Jose Raul Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (Havana, November 19, 1888 - New York, March 8, 1942) was a Cuban chess player, three-time world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. For his precocious genius, he was nicknamed "the Mozart of chess"; Due to his aura of invincibility, in his golden age he was called "the chess machine".
Capablanca, Ramón Fonst and Alfredo de Oro constitute the three most important figures in the Cuban sports world in the first decades of the 20th century, when they were called "the Cuban golden triad", since each one was the greatest exponent in his sport.
Biography
His Early Years
Capablanca was born in the Castillo del Príncipe, a military installation in Havana, on November 19, 1888. José Raúl was the second son of José María Capablanca Fernández, an officer in the Spanish army, and Matilde María Graupera, of Catalan origin from Matanzas. Marin.
According to his own account, Capablanca learned to play chess at the age of four, watching his father play with friends. During one of the games, which he usually played in the afternoons with General Francisco de Paula Loño y Pérez, whose assistant he was, he observed that Don José María moved the horse in an unauthorized manner; to everyone's surprise, he accused him of cheating and went on to show him what he had done. Immediately afterwards, Capablanca played a game of chess with his father and defeated him.
When the boy was five years old, his father began taking him to the Havana Chess Club. The best players in the club found it impossible to beat him by giving him the queen advantage (ie, the opponent was playing without a queen). In December 1901, at the age of thirteen, he defeated the Cuban national champion Juan Corzo with the result of 4 wins, 3 losses and 6 draws, reaching the title of Cuban champion.
To the top
He finished his studies at the Matanzas High School. His family did not have the resources to allow him to study abroad, but in view of his good academic results, his patron Ramón Pelayo de la Torriente decided to finance his education in the United States with a view to managing his prosperous future. sugar business in Cuba. He attended high school at the Woody Cliff School in New Jersey, aspiring to enter Columbia University to pursue a career in Chemical Engineering. However, permanently distracted by his passion for the game, he only attended the first two years.
In 1905 he began to frequent the Manhattan Chess Club. On the night of April 6, 1906, he participated in a lightning tournament in which, after successive qualifying games, he defeated the great Emanuel Lasker, to the astonishment of all, winning the tournament. Lasker shook the hand of his winner saying: "He is remarkable young man, you have made no mistakes."
In his first international meeting, he faced American master Eugene Delmar, whom he won every game, despite being given pawn advantage and lead.
Between the end of 1908 and 1909 he took part in a prolonged tour of the United States; out of a total of 734 games, he won 703, drew 19 and suffered only 12 losses.
In 1909, at the age of 20, Capablanca won a match against American champion Frank Marshall (+8 -1 =14). It was Marshall's insistence that allowed the young Capablanca to be allowed to participate in the tournament in San Sebastián, Spain, in 1911. This was one of the most important competitions of the time; all the great players on the planet would be present except the then world champion Emmanuel Lasker. At the beginning of the tournament Osip Bernstein and Aron Nimzowitsch objected to the presence of the guest as he had not yet won any of the major tournaments. However, after Capablanca won his first game against Bernstein (in a match that would award him the brilliance award), the latter recognized his talent and said he would not be surprised if his winner ended up winning the award. elderly.
Following a move during a game in the rapid chess variety, Nimzowitsch took offense at a comment by Capablanca, to whom he replied: "Players without a track record should keep their mouths shut in the presence of their superiors" 3. 4;. On the spot, Capablanca challenged Nimzowitsch to face him in a series of rapid games, which he won easily. The teachers present in the place concluded that the young Cuban was unsurpassed in the fast variant, a distinction that would correspond to him until the end of his life. Capablanca did end up winning the championship (again against Nimzowitsch), using an opening much admired by Mikhail Botvinnik, and shocking the chess world by winning with a balance of +6 -1 =7, ahead of Akiba Rubinstein, Carl Schlechter and Siegbert Tarrasch.
In 1911 he challenged Lasker for the world championship. The German accepted the challenge, but proposed 17 conditions for the crossing. Capablanca disagreed with some and they did not reach an agreement.
In 1913 he played in Havana and finished second to Frank Marshall, having lost one of the games against the American after having an advantageous position. Reuben Fine claimed that Capablanca had demanded the mayor evict all spectators to not to be seen in the bad mood while losing. This story has circulated in books and on the net; however, Edward G. Winter's book (see here) documents that Fine's story is unsubstantiated. He shows instead that the 600 spectators present, who naturally supported his compatriot, gave Marshall a standing ovation. Marshall's own notes corroborate this version: when he heard the shouting of the crowd, he believed that they were going to lynch him, so he asked for a security escort to take him quickly to his hotel. Then they told him what had really happened.
Immediately after this Capablanca obtained a result of +13 -0 =0 in a tournament in New York, although Oldrich Duras was the only International Grandmaster among all his rivals.
In September 1913, he got a job at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The average salary that this job provided allowed her to continue enjoying his passion for chess and making some trips abroad in search of new challenges. For many years he was the most famous Cuban.
Shortly thereafter he played a series of games in Europe against the best players of the time: in Berlin he defeated Jacques Mieses and Richard Teichmann; in Saint Petersburg he played a series of six games, two against Alexander Alekhine, two against Yevgeni Znosko-Borovski and two against Fedor Duz-Khotimirsky, losing once to Znosko-Borovski and winning the rest. These were his first meetings with Alekhine, who was vastly outclassed. Then, in Riga, he beat Nimzowitsch in an elegant opposite-colored bishop ending. In Moscow, he beat Bernstein in a game that appears in many anthologies as a gem. for the winning move 29... Qb2!!, and for the new dangling pawns strategy. In Kiev he outplayed Bogatyrchuk, among others. Already in Vienna, he defeated Richard Réti in one game and Savielly Tartakower 1.5-0.5. Capablanca also gave a large number of simultaneous games highlighted by his speed and large number of victories.
In the great tournament of 1914 in Saint Petersburg, with the participation of most of the best players in the world (with the exception of those from the Austro-Hungarian Empire), Capablanca met the great Lasker for the first time in a normal tournament (The Cuban had already won the final of the aforementioned 1906 lightning chess tournament, in which he innovated with a now famous final composition). Capablanca took a one and a half point lead in the preliminary rounds, forcing Lasker to fight for the draw, he won the brilliance award again against Bernstein and had some important victories against David Janowsky, Nimzowitsch and Alekhine.
However, he was the victim of a noticeable improvement from Lasker in the second part of the tournament, which included a famous victory for the German. He finished second, behind Lasker with 13 points to the German's 13.5, but ahead of Alekhine, who finished in third place. At the conclusion of the tournament, Czar Nicholas II proclaimed the five prize winners (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall) as "Grand Masters of Chess".
World Champion
In 1920, Lasker realized that Capablanca was getting too strong and decided to relinquish the title in favor of him, adding: "You have won the title not by the formality of a challenge, but by your brilliant mastery". The Cuban preferred to win it in one game, but Lasker insisted that he was now the challenger. In 1921 they played the championship in Havana where Capablanca defeated the German without losing a single game: +4 -0 =10. It would not be until eight decades later that this would be repeated, when in 2000 Vladimir Kramnik beat Garry Kasparov +2 -0 =13.
The new world champion, Capablanca, dominated London in 1922. There were an interesting number of strong players and it was believed that the champion should not be able to evade title challenges as had been the case in the past. In this tournament, some of the best players of the time (Alexander Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubov, Géza Maróczy, Richard Réti, Akiba Rubinstein, Tartakower and Milan Vidmar) met to discuss rules for the world championships to come. Among other things, one of the conditions proposed by the champion was that the contender for the title would have to raise at least ten thousand dollars for the prize.
In subsequent years, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch challenged Capablanca but failed to raise the money.
He finished second in New York in 1924, again ahead of Alekhine. In 1925 he was third in Moscow behind Efim Bogoljubov and Lasker. But in 1927 he dominated the tournament in New York against six players without losing a game and with 2.5 points more than Alekhine.
In this period there were also several changes in the personal life of the teacher. In December 1921 he married Gloria Simoni Betancourt. They had a son, José Raúl, in 1923 and a daughter, Gloria, in 1925, but the marriage ended in divorce. Also around that time he lost his father and his mother.
Loss of title
The success in New York in 1927 was exceptional: he finished undefeated in a four-way round with six of the best players in the world and 2.5 points clear of second place (Alekhine). Capablanca also bested the Muscovite in their first meeting, winning the most brilliant game award against Rudolf Spielmann and winning two interesting games against Nimzowitsch.
This left him as the heavy favorite for the championship against Alekhine — who until then had never been able to beat Capablanca. The challenge was backed by a group of Argentine businessmen and the president of this country, who guaranteed the funds.
The proximity of the match led to a series of predictions about its outcome: Austrian grandmaster Rudolf Spielmann declared: "Alekhine is not going to win any game"; according to Vidmar: "Alekhine doesnt have the shadow of a chance"; Bogoljubov agreed: "The final result will be 6 x 3 in favor of Capablanca"; Nimzowitch and Maroczy also spoke in favor of the Cuban's victory.
Capablanca himself felt sure of his triumph, so —true to his style— he did not prepare for the match, relying on his unique ability to solve problems directly in front of the board; Instead, driven by his job responsibilities as a representative of Cuban chess, he participated in a tour of exhibition games in Brazil.
In a diametrically opposed strategy, his opponent dedicated himself to the complex task of studying in unprecedented depth the underlying patterns in Capablanca's playing style, his recurring movements and responses to complicated problems, etc., inaugurating a way of working that It is the norm today among the greatest exponents of world chess.
The match was played in September in Buenos Aires. The first to obtain six victories would win. Alekhine played patiently and solidly and led Capablanca to lose the first game in mediocre fashion, before taking the lead by winning games 3 and 7—more Alekhine-like attacking games—and then lost games 11. and 12. Capablanca tried to convince Alekhine to cancel the appointment after a long series of draws. The Russian refused, and ended up winning +6 -3 =25, in the longest match in world championship history, except for the 1985 championship between Karpov and Kasparov.
Alekhine did not agree to play the rematch, contravening one of the conditions of the match. Despite the collapse of the financial markets in 1929, Alekhine continued to insist on the conditions agreed in London, that is, Capablanca was obliged to raise $10,000. The applicant failed to satisfy this condition. Instead, Alekhine played two world championships against Efim Bogoljubov, who was a good chess player, but not a threat to him in a long game. During his reign, Alekhine refused to play in the same tournaments as his rival.
Post-Championship
Capablanca won several strong tournaments after losing the world title, and was hopeful that sooner or later his results would force Alekhine into a world championship rematch, which didn't happen. In 1931 he defeated the great Dutch player Max Euwe +2 -0 = 8, after which he stopped playing at the highest level for a while, playing only minor games at the Manhattan Chess Club.
Reuben Fine, extraordinary rapid chess player, recalls that in this period he played several crosses of this specialty with Alekhine, with very even results. In comparison, the few times that he faced the Cuban in this variant, he crushed him "without mercy".
In 1934 he began to play major tournaments again. Olga Chagodayev, whom he married in 1938, inspired him to compete again. Alekhine lost the title against Euwe in 1935 partly due to his alcohol problems. This gave Capablanca new hope of winning the title again, and he won in Moscow in 1936, ahead of Botvinnik and Lasker. At the great Nottingham tournament in 1936, he finished level with Botvinnik for first, closely followed by the new talents of Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky and further behind Alekhine, Salomon Flohr, Euwe and Lasker. This tournament was quite important as 5 past, present or future world champions played and was described as "the biggest tournament in history".
This was Capablanca's first game against Alekhine since the great world championship between the two and the Cuban genius did not miss the opportunity to avenge his defeat. Being in an inferior position, he managed to trap the Russian in such an elaborate trap that neither of the other players (except Lasker) realized where the loser had made the mistake.
Capablanca commented on this in Capablanca's Legacy: His Last Presentations (pages 111–112) expressing his admiration for Lasker's cunning even at sixty. However, the Cuban does not mention his opponent: Alekhine. Their relationship was one of deep mutual dislike, to the point where they rarely shared a board for more than a few seconds: each made his move and then got up to walk nearby.
In 1937, Euwe, in contrast to the situation between Alekhine and Capablanca, fulfilled his obligation and granted Alekhine the revenge game. Alekhine stopped drinking, prepared well and easily won first place again. After this there was not much hope that Capablanca would challenge for the title again, Alekhine did not play any more games for the world championship and died in 1946. The absolute and arbitrary control of the title by the circumstantial champion prompted FIDE to regulate the opponent selection mechanism to ensure that the best contender had a chance to reach the final.
Shortly thereafter Capablanca's health began to decline. He had a minor stroke during the 1938 AVRO Tournament, and had the worst finish of his career: seventh out of eight players. However, even at this stage of his decline, he was able to produce extraordinary results: At the 1939 Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires, representing Cuba, he managed to win the individual gold medal for best first board, ahead of Alekhine. and by Paul Keres.
On March 7, 1942, Capablanca was at the Manhattan Chess Club in New York. The Cuban, in a very good mood, joked about the plays that were taking place on the board. Suddenly, surprising those around him, he stood up exclaiming: "Help me take off my coat...", then collapsing in the arms of the chess players who approached him. Transferred moments later to the Monte Sinai Hospital, where he arrived in a comatose state, he died at 5:30 in the morning on the 8th. The direct cause of his death was cerebral hemorrhage, a consequence of high blood pressure that he had been suffering for quite some time. Exactly a year earlier, in the same hospital, Emanuel Lasker had died. After his death, the chess world suffered a terrible consternation. The most important grandmasters of the time, including Alekhine, expressed their condolences and called him the greatest chess player of all time.
José Capablanca was buried in the Christopher Columbus Necropolis, in Havana, with great honors. General Fulgencio Batista, dictator of Cuba, personally took charge of the funeral arrangements. Capablanca passed away at the age of 53 years and 109 days. In 1951, Cuba issued a 25-cent stamp with his portrait, the first with the figure of a chess master.
Assessment of your career
In his entire career Capablanca suffered less than fifty defeats in official games. In official games he lost 35, 6% of the total. He remained undefeated for more than eight years, from February 10, 1916, when he lost from a superior position to Oscar Chajes, until March 21, 1924, when he lost to Richard Réti in the New York International Tournament.. It is a record of 63 games, which included the extremely delicate 1922 London tournament and the world championship match against Lasker. In fact, only Marshall, Lasker, Alekhine and Rudolf Spielmann have won two or more official matches against a mature Capablanca, although their respective career totals are negative (Capablanca defeated Marshall +20 -2 =28, Lasker +6 - 2 =16, to Alekhine +9 -7 =33), with the exception of Spielmann who achieved his level (+2 -2 =8). Of the world elite, only Paul Keres had a narrow margin in his favor (+1 -0 = 5), a triumph that occurred when Capablanca was 50 years old, in the decline of his career. His Elo rating has been calculated at 2725.
Capablanca did not found any schools himself, but his style was highly influential in the games of world champions Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov. Mikhail Botvinnik wrote about how much he learned from Capablanca, and pointed out that Alekhine also owed the Cuban a lot of his positional game, which he learned during their frequent meetings before the world title fight made them enemies. Botvinnik considers Capablanca's The Fundamentals of Chess the best book on chess ever written. In this text, the grandmaster points out that while the bishop is generally stronger than the knight, the queen-knight union is generally superior to the queen-bishop combination: its diagonal movement simply imitates that of the queen, while that the knight complements her, immediately reaching positions that are forbidden to the queen. Botvinnik credits Capablanca as the first to make this observation.
Criticism
The most common criticism of his figure centers on his traditional laziness: at the head of the board, if he couldn't achieve something by simple means then he didn't even try. This characteristic manifested itself in the fact that he generally trusted his instincts, leaving calculation aside, which sometimes resulted in serious errors. Also – and exceptionally – he was unable to solve some difficult endings.
At one point Capablanca came under fire—mainly in Britain—for his supposedly vain description of his own achievements in his first book, My Chess Career. In response, the master took the unprecedented step of including virtually all of his losses in tournaments and matches in The Fundamentals of Chess , along with a representative group of victories. of the. On the other hand, J. du Mont, in his prologue to Golombek's book Capablanca's 100 Best Games , attests that the Cuban —whom he knew well— was not at all a vain person; instead he advised critics to learn the difference between the simply gifted mind and the lofty genius of a Capablanca, and the contrast between the British penchant for false modesty with the Spanish-American habit of saying "I played this game as well as I did." could be played" when you honestly think you are right. Du Mont also claims that Capablanca was quite sensitive to criticism. Edward G. Winter, chess historian, documents a number of examples of self-criticism in My Chess Career.
Proposal of new rules
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| The chess of Capablanca. The arzobispo (composing of alfil+caballo) is located between the traditional horse and the alfil on the side of the queen; Foreign Minister (tower-horse compound) is positioned analogously and on the king's side. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Capablanca predicted that chess would face greater difficulties if the trend of elite players ending their games in a draw continued. To avoid this, he suggested a variation of the game scheme, called the & # 34; Capablanca Chess & # 34;, to be developed on an 8x10 board. His idea was that the larger number of pieces and the extended dimensions of the board would allow the most effective player to clearly express his superiority, due to the complexity and additional degrees of freedom.
It should be noted that the grandmaster proposed this complicated variation while he was world champion and not after losing the title, as some sources incorrectly maintain.
Capablanca in Memoriam International Tournament
Since 1962, in honor of Capablanca, the Capablanca in Memoriam International Tournament takes place in Cuba, one of the most important chess tournaments in Latin America.
Results in tournaments and individual heats
| Tournament | City | Points | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1902 | |||
| Cuba Chess Championship against Juan Corzo | Havana | (+4 -3 =6) | Capablanca wins 7 - 6 |
| 1906 | |||
| Cross against Robert Raubitschek | New York | (+2 -0 =0) | Capablanca wins 2 - 0 |
| University Championship | New York | (+4 -0 =1) | Capablanca plays at Columbia University. |
| 1909 | |||
| Contrary to Frank Marshall | New York | (+8 -1 =14) | Capablanca wins 15 - 8 |
| 1910 | |||
| New York State Championship | New York | (+7 -0 =0) | 1. location |
| 1911 | |||
| New York State Championship | New York | (+8 -1 =3) | 2. location |
| International Tournament | San Sebastián | (+6 -1 =7) | 1. location |
| 1913 | |||
| Session against Charles Jaffé | New York | (+2 -0 =1) | Jaffé leaves after 3 games |
| New York State Championship | New York | (+10 -1 =7) | 1. location |
| International Tournament | Havana | (+8 -2 =4) | 2. location |
| Rice Memorial Tournament | New York | (+13 -0 =0) | 1. location |
| 1914 | |||
| International Tournament | Saint Petersburg | (+10 -2 =6) | 2. location |
| 1915 | |||
| New York State Championship | New York | (+12 -0 =2) | 1. location |
| 1916 | |||
| Rice Memorial Tournament | New York | (+12 -1 =4) | 1. location |
| 1918 | |||
| Manhattan Chess Club Tournament | New York | (+9 -0 =3) | 1. location |
| 1919 | |||
| Dispute against Boris Kostić | Havana | (+5 -0 =0) | Capablanca wins 5 - 0 |
| International Tournament | Hastings | (+10 -0 =1) | 1. location |
| 1921 | |||
| World Championship against Emanuel Lasker | Havana | (+4 -0 =10) | Lasker leaves after 14 games. Capablanca is world champion |
| 1922 | |||
| International Tournament | London | (+11 -0 =4) | 1. location |
| 1924 | |||
| International Tournament | New York | (+10 -1 =9) | 2. location |
| 1925 | |||
| International Tournament | Moscow | (+9 -2 =9) | 3. location |
| 1926 | |||
| International Tournament | Lake Hopatcong | (+4 -0 =4) | 1. location |
| 1927 | |||
| International Tournament | New York | (+8 -0 =12) | 1. location |
| World Championship against Alexander Alekhine | Buenos Aires | (+3 -6 =25) | Alekhine wins 18.5 - 15.5 and is the new world champion |
| 1928 | |||
| International Tournament | Bad Kissingen | (+4 -1 =6) | 2. location |
| International Tournament | Berlin | (+5 -0 =7) | 1. location |
| International Tournament | Budapest | (+5 -0 =4) | 1. location |
| 1929 | |||
| British International Tournament vs. Rest of the World | Ramsgate | (+4 -0 =3) | Capablanca plays for the Rest of the World |
| International Tournament | Budapest | (+8 -0 =5) | 1. location |
| International Tournament | Karlsbad | (+10 -2 =9) | 2.-3 place with Rudolf Spielmann |
| International Tournament | Barcelona | (+13 -0 =1) | 1. location |
| 1929/1930 | |||
| International Tournament | Hastings | (+4 -0 =5) | 1. location |
| 1930/1931 | |||
| International Tournament | Hastings | (+5 -1 =3) | 2. location |
| 1931 | |||
| Meeting against Max Euwe | Amsterdam | (+2 -0 =8) | Capablanca wins 6 - 4 |
| Master Tournament | New York | (+9 -0 =2) | 1. location |
| 1934/1935 | |||
| International Tournament | Hastings | (+4 -2 =3) | 4. location |
| 1935 | |||
| International Tournament | Moscow | (+7 -2 =10) | 4. location |
| International Tournament | Margate | (+6 -1 =2) | 2. location |
| 1936 | |||
| International Tournament | Margate | (+5 -0 =4) | 2. location |
| International Tournament | Moscow | (+8 -0 =10) | 1. location |
| International Tournament | Nottingham | (+7 -1 =6) | 1. - 2. place with Mikhail Botvínnik |
| 1937 | |||
| International Tournament | Semmering | (+2-1 =11) | 3. - 4. place with Samuel Reshevsky |
| 1938 | |||
| Master Tournament | Paris | (+6 -0 =4) | 1. location |
| AVRO Tournament | Several Dutch cities | (+2 -4 =8) | 7. location |
| 1939 | |||
| International Tournament | Margate | (+4 -0 =5) | 2. - 3. place with Salo Flohr |
| Olympiad | Buenos Aires | (+7 -0 =9) | Capablanca is the captain of the Cuban team |
Capablanca played 583 official games, winning 302, drawing 246 and losing 35, 6% of the total.
Work
In Spanish
- Capablanca, José Raúl. Basics of Chess. Editorial Fundamentos, 2002. ISBN 4-87187-842-2
- Capablanca, José Raúl. Elementary Lessons of Chess. Editorial Fundamentos, 1989. ISBN 84-245-0330-9.
- Capablanca, José Raúl. Art and Secrets of Chess. Editorial Quetzal, Argentina Edition. November 2001. ISBN 950-590-026-0
In English
- Capablanca, José Raúl. A Primer of Chess. Harvest Books, 2002. ISBN 0-15-602807-7
- Capablanca, José Raúl. Fundamental Chess. Everyman Chess, 1994. ISBN 1-85744-073-0
- Capablanca, José Raúl. My Chess Career. Hardinge Simpole Limited, 2003. ISBN 1-84382-091-9
- Capablanca, José Raúl. World's Championship Matches, 1921 and 1927. Dover, 1977. ISBN 0-486-23189-5
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