The
gentleman from Havana
Chess
JR
Capablanca, the Cuban world champion (1921-27), had a style
which in modern chess parlance is known as technique. He made
chess look so simple!
Capablanca
was only 12 when he won the Cuban championship in 1900. The
wonder boy, however, never played chess professionally. He had
that rare ability to play without making any extra efforts.
Richard Reti, the Czech hyper modern, once said, " Chess
is his (Capa's) mother tongue." Well said!
Such
was the extent of his success that he even lost interest in
the game after winning the world title. He suggested introduction
of some new pieces on the board to make it more complicated
! But the suggestion did not elicit any response from chess
theorists.
The
world championship match that he won against Emanuel Lasker,
the German mathematician, was not a tough contest, though most
of the games were drawn. That further boosted Capablanca'' confidence.
He began to believe that there was no need for him to take anybody
seriously. But the title match against Alexander Alekhine in
Buenos Aires in 1927 turned out to be a different proposition.
Alekhine was very well prepared for it, while Capablanca was
still under the impression that nobody could beat him. He paid
the price for not being serious enough and lost the title to
the Franco-Russian grandmaster.
Capablanca
woke up from his self-induced slumber, and was desperately looking
for a return match in the early thirties. But the FIDE rules
were not that well defined in those days and the title holders
often took advantage of the situation. Alekhine avoided the
return match and Capablanca never got the chance to regain the
title. Alekhine finally agreed to play that match in 1939, when
the Cuban was sick and well past his prime! In 1939, there were
at least four more worthy candidates for the title than Capablanca.
So the idea of an Alekhine-Capablanca return match did not appeal
to anybody at that time, and it was never played.
Watch
how Capablanca destroys the coordination among the enemy pieces
in the following game.
White-
Jose Raul Capablanca
Black- Efim Bogoljubow [D24]
Moscow 1925
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 dxc4 4.e4 c5?! 5.Bxc4 cxd4 6.Nxd4 Nf6
7.Nc3 Bc5 8.Be3 Nbd7!? 9.Bxe6!? fxe6 10.Nxe6 Qa5? 11.00 Bxe3
12.fxe3 Kf7 13.Qb3 Kg6 14.Rf5 Qb6 15.Nf4+ Kh6 16.g4? g5! 17.Qxb6
axb6 18.Rd1!.Rg8? 19.Nfd5 Nxg4? 20.Ne7! Rg7 21.Rd6+ Kh5 22.Rf3!
Ngf6 23.Rh3+ Kg4 24.Rg3+ Kh5 25.Nf5 Rg6 26.Ne7? g4? 27.Nxg6
Kxg6 28.Rxg4+ Kf7 29.Rf4 Kg7 30.e5 Ne8 31.Re6 Nc7 32.Re7+ 1-0
-PATZER