José Raúl Capablanca

José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (November 19, 1888 - March 8, 1942) was a Cuban world-class chess player in the early to mid-twentieth century. He held the title of world chess champion from 1921 to 1927.

Assessment

In his entire chess career, Capablanca suffered fewer than fifty losses in serious games. He was undefeated for over eight years, from February 10, 1916 to March 21, 1924, when he lost to Richard Reti in the New York International tournament. This was an unbeaten streak of 63 games, and included the strong London tournament of 1922, as well as the world championship match against Lasker.

Related Topics:
February 10 - 1916 - March 21 - 1924 - Richard Reti - New York - London - 1922

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In fact, only Marshall, Lasker, Alekhine and Rudolf Spielmann won two or more serious games with the mature Capablanca, but 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), and that win when Capablanca was 50.

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Capablanca founded no school per se, but his style was very influential in the games of two world champions Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov. Mikhail Botvinnik also wrote how much he learned from Capablanca, and pointed out that Alekhine received much schooling from him in positional play, before their fight for the world title made them bitter enemies.

Related Topics:
Bobby Fischer - Anatoly Karpov - Mikhail Botvinnik

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Botvinnik regarded Capablanca's book Chess Fundamentals as undoubtedly the best chess book ever written. In it, Capablanca pointed out that while the bishop was usually stronger than the knight, queen + knight was usually better than queen + bishop. Botvinnik credits Capablanca as the first with this insight.

Related Topics:
Bishop - Knight

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Earlier, Capablanca had received some criticism, mainly in Britain, for the allegedly conceited description of his accomplishments in his first book, My Chess Career. So Capablanca 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.

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However, J. du Mont, in his foreword to Golombek's book Capablanca's 100 Best Games, wrote that he knew Capablanca well and could vouch that he was not conceited. Rather, critics should learn the difference between merely gifted and the towering genius of Capablanca, and the contrast between a British tendencency 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. Du Mont also said that Capablanca was rather sensitive to criticism. And the chess historian Edward Winter documented a number of examples of self-criticism in My Chess Career.

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Criticism

Most of the criticisms center upon his alleged laziness. That is, if something did not come easily to him, then it would not come at all. This trait manifested itself sometimes in deep calculation, where he occasionally relied on instinct and instead made a mistake. Also, occasionally some difficult endgame wins escaped him.

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