship
match with Bronstein, placed only fifth in the 1951 Soviet
Championship, and tied for third in the 1952 Géza Maróczy Memorial
tournament in Budapest; and he had also performed poorly in Soviet
training contests. Botvinnik did not play in the Soviet team that
won the 1952 Chess Olympiad in Helsinki: the players voted for the
line-up and placed Botvinnik on second board, with Keres on top
board; Botvinnik protested and refused to play. Keres' playing
record from 1950 to early 1952 had been outstanding.
Botvinnik won the 1952 Soviet Championship (joint first with Mark
Taimanov in the tournament, won the play-off match). He included
several wins from that tournament over the 1952 Soviet team members
in his book Botvinnik's Best Games 1947-1970, writing "these games
had a definite significance for me". In 1956, he tied for first
place with Smyslov in the 1956 Alexander Alekhine Memorial in
Moscow, despite a last-round loss to Keres.
++1.E Team tournaments
Botvinnik was selected for the Soviet Olympiad team from 1954 to
1964 inclusively, and helped his team to gold medal finishes each
of those six times. At Amsterdam 1954 he was on board one and won
the gold medal with 8?/11. Then at home for Moscow 1956, he was
again board one, and scored 9?/13 for the bronze medal. For Munich
1958, he scored 9/12 for the silver medal on board one. At Leipzig
1960, he played board two behind Mikhail Tal, having lost his title
to Tal earlier that year; But he won the board two gold medal with
10?/13. He was back on board one for Varna 1962, scored 8/12, but
failed to win a medal for the only time at an Olympiad. His final
Olympiad was Tel Aviv 1964, where he won the bronze with 9/12,
playing board 2 as he had lost his title to Petrosian. Overall, in
six Olympiads, he scored 54½/73 for an outstanding 74.6 percent.
Botvinnik also played twice for the USSR in the European Team
Championship. At Oberhausen 1961, he scored 6/9 for the gold medal
on board one. But at Hamburg 1965, he struggled on board two with
only 3½/8. Both times the Soviet Union won the team gold medals.
Botvinnik played one of the final events of his career at the
Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World match in Belgrade 1970, scoring
2½/4 against Milan Matulovic, as the USSR narrowly triumphed.
++1.F Late career
After losing the world title for the final time, to Tigran
Petrosian in Moscow in 1963, Botvinnik withdrew from the following
World Championship cycle after FIDE declined, at its annual
congress in 1965, to grant a losing champion the automatic right to
a rematch. He remained involved with competitive chess, appearing
in several highly-rated tournaments and continuing to produce
memorable games.
He retired from competitive play in 1970, aged 59, preferring
instead to occupy himself with the development of computer chess
programs and to assist with the training of younger Soviet players,
earning him the nickname of "Patriarch of the Soviet Chess School"
(see below).
Botvinnik's autobiography, K Dostizheniyu Tseli, was published in
Russian in 1978, and in English translation as Achieving the Aim
(ISBN 0-08-024120-4) in 1981. A staunch Communist, he was
noticeably shaken by the collapse of the Soviet Union and lost some
of his standing in Russian chess during the Boris Yeltsin era.
In the 1980s Botvinnik proposed a computer program to manage the
Soviet economy, however his proposals did not receive significant
attention from the Soviet government.
During the last few years of his life he personally financed his
economic computer project that he hoped would be used to manage the
Russian economy.He kept actively working on the program until his
death and financing the work from the money he made for the
lectures and seminars he attended, despite prominent health
problems.
Botvinnik died of pancreatic cancer in 1995. According to his
daughter, Botvinnik remained active until the last few months of
his life, and continued to go to work until March, 1995 despite
blindness in one of his eyes (and extremely poor vision in the
other).
++1.G Political controversies
The Soviet Union regarded chess as a symbol of Communist
superiority, and hence the Soviet chess world was extremely
politicized. As Botvinnik was the first world-class player produced
by the Soviet Union, everything he said or did (or did not say or
do) had political repercussions, and there were rumors that Soviet
opponents were given hints that they should not beat him.
David Bronstein wrote that Boris Verlinsky had won the 1929 Soviet
Championship and was granted the first Soviet Grandmaster title for
this achievement, yet he was later stripped of it, when it was
thought more politically correct to make Botvinnik the first
official Soviet GM (as distinct from the-then nonexistent FIDE
grandmaster title).
Botvinnik wrote that before the last round of the 1935 Moscow
tournament Soviet Commissar of Justice Nikolai Krylenko, who was
also in charge of Soviet chess, proposed that Ilya Rabinovich
should deliberately lose to Botvinnik, to ensure that Botvinnik
took first place. Botvinnik refused, saying "... then I will myself
put a piece en prise and resign". The game was drawn, and Botvinnik
shared first place with Salo Flohr.
Botvinnik sent an effusive telegram of thanks to Joseph Stalin
after his victory at the great tournament in Nottingham in 1936.
Many years later he said that it had been written in Moscow and
that KGB agents told him to sign it.
Botvinnik played relatively poorly in the very strong 1940 Soviet
Championship, finishing in a tie for fifth/sixth places, with
11½/19, two full points behind Igor Bondarevsky and Andor
Lilienthal. With World War II under way by this time, and the
strong possibility of little or no chess for some time in the
future, Botvinnik seems to have prevailed upon the Soviet chess
leadership to hold another tournament "in order to clarify the
situation". This wound up being the 1941 Absolute Championship of
the USSR, which featured the top six finishers from the 1940 event,
playing each other four times. After a personal appeal to the
defence minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, Botvinnik was exempted from
war work for three days a week in order to concentrate on chess
preparations. He won this tournament convincingly, and thus
reclaimed his position as the USSR's top player. Bronstein claimed
that at the end of the 1946 Groningen tournament, a few months
after the death of reigning world champion Alexander Alekhine,
Botvinnik personally invited Samuel Reshevsky, Reuben Fine, Max
Euwe, Vasily Smyslov, and Paul Keres to join him in a tournament to
decide the new world champion, but other evidence suggests that
FIDE (the "governing body" of chess), had already proposed a World
Championship tournament before the Groningen tournament began, and
at this stage the Soviet Union was not a member and therefore took
no part in framing that proposal.
Since Keres lost his first four games against Botvinnik in the 1948
World Championship tournament, winning only in the final cycle
after the outcome of the tournament had been decided, suspicions
have sometimes been raised that Keres was forced to "throw" games
to allow Botvinnik to win the Championship. Chess historian Taylor
Kingston investigated all the available evidence and arguments, and
concluded that: Soviet chess officials gave Keres strong hints that
he should not hinder Botvinnik's attempt to win the World
Championship; Botvinnik only discovered this about half-way through
the tournament and protested so strongly that he angered Soviet
officials; Keres probably did not deliberately lose games to
Botvinnik or anyone else in the tournament.
Bronstein insinuated that Soviet officials pressured him to lose in
the 1951 world championship match so that Botvinnik would keep the
title, but comments by Botvinnik's second, Salo Flohr, and
Botvinnik's own annotations to the critical 23rd game indicate that
Botvinnik knew of no such plot.
In 1956, FIDE changed the world championship rules so that a
defeated champion would have the right to a return match. Yuri
Averbakh alleged that this was done at the urging of the two Soviet
representatives in FIDE, who were personal friends of Botvinnik.
Averbakh also claims that Botvinnik's friends were behind FIDE's
decision in 1956 to limit the number of players from the same
country that could compete in the Candidates Tournament, and that
this was to Botvinnik's advantage as it reduced the number of
Soviet players he might have to meet in the title match.
Botvinnik asked to be allowed to play in the 1956 Candidates
Tournament, as he wanted to use the event as part of his warm-up
for the next year's title match, but his request was refused.
Mikhail Tal's chronic kidney problems contributed to his defeat in
his 1961 return match with Botvinnik, and his doctors in Riga
advised that he should postpone the match for health reasons.
Averbakh claimed that Botvinnik would agree to a postponement only
if Tal was certified unfit by Moscow doctors, and that Tal then
decided to play.
While there is no doubt that Botvinnik sincerely believed in
Communism, he by no means submissively followed the party line. In
1954, he wrote an article about inciting socialist revolution in
western countries, aiming to spread Communism without a third world
war. And in 1960 Botvinnik wrote a letter to the Soviet Government
proposing economic reforms that were contrary to party policy.
In 1976 Soviet grandmasters were asked to sign a letter condemning
Viktor Korchnoi as a "traitor" after Korchnoi defected. Botvinnik
evaded this "request" by saying that he wanted to write his own
letter denouncing Korchnoi. By this time, however, his importance
had waned and officials would not give him this "privilege", so
Botvinnik's name did not appear on the group letter - an outcome
Botvinnik may have foreseen. Bronstein and Boris Spassky openly
refused to sign the letter.
++1.H Assessment
++1.H1 Playing strength and style
For more information see Comparing top chess players throughout
history Reuben Fine observed that Botvinnik was at or near the top
of the chess world for thirty years - from 1933, when he drew a
match against Flohr, to 1963, when he lost the world championship
for the final time, to Petrosian - "a feat equaled historically
only by Emanuel Lasker and Steinitz". The statistical rating system
used in Raymond Keene and Nathan Divinsky's book Warriors of the
Mind concludes that Botvinnik was the fourth strongest player of
all time: behind Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Bobby Fischer
but ahead of José Raúl Capablanca, Lasker, Viktor Korchnoi, Boris
Spassky, Vasily Smyslov and Tigran Petrosian. The Chessmetrics
system is sensitive to the length of the periods being compared,
but places Botvinnik third in a comparison of players' best
individual years (1946 for Botvinnik) and sixth in a comparison of
fifteen-year periods (1935-1949 in Botvinnik's case). In 2005
Chessmetrics' creator Jeff Sonas wrote an article which examined
various ways of comparing the strength of "world number one"
players, some not based on Chessmetrics; and Botvinnik generally
emerged as one of the top six (the greatest exceptions were in
criteria related to tournament results). FIDE did not adopt the Elo
rating system until 1970, by which time Botvinnik's strength had
been declining for several years. According to unofficial
calculations by Árpád Elo, Botvinnik was the highest-rated player
from 1937 to 1954, peaking about 2730 in 1946.
This may seem surprising in the light of Botvinnik's results in the
1950s and early 1960s, when he failed to win a world championship
match outright (as reigning champion) and his tournament results
were patchy. But after the FIDE world championship cycle was
established in 1948, reigning champions had to play the strongest
contender every three years, and successful title defenses became
less common than in the pre-World War II years, when the
titleholder could select his challenger. Despite this, Botvinnik
held the world title for a longer period than any of his successors
except Garry Kasparov. Botvinnik also became world champion at the
relatively late age of 37, because World War II brought
international competition to a virtual halt for six years; and he
was 52 years old when he finally lost his title (only Wilhelm
Steinitz and Emanuel Lasker were older when they were defeated).
Botvinnik's best years were from 1935 to 1946; during that period
he dominated Soviet chess; and the USSR's 15-4½ win in the 1945
radio match against the USA proved that the USSR's top players were
considerably better than the USA's (who had dominated international
team competitions in the 1930s).
Botvinnik generally sought tense positions with chances for both
sides; hence his results were often better with the Black pieces as
he could avoid lines that were likely to produce draws. He had a
strong grasp of long-term strategy, and was often willing to accept
weaknesses that his opponent could not exploit in exchange for some
advantage that Botvinnik could exploit. He confessed that he was
relatively weak in tactical calculation, yet many of his games
feature sacrifices - often long-term positional sacrifices whose
purpose was not to force a quick win, but to improve his position
and undermine his opponent's. Botvinnik was also capable of all-out
sacrificial attacks when he thought the position justified it.
Botvinnik saw himself as a "universal player" (all-rounder), in
contrast to all-out tactical calculators like Mikhail Tal or purely
positional players like Tigran Petrosian. Reuben Fine considered
Botvinnik's collection of best games one of the three most
beautiful up to the mid-1950s (the other two were Alexander
Alekhine's and Akiba Rubinstein's).
Kasparov quotes Tigran Petrosian as saying, "There was a very
unpleasant feeling of inevitability. Once in a conversation with
Keres I mentioned this and even compared Botvinnik with a
bulldozer, which sweeps away everything in its path. Keres smiled
and said: 'But can you imagine what it was like to play him when he
was young?'"
++1.H2 Influence on the game
Botvinnik's example and teaching established the modern approach to
preparing for competitive chess: regular but moderate physical
exercise; analysing very thoroughly a relatively narrow repertoire
of openings; annotating one's own games, those of past great
players and those of competitors; publishing one's annotations so
that others can point out any errors; studying strong opponents to
discover their strengths and weaknesses; ruthless objectivity about
one's own strengths and weaknesses. Botvinnik also played many
short training matches against strong grandmasters including Salo
Flohr, Yuri Averbakh, Viacheslav Ragozin, and Semion Furman - in
noisy or smoky rooms if he thought he would have to face such
conditions in actual competition. Vladimir Kramnik said,
"Botvinnik's chess career was the way of a genius, although he was
not a genius", meaning that Botvinnik was brilliant at making the
best use of his talents.
Although Botvinnik did not use a wide range of openings, he made
major contributions to those he did use, for example: the Botvinnik
variation of the Semi-Slav Defense in the Queen's Gambit Declined,
the Kasparov/Botvinnik system in the Exchange Variation of the
Queen's Gambit Declined, the Caro-Kann Defence (both the Panov-
Botvinnik Attack for White and various approaches for Black), the
Winawer Variation of the French Defence, the Botvinnik System in
the English Opening. In his openings research Botvinnik did not aim
to produce tactical tricks that would only be effective once but
rather systems in which he aimed to understand typical positions
and their possibilities better than his rivals. His advice to his
pupils included "My theory of the openings fitted into one
notebook" and "You don't have to know that which everyone knows,
but it is important to know that which not everyone knows." In fact
he used different notebooks in different periods, and copied a few
analyses from one notebook to the next. The "Soviet School of
Chess" that dominated competition from 1945 to about 2000 followed
Botvinnik's approach to preparation and to openings research; and,
although Soviet players had their own preferred styles of play,
they adopted his combative approach and willingness to ignore
"classical" principles if doing so offered credible prospects of a
lasting advantage.
In 1963 Botvinnik founded his own school within the Soviet coaching
system, and its graduates include world champions Anatoly Karpov,
Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik, and other top-class players
such as Alexei Shirov, Vladimir Akopian and Jaan Ehlvest. Botvinnik
was not an infallible spotter of chess talent: although he said of
the 11-year old Kasparov, "The future of chess lies in the hands of
this young man", he said on first seeing Karpov, "The boy doesn't
have a clue about chess, and there's no future at all for him in
this profession." But Karpov recounts fondly his youthful memories
of the Botvinnik school and credits Botvinnik's training,
especially the homework he assigned, with a marked improvement in
his own play. Kasparov presents Botvinnik almost as a kind of
father figure, going some way towards balancing the common public
perception of Botvinnik as dour and aloof; and Kasparov inherited
Botvinnik's emphasis on preparation, research and innovation.
Botvinnik was still playing a major teaching role in his late 70s,
when Kramnik entered the school, and made a favorable impression on
his pupil.
++1.I Other achievements
++1.I1 Electrical engineer
ingEngineering was as much of a passion for Botvinnik as chess - at
Nottingham in 1936, where he had his first major tournament win
outside the USSR, he said "I wish I could do what he's done in
electrical engineering" (referring to Milan Vidmar, another
grandmaster). He was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour for
his work on power stations in the Urals during World War II (while
he was also establishing himself as the world's strongest chess
player). He earned his doctorate in electrical engineering in
1951.] In 1956, he joined the Research Institute for Electrical
Energy as a senior research scientist.
++1.I2 Computer chess
In the 1950s Botvinnik became interested in computers, at first
mainly for playing chess but he later also co-authored reports on
the possible use of artificial intelligence in managing the Soviet
economy. Botvinnik's research on chess-playing programs
concentrated on "selective searches", which used general chess
principles to decide which moves were worth considering. This was
the only feasible approach for the primitive computers available in
the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, which were only capable of
searching three or four half-moves deep (i.e. A's move, B's move,
A's move, B's move) if they tried to examine every variation.
Botvinnik eventually developed an algorithm that was reasonably
good at finding the right move in difficult positions, but it often
missed the right move in simple positions, e.g. where it was
possible to checkmate in two moves. This "selective" approach
turned out to be a dead end, as computers were powerful enough by
the mid-1970s to perform a brute-force search (checking all
possible moves) several moves deep and today's vastly more powerful
computers do this well enough to compete against human world
champions. However, his PIONEER program contained a generalized
method of decision-making that, with a few adjustments, enabled it
to plan maintenance of power stations all over the USSR. On
September 7, 1991 Botvinnik was awarded an honorary degree in
mathematics of the University of Ferrara (Italy) for his work on
computer chess.
++1.J Writings
++1.J1 Chess
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1960). One hundred selected games. Courier
Dover. ISBN 0486206203.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1972). Cafferty, B.. ed. Botvinnik's best
games, 1947-1970. Batsford. ISBN 0713403578.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1973). Garry, S.. ed. Soviet chess
championship, 1941: Complete text of games with detailed notes
& an introduction. Dover Publications. ISBN 0486221849.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1973). World Championship: The Return Match
Botvinnik vs. Smyslov 1958. Chess Digest Magazine.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1973). Alekhine vs. Euwe return match 1937.
Chess Digest.
* Matanovic, A.; Kazic, B., Yudovich, M., and Botvinnik, M.M.
(1974). Candidates' matches 1974. Centar Za Unapredivanje
Saha.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1978). Anatoly Karpov: His Road to the World
Championship. Elsevier. ISBN 0080211399.
* Botvinnik, M.M.; Estrin, Y. (1980). The Gruenfeld Defense. Rhm
Pr. ISBN 0890580170.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1981). Cafferty, B.. ed. Achieving the Aim.
Pergamon Press. ISBN 0080241204.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1981). Selected Games: 1967-1970. Pergamon.
ISBN 0080241239.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1982). Marfia, J.. ed. Fifteen Games and
Their Stories. Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, U.S.A: Chess
Enterprises. ISBN 0931462150.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1985). Botvinnik on the Endgame. Chess
Enterprises. ISBN 0931462436.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1996). Neat, K. and Stauss, E.. ed. Half a
Century of Chess. Cadogan Books. ISBN 1857441222.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (2000). Neat, K.. ed. Botvinnik's Best Games
Volume 1: 1925-1941. Moravian Chess. ISBN 807189317.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (2000). Neat, K.. ed. Botvinnik's Best Games
Volume 2: 1942-1956. Moravian Chess. ISBN 8071893706.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (2000). Neat, K.. ed. Botvinnik's Best Games
Volume 3: 1957-1970 - Analytical & Critical Works. Moravian
Chess. ISBN 8071894052.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (2002). Championship Chess: Match Tournament
for the Absolute Chess Championship of the USSR, Leningrad-
Moscow 1941. Hardinge Simpole. ISBN 9781843820123.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (2004). Match for the World Chess Championship
Mikhail Botvinnik-David Bronstein Moscow 1951. Edition Olms.
ISBN 3283004595.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (2004). Botvinnik, I.. ed. World Championship
Return Match: Botvinnik V. Tal, Moscow 1961. Olms. ISBN
9783283004613.
++1.J2 Computers
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1970). Computers, Chess and Long-Range
Planning. Springer Verlag. ISBN 0387900128.
* Botvinnik, M.M. (1984). Computers in Chess: Solving Inexact
Search Problems. Springer-Verlag. ISBN 0387908692.
++1.K Notable chess games
* Botvinnik vs Chekhover, Moscow 1935, Reti Opening, 1-0
* Botvinnik vs Capablanca, AVRO 1938, Nimzo-Indian Defense, 1-0
At first sight Botvinnik's opening play looks unpromising, but
he knew how his attack would develop.
* Keres vs Botvinnik, USSR Absolute Championship 1941, Nimzo-
Indian Defense, 0-1 Playing as Black, Botvinnik demolishes a
world title contender in 22 moves.
* Tolush vs Botvinnik, USSR Championship 1944, 0-1 Long-term
positional sacrifices.
* Denker vs Botvinnik, USA vs USSR radio match 1945, 0-1
Botvinnik uses the Botvinnik System in the Semi-Slav Defense
to bulldoze US champion Arnold Denker.
* Botvinnik vs Keres, Alekhine Memorial Tournament Moscow 1966,
1-0 Botvinnik shows his superior understanding of closed
positions, and when to open them.
* Botvinnik vs Portisch, Monaco 1968, 1-0 A fireworks display
starting with an exchange sacrifice on the c-file, a tactic on
which Botvinnik wrote the book.
++1.L Tournament results
1923 Leningrad 8 School championship - - - Botvinnik estimates
"about 10th out of 16".
1924 Leningrad - School championship 1st 5/6 +5 -1 =0
1924 Leningrad - non-category 1st 11/13 +11 -1 =1
1924 Leningrad - 2nd and 3rd Categories 1st 11/13 +11 -1 =1
1924 Leningrad - 2A Category - - - Tournament unfinished
1925 Leningrad - 2A and 1B Categories 1st 10/11 +10 -1 =0
1925 Leningrad - 1st Category 3rd 7/11 +7 -3 =1
1925 Leningrad - 1st Category - - - Tournament unfinished
1926 Leningrad - Leningrad Championship, Semi-finals 1st 11½ / 12
+11 -0 =1
1926 Leningrad - Leningrad Championship 2nd= 7/9 +6 -1 =2
1926 Leningrad - Northwest Provincial Championship, Semi-finals
tied 2nd 9/11 +8 -1 =2
1926 Leningrad - Northwest Provincial Championship 3rd 6/10 +4 -1
=5
1927 Leningrad - Tournament of "Six" 2nd 7/10 +6 -1 =3
1927 Moscow - 5th USSR Chess Championship tied 5th 12/20 +9 -4 =7
1928 Leningrad - Regional Metalworkers' Committee Championship 1st
8/11 +7 -1 =3
1929 Leningrad - Regional Committee of Educational Workers'
Championship 1st 11/14 +9 -0 =5
1929 Odessa - 6th USSR Chess Championship, Quarter-finals 1st 7/8
+6 -0 =2
1929 Odessa - 6th USSR Chess Championship, Semi-finals tied 3rd 2/5
+2 -2 =1
1930 Leningrad - Masters' Tournament 1st 6/8 +6 -1 =1
1931 Leningrad - Leningrad Championship 1st 14/17 +12 -1 =4
1931 Moscow - 7th USSR Chess Championship, Semi-finals 2nd 6/9 +6
-2 =1
1931 Moscow - 7th USSR Chess Championship 1st 13/17 +12 -2 =3
1932 Leningrad - Leningrad Championship 1st 10/11 +9 -0 =2
1932 Leningrad - Masters' Tournament in House of Scientists 1st
7/10 +6 -2 =2
1933 Leningrad - Masters' Tournament Tied 1st 10/13 +7 -0 =6
1933 Leningrad - 8th USSR Chess Championship 1st 14/19 +11 -2 =6
1934 Leningrad - Tournament including Euwe and Kmoch 1st 7/11 +5 -1
=5
1934 Hastings - Hastings International Chess Congress tied 5th 5/9
+3 -2 =4
1935 Moscow - 2nd International Tournament tied 1st 13/19 +9 -2 =8
1936 Moscow - 3rd International Tournament 2nd 12/18 +7 -1 =10
1936 Nottingham - International Tournament tied 1st 10/14 +6 -0 =8
1938 Leningrad - 11th USSR Chess Championship, Semi-finals 1st
14/17 +12 -1 =4
1938 Amsterdam, etc. - AVRO tournament 3rd 7/14 +3 -2 =9
1939 Leningrad - 11th USSR Chess Championship 1st 12/17 +8 -0 =9
1940 Moscow - 12th USSR Chess Championship tied 5th 11/19 +8 -4 =7
1941 Leningrad, Moscow - Absolute Chess Championship of the USSR
1st 13/20 +9 -2 =9
1943 Sverdlovsk - Masters' Tournament 1st 10/14 +7 -0 =7
1943 Moscow - Moscow Championship 1st 13/16 +12 -1 =3
1944 Moscow - 13th USSR Chess Championship 1st 12/16 +11 -2 =3
1945 Moscow - 14th USSR Chess Championship 1st 15/17 +13 -0 =4
1946 Groningen - International Tournament 1st 14/19 +13 -3 =3
1947 Moscow - Chigorin Memorial Tournament 1st 11/15 +8 -1 =6
1948 The Hague, Moscow - World Chess Championship Tournament 1st
14/20 +10 -2 =8
1951 Moscow - 19th USSR Chess Championship 5th 10/17 +6 -3 =8
1952 Budapest - Maroczy Jubilee tied 3rd 11/17 +7 -2 =8
1952 Moscow - 20th USSR Chess Championship tied 1st 13/19 +9 -1 =9
Defeated Taimanov in a play-off for first place.
1955 Moscow - 22nd USSR Chess Championship tied 3rd 11/19 +7 -3 =9
1956 Moscow - Alekhine Memorial tied 1st 11/15 +8 -1 =6
1958 Wageningen - International Tournament 1st 4/5 +3 -0 =2
1961-1962 Hastings - International Chess Congress (Premier) 1st 8/9
+7 -0 =2
1962 Stockholm - International Tournament 1st 8/9 +8 -0 =1
1965 Noordwijk - International Tournament 1st 6/7 +5 -0 =2
1966 Amsterdam - IBM Tournament 1st 7/9 +7 -1 =1
1966-1967 Hastings - International Chess Congress (Premier) 1st 6/9
+5 -1 =3
1967 Palma de Mallorca - International Tournament tied 2nd 12/17 +9
-1 =7
1968 Monte Carlo - International Tournament 2nd 9/13 +5 -0 =8
1969 Wijk aan Zee - Hoogovens (Grandmaster Section) tied 1st 10/15
+6 -0 =9
1969 Belgrade - International Tournament 7th 8/15 +5 -3 =7
1970 Leiden - Quadrangular Tournament tied 3rd 5/12 +1 -2 =9 Four
players. Each opponent was played four times.
++1.L1 Match results
1933 Salo Flohr Tied Moscow, Leningrad 6 /12 +2 =8 -2 Challenge
1937 Grigory Levenfish Tied Moscow, Leningrad 6.5/13 +5 =3 -5
Challenge
1940 Viacheslav Ragozin Won Moscow, Leningrad 8/12 +5 =7 -0
Training
1951 David Bronstein Tied Moscow 12/24 +5 =14 -5 World title
1952 Mark Taimanov Won Moscow 3.5/6 +1 =5 -0 USSR Ch playoff
1954 Vasily Smyslov Tied Moscow 12/24 +7 =10 -7 World title
1957 Vasily Smyslov Lost Moscow 9/22 +3 =13 -6 World title
1958 Vasily Smyslov Won Moscow 12/23 +7 =11 -5 Rematch
1960 Mikhail Tal Lost Moscow 8/21 +2 =13 -6 World title
1961 Mikhail Tal Won Moscow 13/21 +10 =6 -5 Rematch
1963 Tigran Petrosian Lost Moscow 9/21 +2 =14 -5 World title
++2. Jose Raul Capablanca y Graupera
Jose Raul Capablanca y Graupera (November 19, 1888 - March 8, 1942)
was a Cuban 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".
++2.A Biography and career
++2.A1 Childhood
Jose Raul Capablanca, the second surviving son of a Spanish army
officer, was born in Havana 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.
++2.A2 Early adult career
Capablanca's skill in rapid chess lent itself to simultaneous
exhibitions, 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, Giza
Marsczy's 88% and Frank Marshall's 86% in 1906. This performance
gained him sponsorship for an exhibition match that year against
Marshall, the U.S. 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 openings.
Following this match, Chessmetrics rates Capablanca the world's
third strongest player for most of the period from 1909 through
1912.
Capablanca won all seven games in the 1910 New York State
Championship. After another gruelling series of simultaneous
exhibitions, Capablanca placed second, with 9.5 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 Sebastian, Spain, in 1911,
insisted that Capablanca also be allowed to play.
According to David Hooper and Ken Whyld, San Sebastian 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.
++2.A3 World title contender
In 1911, Capablanca challenged Emanuel Lasker for the World Chess
Championship. Lasker accepted his challenge while proposing
seventeen conditions for the match. Capablanca objected to some of
the conditions, which significantly 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 secured 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 exhibitions in
London, Paris and Berlin, where he also played two-game matches
against Richard Teichmann and Jacques Mieses, winning all his
games. After arriving 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 eleven
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, 1.5 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 3.5 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 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 pounds Sterling (worth about 347,000 pounds or $700,000 in
2006 terms.
++2.A4 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 Lopez 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 Kostic,
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 Kostic resigned the match after losing five straight games.
Capablanca considered that he was at his strongest around this
time.
++2.A5 World Champion
The Hastings Victory tournament of 1919 was the first international
competition on Allied soil since 1914. The field was not strong,
and Capablanca won with 10.5 points out of 11, one point ahead of
Kostic.
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.
The score sheet of Capablanca's defeat by Richard Riti in the New
York 1924 chess tournament, his first loss in eight years
Capablanca won the London tournament of 1922 with 13 points from 15
games with no losses, ahead of Alexander Alekhine on 11.5, Milan
Vidmar (11), and Akiba Rubinstein (10.5). 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 2.5 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, Giza Maroczy, 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), 1.5 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 .5 point behind Emanuel Lasker.
Capablanca won at Lake Hopatcong, 1926 with 6 points out of 8,
ahead of Abraham Kupchik (5) and Maroczy (4.5).
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, 2.5 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, Jose Raul 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.
++2.A6 Losing the title
Alekhine vs. Capablanca
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. Ludek Pachman
suggested that Capablanca, who was unused 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.
++2.A7 Post-championship and partial retirement
Giving a simultaneous display on thirty boards in Berlin, June 1929
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.
++2.A8 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 and Andor Lilienthal. He placed second by .5 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 3.5 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; 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 ilite 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.
++2.A9 Final years
On March 7, 1942, Capablanca was observing a skittles game and
chatting with friends at the Manhattan Chess Club 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
Colon 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 tournament has been held in Cuba,
most often in Havana, since 1962.
++2.B Assessment
++2.B1 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 Chajes in
the New York 1916 tournament, to March 21, 1924, when he lost to
Richard Reti 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.
++2.B2 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 Karpov. 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.
++2.B3 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 Mont 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.
++2.C 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 draw. 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:
* Chancellor - a chancellor that moves as both a rook and a
knight;
* Archbishop - an archbishop that moves as both a bishop and a
knight. This piece would be able to deliver checkmate 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 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).
++2.D 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. It is on record that Marshall unveiled this attack
after careful preparation. 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 Caplabanca's endgame supremacy. This game
seems a drawn game, but witness how Capablanca ekes out a win
using his positional mastery.
++2.E Writings
* Havana 1913, by Jose Raul 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 Magazine reprint,
Quarterly #18, in 1976.
* A Primer of Chess by Jose Raul Capablanca (preface by Benjamin
Anderson). Originally published in 1935. Republished in 2002
by Harvest Books, ISBN 0156028077.
* Chess Fundamentals by Jose Raul Capablanca (Originally
published in 1921. Republished by Everyman Chess, 1994, ISBN
1857440730. Revised and updated by Nick de Firmian in 2006,
ISBN 0-8129-3681-7.)
* My Chess Career by Jose Raul 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 Jose 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 Jose Raul Capablanca. (Republished in 1977 by
Dover, together with a book on the 1927 match with annotations
by Frederick Yates and William Winter, as World's Championship
Matches, 1921 and 1927 by Jose Raul Capablanca. ISBN
0486231895.)
* Last Lectures by Jose Raul Capablanca (Simon and Schuster,
January 1966, ASIN B0007DZW6W)
++2.F Tournament results
The following table gives Capablanca's placings and scores in
tournaments.
1910 New York State
1st 20/20 +20 -0 =0.
1911 New York
2nd 9.5/12 +8 -1 =3.
1911 San Sebastian (Spain)
1st 9.5/14 +6 -1 =7 Ahead of Akiba Rubinstein and Milan Vidmar
(9), Frank James Marshall (8.5) and 11 other world-class
players. His only loss was to Rubinstein, and his win against
Ossip Bernstein was awarded the brilliancy prize.
1913 New York
1st 11/13 +10 -1 =2 Ahead of Marshall (10.5), Charles Jaffe
(9.5) and Dawid Janowski (9).
1913 Havana
2nd 10/14 +8 -2 =4 Behind Marshall (10.5); ahead of Janowski
(9) and five others.
1913 New York
1st 13/13 +13 -0 =0 Ahead of Oldrich Duras.
1914 St. Petersburg
2nd 13/18 +10 -2 =6 Behind Emanuel Lasker (13.5); ahead of
Alexander Alekhine (10), Siegbert Tarrasch (8.5) 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 1=
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 = 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 10.5/12 +9 -0 =3 Ahead of Boris Kostic (9), Marshall (7),
and four others.
1919 Hastings
1st 10.5/11 +10 -0 =1 Ahead of Kostic (9.5), Sir George Thomas
(7), Frederick Yates (7) and eight others.
1922 London
1st 13/15 +11 -0 =4 Ahead of Alekhine (11.5), Vidmar (11),
Rubinstein (10.5), Efim Bogoljubow (9), and 11 other players,
mostly very strong.
1924 New York
2nd 14.5/20 +10 -1 =9 Behind Lasker (16); ahead of Alekhine
(12), Marshall (11), Richard Riti (10.5) and six others,
mostly very strong.
1925 Moscow
3rd 13.5/20 +9 -2 =9 Behind Bogojubow (15.5) and Lasker (14);
ahead of Marshall (12.5) and a mixture of strong international
players and rising Soviet players.
1926 Lake Hopatcong
1st 6/8 +4 -0 =4 Ahead of Abraham Kupchik (5), Giza Maroczy
(4.5), Marshall (3) and Edward Lasker (1.5).
1927 New York
1st 14/20 +8 -0 =12 Ahead of Alekhine (11.5), Aron Nimzowitsch
(10.5), Vidmar (10), Rudolf Spielmann (8) and Marshall (6).
1928 Berlin
1st 8.5/12 +5 -0 =7 Ahead of Nimzowitsch (7), Spielmann (6.5)
and four other very strong players.
1928 Bad Kissingen
2nd 7/11 +4 -1 =6 Behind Bogojubow (8); ahead of Max Euwe
(6.5), Rubinstein (6.5), Nimzowitsch (6) and seven other
strong masters.
1928 Budapest
1st 7/9 +5 -0 =4 Ahead of Marshall (6), Hans Kmoch (5),
Spielmann (5) and six others.
1929 Ramsgate
1st 5.5/7 +4 -0 =3 Ahead of Vera Menchik (5), Rubinstein (5),
and four others.
1929 Carlsbad
2nd= 14.5/21 +10 -2 =9 Behind Nimzowitsch (15); tied with
Spielmann; ahead of Rubinstein (13.5) and 18 others, mostly
very strong.
1929 Budapest
1st 10.5/13 +8 -0 =5 Ahead of Rubinstein (9.5), Savielly
Tartakower (8) and 11 others.
1929 Barcelona
1st 13.5/14 +13 -0 =1 Ahead of Tartakower (11.5) and 13
others.
1929-30 Hastings
1st 6.5/9 +4 -0 =5.
1930-31 Hastings
2nd 6.5/9 +5 -1 =3 Behind Euwe (7); ahead of eight others.
1931 New York
1st 10/11 +9 -0 =2 Ahead of Isaac Kashdan (8.5) and 10 others.
1934-35 Hastings
4th 5.5/9 +4 -2 =3 Behind Thomas, (6.5), Euwe (6.5) and Salo
Flohr (6.5); ahead Mikhail Botvinnik (5), Andor Lilienthal (5)
and four others.
1935 Moscow
4th 12/19 +7 -2 =10 Behind Botvinnik (13), Flohr (13) and
Lasker (12.5); ahead of Spielmann (11) and 15 others, mainly
Soviet players.
1935 Margate
2nd 7/9 +6 -1 =2 Behind Samuel Reshevsky (7.5); ahead of eight
others.
1936 Margate
2nd 7/9 +5 -0 =4 Behind Flohr (7.5); ahead of Gideon Stehlberg
and eight others.
1936 Moscow
1st 13/18 +8 -0 =10 Ahead of Botvinnik (12), Flohr (9.5),
Lilienthal (9), Viacheslav Ragozin (8.5), Lasker (8) and four
others.
1936 Nottingham
1st= 10/14 +7 -1 =6 Tied with Botvinnik; ahead of Euwe (9.5),
Reuben Fine (9.5), Reshevsky (9.5), Alekhine (9), Flohr (8.5),
Lasker (8.5) and seven other strong opponents.
1937 Semmering
3rd= 7.5/14 +2 -1 =11 Behind Paul Keres (9), Fine (8); tied
with Reshevsky; ahead of Flohr (7), Erich Eliskases (6),
Ragozin (6) and Vladimir Petrov (5).
1938 Paris
1st= 8/10 +6 -0 =4 Ahead of Nicolas Rossolimo (7.5) and four
others.
1938 AVRO tournament, at ten cities in the Netherlands
7th 6/14 +2 -4 =8 Behind Keres (8.5), Fine (8.5), Botvinnik
(7.5), Alekhine (7), Euwe (7) and Reshevsky (7); ahead of
Flohr (4.5).
1939 Margate
2nd= 6.5/9 +4 -0 =5 Behind Keres (7.5); tied with Flohr; ahead
of seven others.
At the 1939 Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires, Capablanca took the
medal for best performance on a country's first board.
++2.G Match results
Here are Capablanca's results in matches.
1901 Juan Corzo
Won Havana 7-6 +4 -3 =6 For the championship of Cuba; Corzo
was the reigning champion.
1909 Frank James Marshall
Won New York 15-8 +8 -1 =14.
1919 Boris Kostic
Won USA 5-0 +5 -0 =0.
1921 Emanuel Lasker
Won Havana 9-5 +4 -0 =10 For the World Chess Championship.
1927 Alexander Alekhine
Lost Buenos Aires 15.5-18.5 +3 -6 =25 For the World Chess
Championship.
1931 Max Euwe
Won Netherlands 6-4 +2 -0 =8 Euwe became World Champion
1935-1937.
++3. Mikhail Botvinnik - Jose Raul Capablanca, Amsterdam 1938
Amsterdam 1938, Round 11
White: Mikhail Botvinnik
Black: Jose Raul Capablanca
Result: 1-0
ECO: E49 - Nimzo-Indian Defense, Rubinstein Variation
Notes by R.J. Macdonald
1. d4 Nf6
2. c4 e6
3. Nc3 Bb4
(The Nimzo-Indian Defense.)
4. e3
(The Rubinstein Variation.)
4. ... d5
(White has a slight advantage after 4. ... b6 5. Bd3 Bb7 6. Nf3 0-0 7. 0-0 Bxc3
8. bxc3 d6 9. Ba3 Qe7 10. h3 Nbd7 11. Nd2 e5.)
5. a3
(5. Bd2 c5 6. a3 Bxc3 7. Bxc3 cxd4 8. exd4 0-0 9. Nf3 Qc7 10. Rc1 Re8 11. Qb3
Nc6 gives white a slight advantage.)
5. ... Bxc3+
6. bxc3 c5
7. cxd5 exd5
8. Bd3 0-0
9. Ne2 b6
10. 0-0 Ba6
11. Bxa6 Nxa6
12. Bb2
(Alternatives include (a) 12. Qa4 Nb8 13. c4 cxd4 14. Nxd4 Qd7 15. Qxd7 Nbxd7
16. cxd5 Nxd5 17. Bb2 Nc5 18. Nf5 f6 19. Rfd1 Nc7 20. Rac1 Rad8 21. h4 N7e6 22.
Ne7+ Kf7 23. Nc6 Rd3 24. Nxa7 Rb3 25. Bd4 Rxa3 26. Nb5 Rb3 1/2-1/2 in 38 moves,
as in the game O. Schumacher (2255) - A. Adrian (1955), Ludwigshafen 1996; (b)
12. Qd3 Qc8 13. f3 Qb7 14. Bd2 Rfe8 15. g4 Nc7 16. Ng3 Qa6 17. Qxa6 Nxa6 18. a4
Nb8 19. a5 Nc6 20. axb6 axb6 21. Rfb1 Nd7 22. Kf2 g6 23. Ne2 g5 24. h4 f6 25.
hxg5 fxg5 26. Ng3 Na5 1-0 in 62 moves, as in the game M. Chiburdanidze (2525) -
M. Taimanov (2455), Roquebrune 1998; and (c) 12. Ng3 Nc7 13. a4 Ne6 14. Qd3 Qd7
15. Bb2 Rfd8 16. f3 Rac8 17. e4 cxd4 18. cxd4 dxe4 19. fxe4 Nxd4 20. Rxf6 gxf6
21. Nh5 Qd6 22. Kh1 Qe5 23. Qh3 Qg5 24. Bxd4 Rc1+ 25. Rxc1 Qxc1+ 26. Bg1 Rd1
1-0 in 40 moves, as in the game D. Genocchio (2443) - D. Vocaturo (2489),
Arvier 2010. 12. f3 Re8 leads to equality.)
12. ... Qd7
13. a4
(13. Nf4 Rfe8 offers equal chances.)
13. ... Rfe8
14. Qd3
(White threatens to win material: Qd3xa6.)
14. ... c4
(Black threatens to win material: c4xd3.)
15. Qc2 Nb8
(The knight intends Na6-b8-c6-a5-b3. 15. ... h5 16. Bc1 leads to equality.)
16. Rae1
(The position is now even.)
16. ... Nc6
(16. ... Nh5 17. Bc1 also leads to equality.)
17. Ng3 Na5
(17. ... h5 18. f3 offers equal chances.)
18. f3
(This consolidates e4+g4. White now has a slight edge.)
18. ... Nb3
(The black knight on an outpost square. 18. ... Qc6 19. e4 gives white a solid
advantage.)
19. e4
(Playing against the pawn chain.)
19. ... Qxa4
20. e5
(White threatens to win material: e5xf6.)
20. ... Nd7
21. Qf2
(21. Nf5 g6 22. Ne3 Qc6 gives white a slight advantage.)
21. ... g6
(Covers f5+h5. 21. ... Qc6 22. Nf5 Qg6 23. Nd6 gives white a solid advantage.)
22. f4 f5
23. exf6 Nxf6
24. f5 Rxe1
25. Rxe1 Re8
(25. ... Rf8!? has some apparent merit}.)
26. Re6
(White now has a solid advantage.)
26. ... Rxe6
27. fxe6 Kg7
28. Qf4 Qe8
29. Qe5
(29. Qd6 looks to be very strong for white.)
Key Move Diagram:
4q3/
p5kp/
1p2Pnp1/
3pQ3/
2pP4/
1nP3N1/
1B4PP/
6K1
Position after white's 29th move.
29. ... Qe7??
(Leading to a quick end. Better is 29. ... h6 30. Qd6 b5 with a moderate
advantage for white.)
30. Ba3
(White's position is now very strong.)
30. ... Qxa3
(30. ... Nc5 is still a small chance, but white still has a decisive advantage
after 31. dxc5 bxc5.)
31. Nh5+ gxh5
32. Qg5+ Kf8
33. Qxf6+ Kg8
34. e7 Qc1+
35. Kf2 Qc2+
36. Kg3 Qd3+
37. Kh4 Qe4+
38. Kxh5 Qe2+
39. Kh4 Qe4+
(39. ... h6 is not the saving move: 40. Qg6+ Kh8 41. Qxh6+ Kg8 42. Qg6+ Kh8 43.
e8=Q+ Qxe8 44. Qxe8+ Kg7 45. Kg5 Nd2 46. Qe7+ Kg8 47. Kg6 Ne4 48. Qg7#.)
40. g4 Qe1+
(40. ... h5 does not solve anything either: 41. Kg5 Nc5 42. Qg6+ Kh8 43. e8=Q+
Qxe8 44. Qxe8+ Kg7 45. Qe7+ Kg8 46. Kg6 Ne6 47. Qf7+ Kh8 48. Qh7#.)
41. Kh5
(White resigned in view of 41. Kh5 h6 42. Qg6+ Kh8 43. e8=Q+ Qxe8 44. Qxe8+ Kg7
45. Qe7+ Kg8 46. Kxh6 Nxd4 47. Qg7#.)
1-0
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