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Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov (Russian: Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов) (born May 23, 1951) is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He is the most successful tournament player of all time, and as of July 2005 he has 161 first-place finishes to his credit. From 1978 to 1998 he played in every FIDE World Championship match. His overall professional record is 1,118 wins, 287 losses, and 1,480 draws in 3,163 games. His peak Elo rating is 2780. The asteroid 90414 Karpov is named in his honour. He has lately been involved in several humanitarian causes, such as the use of iodised salt in the third world.

Since 2005 he has been a member of the Public Chamber of Russia.

Early life

Karpov was born on May 23, 1951 at Zlatoust in the Urals region of the former Soviet Union, and learned to play chess at the age of four. He has been an excellent student throughout his life. His early rise in chess was swift, as he was a Candidate Master by age 11. At age 12, he was accepted into Mikhail Botvinnik’s prestigious chess school. Ironically, Botvinnik had this to say about the young Karpov: “The boy doesn’t have a clue about chess, and there’s no future at all for him in this profession.” [1] Karpov proved him wrong by becoming the youngest Soviet National Master in history at 15, and won the title in his first international chess tournament (Trinec 1966-67) several months later. In 1967 he won the European Junior Chess Championship at Groningen. Karpov won a Gold Medal for academic excellence in high school, and entered Moscow State University in 1968 to study Mathematics. He later transferred to Leningrad State University, eventually graduating from there in Economics. One reason was to be closer to his coach, Grandmaster Semion Furman, who lived in Leningrad. In his writings, Karpov credits Furman as a major influence on his development as a world-class player. In 1969 Karpov became the first Soviet player since Boris Spassky (1955) to win the World Junior Chess Championship, with a score in the finals of 10 out of 11 at Stockholm. Soon afterwards he tied for 4th place at an international tournament in Caracas, Venezuela, and became a Grandmaster.

Candidate

The early 1970s showed a big improvement in his game. He won the 1971 Alekhine Memorial tournament ahead of a star-filled field, for his first significant adult victory. His Elo rating shot up from 2540 in 1971 to 2660 in 1973, when he came in 2nd in the USSR Chess Championship, and placed first in the Leningrad Interzonal Tournament. The latter qualified him for the 1974 Candidates’ Tournament, which determined who was allowed to challenge the reigning World Champion, Bobby Fischer.

Karpov beat Lev Polugaevsky by +3=5 in the first Candidates’ match, to face former World Champion Boris Spassky in the next round. Karpov was on record saying that he believed Spassky would easily beat him and win the Candidates’ cycle to face Fischer, and that he (Karpov) would win the following Candidates’ cycle in 1977.

Most expected the Spassky-Karpov match to be a one-sided rout by the ex-champ Spassky. Although Spassky won the first game as Black in good style, tenacious and aggressive play from Karpov secured him a match win by +4-1=6. Karpov was certainly not hurt by the fact that Spassky’s chief opening analyst, 1955 Soviet Champion Efim Geller, defected to Karpov’s side several months before the match.

The Candidates’ final was set in Moscow against fellow Soviet Viktor Korchnoi, a notable fighting player. Korchnoi was a Leningrad resident who had frequently sparred with Karpov after the latter moved there, and the two had played a drawn six-game training match in 1971. It was interesting that Furman, Karpov’s coach, had earlier worked with Korchnoi; this likely helped Karpov significantly. Intense games were fought, including one “opening laboratory” win against the Sicilian Dragon. Karpov went up 3-0, but tired towards the end and allowed Korchnoi two wins, making for a nervy finish. However, Karpov prevailed +3-2=19. Thus he won the right to challenge Fischer for the World Championship.

The Big Match that never was

Though the world championship match between the young Soviet prodigy and the already retired American Fischer was highly anticipated, the match never came about. Fischer drew up a list of ten demands, chief among them the provisions that draws wouldn’t count, the first to ten victories wins, and if the score was tied 9—9 the champion would retain the crown. This means that the challenger needed two wins more than the reigning champion, because the narrowest possible win for him is 10—8. The International Chess Federation (FIDE) flatly refused at first, but eventually conceded the first two. However, Fischer demanded all or nothing, and when FIDE refused to give into the third demand, Fischer resigned his crown, to the huge disappointment of the chess world. Karpov later attempted to set up another match with Fischer, but all the negotiations fell through. Fischer never did play Karpov (or the legendary Garry Kasparov, for that matter) and scorned them as inferior players. This thrust the young Karpov into the role of World Champion without having defeated the reigning champion, which led some chess pundits to accuse Karpov of being a “paper world champion”—that he had earned the title in a ceremony, but not over a chessboard.

When Kasparov was in a bitter struggle for the world championship with Karpov, he often reminded others that Karpov won the title by default. But while preparing a monumental book series Kasparov: My Great Predecessors, Kasparov argued that Karpov would have had the better chances, because he had beaten Spassky convincingly and was a new breed of tough professional, and indeed had higher quality games, while Fischer had been inactive for three years. Spassky thought that Fischer would have won in 1975 but Karpov would have qualified again and beaten Fischer in 1978[citation needed].

World champion

Somewhat shamed that he had become the twelfth world champion in this manner, and desperately trying to prove he was worthy of the crown, Karpov participated in nearly every major tournament for the next ten years. He convincingly won the very strong Milan tournament in 1975, and captured his first of three Soviet titles in 1976. He created the most phenomenal streak of tournament wins against the strongest players in the world. This tournament success even eclipsed the pre-war tournament record of Alexander Alekhine. Karpov held the record for most consecutive tournament victories (9) until it was shattered by Garry Kasparov (14).

In 1978, Karpov’s first title defence was against Viktor Korchnoi, the opponent he had defeated in the previous Candidates’ tournament. The situation was vastly different from the previous match, because in the intervening years Korchnoi had defected from the Soviet Union. The match was played at Baguio in the Philippines, and a vast array of psychological tricks were used during the match, from Karpov’s Dr. Zukhar who allegedly attempted to hypnotize Korchnoi during the game, to Korchnoi’s mirror glasses to ward off the hypnotic stare, Korchnoi’s offering to play under the Jolly Roger flag when he was denied the right to play under Switzerland’s, to Karpov’s yoghurt supposedly being used to send him secret messages, to Korchnoi inviting two local cult members (on trial for attempted murder) into the hall as members of his team.

The off-board antics are better remembered than the actual chess match. Karpov took an early lead, but Korchnoi staged an amazing comeback very late in the match, and came very close to winning. Karpov narrowly won the last game to take the match 6–5, with 21 draws.

Three years later Korchnoi re-emerged as the Candidates’ winner against German finalist Dr. Robert Hübner to challenge Karpov in Merano, Italy. This time the psychological trick was the arrest of Korchnoi’s son for evading conscription. Again the politics off the board overshadowed the games, but this time Karpov easily won (11–7, +6 -2 =10) in what is remembered as the “Massacre at Merano”.

Karpov’s tournament career reached a peak at the exceptional Montreal “Tournament of Stars” tournament in 1979, where he ended joint first with Mikhail Tal ahead of a field of superb grandmasters like Jan Timman, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Boris Spassky, and Lubomir Kavalek. He dominated Las Palmas 1977 with an incredible 13.5 / 15. He also won the prestigious Bugojno tournament in 1978 and 1980, the Linares tournament in 1981 and 1994, the Tilburg tournament in 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, and 1983, and the Soviet Championship in 1976, 1983, and 1988.

Karpov represented the Soviet Union at six Chess Olympiads, in all of which the USSR won the team gold medal. He played first reserve at Skopje 1972, winning the board prize with 13/15. At Nice 1974, he advanced to board one and again won the board prize with 12/14. At La Valletta 1980, he was again board one and scored 9/12. At Lucerne 1982, he scored 6.5/8 on board one. At Dubai 1986, he scored 6/9 on board two. His last was Thessaloniki 1988, where on board two he scored 8/10. In Olympiad play, Karpov lost only two games out of 68 played.

To illustrate Karpov’s dominance over his peers as champion, his score was +11 -2 =20 versus Spassky, +5 =12 versus Robert Hübner, +6 -1 =16 versus Ulf Andersson, +3 -1 =10 versus Vasily Smyslov, +1 =16 versus Mikhail Tal, +10 -2 =13 versus Ljubojevic.

Karpov had cemented his position as the world’s best player and world champion when Garry Kasparov arrived on the scene. In their first World Championship match in 1984, held in Moscow, Karpov quickly built a 4-0 lead, and needed only two more wins to keep his title. Instead, the next 17 games were drawn, and it took Karpov until Game 27 to finally win another game. In Game 31, Karpov had a winning position but failed to take advantage and settled for a draw. He lost the next game, but drew the next 14. In particular, Karpov held a solidly winning position in Game 41, but again blundered terribly and had to settle for a draw. After Kasparov suddenly won Game 47 and 48, Karpov suffered a physical collapse, having lost 10 kg (22 lb) over the course of the match. The FIDE President Florencio Campomanes controversially terminated the match, which had lasted an unprecedented five months, with five wins for Karpov, three for Kasparov, and a staggering forty draws.

A rematch was set for later the same year, also in Moscow. In a hard fight, Karpov had to win game 24 of the 1985 match to retain his title, but lost it and the title 11 to 13 (+3 -5 =16), ending his ten-year reign as champion.

Rival

Karpov remained a formidable opponent for most of the eighties. He fought Kasparov in three more World Championship matches in 1986 (held in London and Leningrad), 1987 (held in Seville), and 1990 (held in New York City and Lyon). All three matches were extremely close: the scores were 11.5 to 12.5 (+4 -5 = 15), 12 to 12 (+4 -4 =16), and 11.5 to 12.5 (+3 -4 =17). In all three matches Karpov had winning chances up to the very last games. In particular, the 1987 Seville match featured an astonishing blunder by Kasparov in the 23rd game, and should have led to Karpov’s reclaiming the title. Instead, in the final game, needing only a draw to win the title, Karpov cracked under pressure from the clock at the end of the first session of play, allowing Kasparov to adjourn the game a pawn up. After a further mistake in the second session, Karpov was slowly ground down and resigned on move 64, ending the match and allowing Kasparov to keep the title.

The overall game score between them stayed virtually even until the late 1990s, when the score shifted decisively towards Kasparov. Currently, in their 235 formal games played, Karpov has 23 wins, 33 losses, and an incredible 179 draws. In their five world championship matches, Karpov has 19 wins, 21 losses, and 104 draws in 144 games.

Although twelve years older than Kasparov, Karpov still has the stamina and endurance to be a match for Kasparov. In 2002, he defeated Kasparov in a rapid time control match 2.5-1.5. Karpov is on record saying that had he had the opportunity to fight Fischer for the crown like Kasparov had the opportunity to fight him, he (Karpov) could have been a much better player as a result.

FIDE champion again

It came as a surprise, then, that Karpov lost a Candidates Match against Nigel Short in 1992. But in 1993, Karpov reacquired the FIDE World Champion title when Kasparov and Short split from FIDE. Karpov crushed Jan Timman—the loser of the Candidates’ final against Short. Once again he had become World Champion, and once again he did so controversially. He defended his title against Gata Kamsky (+6 -3 =9) in 1996. However, in 1998, FIDE largely scrapped the old system of Candidates’ Matches, instead having a large knock-out event in which a large number of players contested short matches against each other over just a few weeks. In the first of these events, champion Karpov was seeded straight into the final, defeating Viswanathan Anand (+4 -2 =2). But subsequently the champion had to qualify like other players. Karpov resigned his title in anger at the new rules in 1999, so the winner of the 1999 tournament (Alexander Khalifman) became FIDE World Champion.

However, the FIDE champions were not recognized as such by the general public. The fact that the FIDE champions were regularly crushed by Kasparov in tournaments testified to his dominance. The FIDE matches received little public attention, while Kasparov’s matches with the PCA and subsequently Braingames were widely reported in the media. For more details about these series of champions, see the World Chess Championship article.

Towards retirement?

In 1991 Karpov temporarily dropped to third in the FIDE ranking list, the first time since 1971. Though he quickly recovered, many said that Karpov had lost his edge, and that his playing level had declined. However, Karpov bounced back against the world’s very strongest players (in the order of their finish, Kasparov, Shirov, Bareev, Kramnik, Lautier, Anand, Kamsky, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Illescas, Judit Polgar, and Beliavsky) in the landmark “super-strong” tournament Linares 1994 (average ELO rating 2685, the highest ever to that moment, meaning it was the first Category XVIII tournament ever held).

Impressed by the strength of the tournament, Kasparov had said several days before the tournament that the winner could rightfully be called the world champion of tournaments. Perhaps spurred on by this comment, Karpov played the chess of his life and dramatically won the tournament. He was undefeated and earned 11 points out of 13 possible (the best world-class tournament winning percentage since Alekhine won San Remo in 1930), dominating second-place Kasparov and Shirov by a huge 2.5 points. Many of his wins were spectacular (in particular, his win over Topalov, selected below, is considered possibly the finest of his career). This performance against the best players in the world put his ELO rating tournament performance at 2985, the highest performance rating of any chess player in any tournament in all of chess history.

Even recently, few players have surpassed Karpov’s achievements. Since he dropped out of the top three players in the world on the FIDE rankings, only Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, and Veselin Topalov (as of January 2006) have been in the top three slots. In other words, Karpov is the last person to have been in the top three in the world before Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, and Topalov.

However, Karpov’s outstanding classical tournament play has been seriously limited since 1995, since he prefers to be more involved in politics of his home country of Russia. He had been a member of the Supreme Soviet Commission for Foreign Affairs and the President of the Soviet Peace Fund before the Soviet Union broke up. In addition, he had been involved in several disputes with FIDE and became increasingly disillusioned with chess. In the April 2006 FIDE rating list, he is 32nd in the world with an ELO rating of 2672.

However, more recently, because of his traditional strength at managing his thinking time, Karpov has instead begun revamping his style to specialize in rapid chess.

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Robert James “Bobby” Fischer (born March 9, 1943) is a United States-born Icelandic chess International Grandmaster and in 1972 became the only US-born chessplayer ever to win the World Chess Championship. In 1975 he officially resigned the title when FIDE, the international chess federation, refused to accept his conditions for a title defense. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest chess players of all time.

Fischer’s victory over the Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in the “Match of the Century” not only sparked heightened international interest in chess, but was seen as a symbolic victory for the capitalist West. Particularly in the United States, Spassky was portrayed as the product of an impersonal, mechanical, and oppressive system of state control, while Fischer was depicted as a solitary genius who had heroically overcome the Soviets’ dominance: the American David who had slain the communist Goliath.

Fischer now lives as a recluse (the title of the popular film Searching for Bobby Fischer alludes to his legendary withdrawal from competition) in Iceland, and has also become known for his anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism, and antisemitism. However, Fischer’s inflammatory statements have done little to diminish the professional and popular recognition of his singular achievements on the chessboard.

Early years

Robert James Fischer was born at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, Regina Wender, was a naturalized American citizen, of German Jewish[1] descent, who was born in Switzerland, raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and later became a teacher, registered nurse, and physician.[2] Fischer’s father was listed on the birth certificate as Wender’s first husband, Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, a German biophysicist; the couple married in 1933 in Moscow, U.S.S.R., where Wender was studying medicine at the First Moscow Medical Institute. However, a 2002 article by Peter Nicholas and Clea Benson of The Philadelphia Inquirer suggests that Paul Nemenyi, a Hungarian physicist of Jewish ancestry, may have been Fischer’s biological father.[3] Gerhardt and Regina Fischer divorced in 1945 when Bobby was two years old, and he grew up with his mother and older sister, Joan. In 1948, the family moved to Mobile, Arizona, where Regina taught in an elementary school. The following year they moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Regina worked as an elementary school teacher and nurse.

In May 1949, the six-year-old Fischer learned how to play chess from instructions found in a chess set that his sister had bought at a candy store below their Brooklyn apartment. He saw his first chess book a month later. For over a year he played chess on his own. At age 7, he joined the Brooklyn Chess Club and was taught by its president, Carmine Nigro. When Fischer was 13, his mother asked John W. Collins to be his chess tutor. Collins had coached several top players, including future grandmasters Robert Byrne and William Lombardy. Fischer spent much time at Collins’ house, and some have described Collins as a father figure for Fischer. Fischer attended Erasmus Hall High School together with Barbra Streisand[1], though he later dropped out. Many teachers remembered him as difficult. According to school records, he had an IQ of 180[citation needed]and an incredibly retentive memory.

1956-1967

Fischer’s first real triumph was winning the United States Junior Chess Championship in July 1956. In the same year, he played several brilliant games; his game against Donald Byrne, who later became an International Master, is often called “The Game of the Century”.

In 1957, Fischer won the United States Open Chess Championship on tie-breaking points over Arthur Bisguier. Fischer was given entry into the invitational U.S. Championship. Many thought he was too weak, and predicted that he would finish last. Instead, he won, becoming in January 1958, at age 14, the youngest U.S. champion ever.

Fischer’s victory qualified him to participate in the 1958 Portoroz Interzonal, the next step toward challenging the World Champion. The top six finishers in the Interzonal would qualify for the Candidates Tournament, but few thought the youngster had much chance of this. Again he surprised the pundits, tying for fifth place after a strong finish. This made Fischer the youngest person ever to qualify for the Candidates, and also earned him the title of International Grandmaster, making him at that time the youngest grandmaster in history.

At the age of 16, Fischer finished a creditable equal fifth out of eight at the Candidates Tournament held in Bled/Zagreb/Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1959. He scored 12.5-15.5 and was outclassed by tournament winner Mikhail Tal, who won all four of their individual games.

In 1961, Fischer started a 16-game match with frequent U.S. Champion Samuel Reshevsky, one of the world’s strongest players. Despite Fischer’s meteoric rise, the veteran Reshevsky was considered the favorite. After 11 games and a tie score (2 wins apiece with 7 draws) the match ended due to a dispute between Fischer and match organizer Jacqueline Piatigorsky.

In the next World Championship cycle, Fischer won the 1962 Stockholm Interzonal by 2.5 points, scoring 17.5-4.5, making him one of the favorites for the Candidates tournament in Curaçao. However, he had a disappointing tournament, finishing fourth out of eight with a 14-13 score. The result nonetheless established Fischer, at 19, as the strongest non-Soviet player in the world.

In 1962, Fischer said that he had “personal problems” and began to listen to various radio ministers in a search for answers. This is how he first came to listen to The World Tomorrow radio program with Herbert W. Armstrong and his son Garner Ted Armstrong; the Armstrongs’ denomination, The Worldwide Church of God, predicted an imminent apocalypse. In late 1963, Fischer began tithing to the church. According to Fischer, he lived a bifurcated life, with a rational chess component and an enthusiastic religious component.

Following his failure in the 1962 Candidates, Fischer asserted that the Soviet players had a non-aggression pact and concentrated on playing against him. The top three finishers (Tigran Petrosian, Paul Keres and Efim Geller) indeed drew all their games among themselves at Curaçao, but opinions differ on whether this was prearranged; although it was confirmed by the high-ranking Soviet player Yuri Averbakh.[4]

Fischer therefore decided not to participate in the Amsterdam Interzonal in 1964, thus taking himself out of the 1966 World Championship cycle. He held to this decision even when FIDE changed the format of the eight-player Candidates Tournament from a round-robin to a series of knockout matches. (In the previous two cycles, FIDE had sought to address complaints of Soviet collusion by limiting the number of Soviet participants, an approach that Soviet chess players considered extremely unfair.)

In the next cycle, at the 1967 Sousse Interzonal, Fischer scored a phenomenal 8.5 points in the first 10 games. His observance of the Worldwide Church of God’s sabbath was honored by the organizers, but deprived Fischer of several rest days, which led to a scheduling dispute. Fischer forfeited two games in protest and later withdrew, eliminating himself from the 1969 World Championship cycle.

At home, Fischer won all eight U.S. Championships that he competed in, beginning with the 1957-1958 championship and ending with the 1966-1967 championship. This string includes his 11-0 win in the 1963-1964 championship, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament, and one of only a handful of perfect scores ever in high-level chess tournaments.

Fischer represented the U.S.A. on top board with great distinction at four Olympiads (Leipzig 1960, Varna 1962, Havana 1966, and Siegen 1970). He was forced to attend school and had to miss the 1958 Olympiad, and he turned down further invitations to play in 1964, 1968, and 1972, after which he retired for 20 years.

The road to the world championship (1969-1972)

Bobby Fischer’s score card from his round 3 game against Miguel Najdorf in the 1970 Chess Olympiad.The 1969 U.S. Championship was also a zonal qualifier, with the top three finishers advancing to the Interzonal. Fischer, however, had sat out the U.S. Championship because of disagreements about the tournament’s format and prize fund. To enable Fischer to compete for the title, Grandmaster Pál BenkÅ‘ gave up his Interzonal place, for which the United States Chess Federation (USCF) paid him a modest $2,000; the other zonal participants waived their right to replace BenkÅ‘. This unusual arrangement was the work of Ed Edmondson, then the USCF’s Executive Director.

Before the Interzonal, though, in March and April 1970, the world’s best players competed in the USSR vs. Rest of the World match in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Fischer graciously agreed to allow Bent Larsen of Denmark to play first board for the Rest of the World team in light of Larsen’s recent outstanding tournament results, even though Fischer had the higher Elo rating. [2] The USSR team won the match by a hair (20.5-19.5), but Fischer beat Tigran Petrosian, whom Boris Spassky had dethroned as world champion the previous year, 3-1, winning the first two games and drawing the last two.[3]

The Interzonal was held in Palma de Mallorca in November and December 1970. Fischer won it with a remarkable 18.5-4.5 score, 3.5 points ahead of Larsen, Efim Geller, and Robert Hübner, who tied for second at 15-8. [4] Fischer finished the tournament with seven consecutive wins (one by default).

Fischer continued his domination in the 1971 Candidates matches, defeating his opponents with a lopsided series of results unparalleled in chess history. He crushed both Mark Taimanov (USSR) and Larsen 6-0 (+6-0=0).[5] The latter result was particularly shocking: Larsen had played first board for the Rest of the World team ahead of Fischer just a year before, and at the Interzonal had in their game handed Fischer his only loss.

Only former World Champion Petrosian, Fischer’s final opponent in the Candidates matches, was able to offer resistance. Petrosian unleashed a strong theoretical novelty in the first game and had Fischer on the ropes, but Fischer defended with his customary aplomb and even won the game. This gave Fischer a remarkable streak of 20 consecutive wins, the second longest winning streak in chess history after Steinitz’s 25-game streak from 1873 to 1882. [6] Petrosian won decisively in the second game, finally snapping Fischer’s winning streak. After three consecutive draws, however, Fischer swept the next four games to win the match 6.5-2.5 (+5=3-1). The final victory allowed Fischer to challenge World Champion Boris Spassky.

Match of the Century
World Chess Championship 1972

Fischer’s career-long stubbornness about match and tournament conditions was again seen in the run-up to his match with Spassky. Of the possible sites, Fischer preferred Yugoslavia, while Spassky wanted Iceland. For a time it appeared that the dispute would be resolved by splitting the match between the two locations, but that arrangement fell through. After that issue was resolved, Fischer refused to play unless the prize fund, which he considered inadequate, was doubled. London financier Jim Slater responded by donating an additional $US 125,000, which brought the prize fund to an unprecedented $250,000. Fischer finally agreed to play.

The match took place in Reykjavík, Iceland, from July through September 1972. Fischer lost the first two games in strange fashion: the first when he played a risky pawn-grab in a dead-drawn endgame, the second by forfeit when he refused to play the game in a dispute over playing conditions. Fischer would likely have forfeited the entire match, but Spassky, not wanting to win by default, yielded to Fischer’s demands to move the next game to a back room, away from the cameras whose presence had upset Fischer. The rest of the match proceeded without incident. Fischer won seven of the next 19 games, losing only one and drawing eleven, to win the match 12.5-8.5 and become the 11th World Chess Champion. His winning strategy was mainly based upon avoidance of Spassky’s pre-match preparation, by using a varied series of opening surprises.

Fischer’s win was painted as a Cold War propaganda victory for the United States: the iconoclastic American almost single-handedly defeating the mighty Soviet chess establishment that had dominated world chess for the past quarter-century.

Fischer was also the (then) highest-rated player in history according to the Elo rating system. He had a rating of 2780 after beating Spassky, which was actually a slight decline from the record 2785 rating he had achieved after routing Taimanov, Larsen, and Petrosian the previous year.

“The Match of the Century” received front-page media coverage in the United States. With his victory, Fischer became an instant celebrity. He received numerous product endorsement offers (all of which he declined) and appeared on the covers of Life and Sports Illustrated. With American Olympic swimming champion Mark Spitz, he also appeared on a Bob Hope TV special.[5] Membership in the United States Chess Federation doubled in 1972[6] and peaked in 1974; in American chess, these years are commonly referred to as the “Fischer Boom.”

Fischer gave the Worldwide Church of God $61,200 of his world championship prize money. However, 1972 was a disastrous year for the church, as prophecies by Herbert W. Armstrong were unfulfilled, and the church was rocked by revelations of a series of sex scandals involving Garner Ted Armstrong. [7] Fischer, who felt betrayed and swindled by the Worldwide Church of God, left the church and publicly denounced it.

Fischer-Karpov 1975

Fischer was scheduled to defend his title against challenger Anatoly Karpov in 1975. Fischer had played no tournament games since winning the title, and he laid down numerous conditions for the match. FIDE agreed to all of his demands but two, rejecting Fischer’s demands on how the match would be won. Fischer claimed the usual system (24 games with the first player to get 12.5 points winning, or the champion retaining his title in the event of a 12-12 tie) encouraged the player in the lead to draw games, which he regarded as bad for chess. Fischer instead wanted a match of an unlimited number of games, with the first player to score ten wins winning the match, draws not counting. Many detractors called this proposal unrealistic and said it would turn the match into a test of stamina rather than skill. (For these critics, the “first to six wins” Karpov-Kasparov match in 1984, which was aborted after 48 games, would later serve as confirmation.) Fischer’s most controversial demand was that if each player won nine games, the reigning champion (Fischer in this case) would retain his title. This meant that Fischer only needed to win nine games to retain the championship, while Karpov had to win by a 10-8 score. It was admitted that this gave Fischer less of an advantage than Soviet World Championships such as Spassky had demanded. Because FIDE would not agree to this proposal, Fischer resigned in a cable to FIDE president Max Euwe on June 27, 1974:

“As I made clear in my telegram to the FIDE delegates, the match conditions I proposed were non-negotiable. Mr. Cramer informs me that the rules of the winner being the first player to win ten games, draws not counting, unlimited number of games and if nine wins to nine match is drawn with champion regaining title and prize fund split equally were rejected by the FIDE delegates. By so doing FIDE has decided against my participating in the 1975 world chess championship. I therefore resign my FIDE world chess champion title. Sincerely, Bobby Fischer.”
Fischer disappeared and did not play competitive chess for nearly 20 years. To this day, he claims that he is still the World Champion because he never lost a title match.

Disappearance and aftermath (1975 to present)

1975-1991

In 1982, Fischer published a pamphlet, “I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse!”, detailing his experiences following his arrest in 1981 after being mistaken for a wanted bank robber. Fischer alleged that the police treated him brutally. He was eventually charged with damaging prison property (a mattress).

The 14-page pamphlet ends with the signature: “Robert D. James (professionally known as Robert J. Fischer or Bobby Fischer, The World Chess Champion).” By this time Fischer had a Nevada driver’s license and Social Security card with that name, the same one that appeared in the 1981 Pasadena police report [8] [9].

In 1984, Fischer wrote to the editors of the Encyclopedia Judaica, stating that he was not of the Jewish faith and asking that his name be removed from the publication [10].

Revenge Match of the 20th Century

After 20 years, Fischer emerged from isolation to challenge Spassky (then placed 96-102 on the rating list) to a “Revenge Match of the 20th Century” in 1992. This match took place in Sveti Stefan, FR Yugoslavia, in spite of a severe United Nations embargo that included sanctions on sporting events. Fischer demanded that the organizers bill the match as “The World Chess Championship”, although Garry Kasparov was the recognized FIDE World Champion. The purse for this match was reported to be $US 5,000,000 with two-thirds to go to the winner. The U.S. Department of the Treasury had warned Fischer beforehand that his participation was illegal [11]. Following the match, the department obtained an arrest warrant for him although some dispute the legality of the Department’s claim and question why others who broke the embargo have not been prosecuted [12]. Fischer won the match, 10 wins to 5, with 15 draws. Many grandmasters observing the match said that Fischer was past his prime. In the book Mortal Games, Garry Kasparov is quoted: “He is playing OK. Around 2600 or 2650. It wouldn’t be close between us.” He has not played any competitive games since.

Antisemitic radio interviews

Fischer, whose mother and possible biological father Paul Nemenyi were both of Jewish descent, made occasional hostile comments toward Jews from at least the early 1960s. From the 1980s, however, antisemitism was a major theme of his public remarks. He denied the “Holocaust of the Jews,” announced his desire to make “expos[ing] the Jews for the criminals they are […] the murderers they are” his lifework, and argued that the United States is “a farce controlled by dirty, hook-nosed, circumcised Jew bastards.” [7]

In 1999, he gave a call-in interview to a radio station in Budapest, Hungary, during which he described himself as the “victim of an international Jewish conspiracy.” Fischer’s sudden re-emergence was apparently triggered when some of his belongings, which had been stored in a Pasadena, California storage unit, were sold by the landlord, who claimed it was in response to nonpayment of rent. Fischer interpreted this as further evidence of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy perpetrated by “the Jew-controlled U.S. Government” to defame and destroy him [13]. In 2005, some of Fischer’s belongings were auctioned on eBay. In 2006, Fischer claimed that his belongings in the storage unit were worth millions [14].

Fischer participated in at least 33 such broadcasts between 1999 and 2005, mostly with radio stations in the Philippines, but also with stations in Iceland, Colombia, and Russia. Fischer made disparaging remarks about the political situation in chess, alleging that every World Championship match since he had left the scene in 1975 had been pre-arranged. [citation needed]

For some years Fischer lived in Budapest, where he lived with the Jewish Polgár family. He played Fischer Random Blitz as well as analyzed many games with Zsuzsa Polgar. He did not get along with her two younger sisters Judit and Zsofia after Zsofia agreed to give a simultaneous exhibition at the Budapest American club. He later lived in Japan. Zsofia in the televised interview also claims that Fischer could get along with Jewish individuals by simply saying that they were a good person but doing anything for America was a far greater crime in his view.

Radio interview after the September 11, 2001 attacks

Hours after the September 11, 2001 attacks Fischer was interviewed live[8] by Pablo Mercado on the Baguio City station of the Bombo Radyo network, shortly after midnight September 12, 2001 Philippines local time (or shortly after noon on September 11, 2001, New York time). Fischer commented on U.S and Israeli foreign policy that “nobody cares … [that] the US and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians for years”. Informed that “the White House and Pentagon have been attacked”, he proclaimed “This is all wonderful news”. Fischer stated “What goes around comes around even for the United States” and said that if the U.S. fails to change its foreign policy, it “has to be destroyed.” After calling for President Bush’s death, Fischer also stated he hoped that a Seven Days in May-type military coup d’ etat would take over power in the U.S. and then execute “hundreds of thousands of American Jewish leaders”, “arrest all the Jews” and “close all synagogues”.

Subsequent to that interview, Fischer’s “right to membership in the United States Chess Federation [was] cancelled” by a unanimous 7-0 decisionof the USCF Executive Board, taken on October 28 2001. In 2006, that decision was subsequently “vacated” by the same Board.

Detention in 2004 and 2005

Fischer being arrested in Japan in July 2004.After years of evading arrest, on July 13, 2004, Fischer was arrested at Narita International Airport in Narita, Japan near Tokyo for allegedly using a revoked U.S. passport while trying to board a Japan Airlines flight to Ninoy Aquino International Airport near Manila, Philippines. Fischer used a genuine passport that the United States Embassy in Bern, Switzerland issued to him in 1997. This passport was allegedly revoked in 2003, although Fischer denies this [15].

Fischer has been wanted by the United States government since his 1992 match with Spassky in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The match violated President George H. W. Bush’s Executive Order 12810 that implemented United Nations sanctions against engaging in economic activities in Yugoslavia. Fischer’s supporters have stated that other U.S. citizens were present at the match, specifically reporters, and were not prosecuted. They also have stated that although Japan and the United States have a mutually binding extradition treaty, Fischer should not have been deported, as violating a U.S. executive order is not a violation of Japanese law. Tokyo-based Canadian journalist and consultant John Bosnitch set up the “Committee to Free Bobby Fischer” after meeting Fischer at Narita airport and offering to assist him. Bosnitch was subsequently allowed to participate as a friend of the court by an Immigration Bureau panel handling Fischer’s case. He then worked to block the Japanese Immigration Bureau’s efforts to deport Fischer to the United States and coordinated the legal and public relations campaign to free Fischer until his eventual release.

According to the Agence France-Presse, Fischer renounced his United States citizenship. A month later, it was reported that Fischer was marrying Miyoko Watai, the President of the Japanese Chess Association, with whom he had been living since 2000. Fischer also appealed to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell to help him renounce his citizenship. Under pressure from the United States, Japan’s Justice Minister rejected Fischer’s appeal that he be allowed to remain in the country and ordered him deported.[9]

Political asylum in Iceland

Seeking ways to evade deportation to the United States, Fischer wrote a letter to the government of Iceland in early January 2005 and requested an Icelandic citizenship. (Fischer also attempted, unsuccessfully, to receive Serbian citizenship. [citation needed]) Sympathetic to Fischer’s plight – but reluctant to grant him the full benefits of citizenship – Icelandic authorities granted him an alien’s passport. When this proved insufficient for the Japanese authorities, the Alþingi agreed unanimously to grant Fischer full citizenship in late March for humanitarian reasons, as they felt he was being unjustly treated by the U.S. and Japanese governments [16]. Meanwhile, the U.S. government filed charges of tax evasion against Fischer in an effort to prevent him from traveling to Iceland.

When Japanese authorities received confirmation of Fischer’s new citizenship, they agreed to release him and allow him to fly to Iceland. Although Iceland has an extradition treaty with the United States, Icelandic law does not permit its own citizens to be extradited. Icelandic officials reiterated their belief that the United States government had singled Fischer out for his political statements.

Shortly before his departure to Iceland on March 23, 2005, Fischer and Bosnitch appeared briefly on the BBC World Service, via a telephone link to the Tokyo airport. Bosnitch stated that Fischer would never play traditional chess again. Fischer denounced President Bush as a criminal and Japan as a puppet of the United States. He also stated that he would appeal his case to the U.S. Supreme Court and said that he would not return to the US while Bush was in power. Upon his arrival in Reykjavík, Fischer was welcomed by a crowd.

In May 2005, a delegation, including Boris Spassky, visited Iceland with the intent of “drawing Fischer back to the chessboard.” Fischer appeared interested in playing a Chess960 match against a “worthy opponent.” Spassky said that he was not planning to play Fischer. [17]

On Dec. 10, 2006, Fischer phoned in and pointed out a clever winning combination which was missed in a chess game which was televised in Iceland.[18]

Contributions to chess theory

Fischer was renowned for his opening preparation, and made numerous contributions to chess opening theory. He was considered the greatest practitioner of the White side of the Closed Ruy Lopez and the Black side of the Najdorf Sicilian, as well as being one of the greatest theoreticians of the King’s Indian Defense.

Fischer established the viability of the so-called “Poisoned Pawn” variation of the Najdorf Sicilian (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6!?). Although this bold queen sortie, snatching a pawn at the expense of development, had been considered dubious, Fischer succeeded in proving its soundness, a claim supported by contemporary theory. Fischer won many games with this line; his only loss was in the 11th game of his 1972 match with Spassky.

In 1961, prompted by a painful loss to Spassky, Fischer wrote an article entitled “A Bust to the King’s Gambit” for the first issue of Larry Evans’ American Chess Quarterly, in which he recommended 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d6. This variation has since become known as the Fischer Defense to the King’s Gambit. After Fischer’s article was published, the opening was seen even less frequently in master-level games.

Fischer revived the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez at the Havana Olympiad 1966, and had great success with it, prompting many other top players to start playing this line.

Other contributions to chess

Fischer clock

In 1988, Fischer filed for U.S. Patent 4,884,255 for a new type of digital chess clock. Fischer’s clock gave each player a fixed period of time at the start of the game and then added a small increment after each completed move. The Fischer clock soon became standard in most major chess tournaments. The patent expired in November 2001 because of overdue maintenance fees.

Fischer Random Chess

On June 19, 1996, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Fischer announced and advocated a variant of chess called Fischer Random Chess, also known as Chess960, that is intended to allow players to contest games based on their understanding of chess rather than their ability to memorize opening variations. Chess960 has gone on to be moderately popular.

In popular culture

– Law & Order: Criminal Intent used his story as inspiration for the 2004-05 episode “Gone”.
– Story used in the major motion picture Searching for Bobby Fischer.
– Sydney Band Lazy Susan have written a song about him on their 2002 album Long Lost
– British Band Prefab Sprout mention them in their song “Cue Fanfare” on their 1984 album Swoon
– British Band iLiKETRAiNS wrote two songs “A Rook House For Bobby” and “Citizen” about him on their EP “PROGRESS/REFORM”
– Rap group Dilated Peoples released a song dissing Eminem titled Search 4 Bobby Fischer
– The Saturday Night Live skit, The Spartan Cheerleaders, once featured the pair cheering at a high school Chess Tournament and referenced Fischer in a cheer.
– “One thing’s for certain, you ain’t no Bobby Fischer. Bobby Fischer. Where is he? I don’t know, I don’t know. Bobby Fischer. Where is he? I don’t know, I don’t know. But one thing is for certain – Bobby Fischer’s missing.”

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Boris Vasilievich Spassky (also Spasskia) (Russian: Бори́с Васи́льевич Спа́сский) (born January 30, 1937) is a Russian chess player and former world champion.

Early life

He was born in Leningrad, and learned to play chess at the age of five on the train evacuating from Leningrad during World War II. Spassky was the most impressive Soviet chess prodigy since Mikhail Botvinnik. He first drew wide attention in 1947 at age ten, when he defeated Soviet champion Botvinnik in a simultaneous exhibition. His early coach was Vladimir Zak, a respected master and trainer.

Towards Grandmastership

At age 16, Spassky scored very impressively in 1953 at a strong international tournament in Bucharest, Romania. At age 18 he won the World Junior Chess Championship held at Antwerp, Belgium, and became a Grandmaster, a record at the time. Spassky competed for the Lokomotiv Voluntary Sports Society. He qualified from the 1955 Goteborg Interzonal into the 1956 Candidates’ Tournament, held in Amsterdam, where he finished in the middle of the ten-player world-class field, astonishing for a 19-year-old. Expectations for him were very high, and this put pressure on the young star.

But Spassky then went into a comparative slump, failing to qualify out of the extraordinarily strong Soviet vanguard into the world title series of 1958 and 1961. A switch in trainers, from the volatile attacker Alexander Tolush to the calmer strategist Igor Bondarevsky, proved the key to his resurgence. He won his first of two USSR Championships at Baku 1961. He qualified from the 1964 Soviet Zonal into the Amsterdam Interzonal the same year, where he tied for first place, and qualified for the Candidiates’ Matches the next year. With Bondarevsky, Spassky’s style broadened and deepened, with poor results mostly banished, yet his fighting spirit was even enhanced. He added psychology and surprise to his quiver, and this proved enough to send him to the top.

World Champion

Spassky was considered an all-rounder on the chess board, and his adaptable “universal style” was a distinct advantage in beating many top Grandmasters. In the 1965 cycle, he beat Paul Keres with careful strategy, and Efim Geller with mating attacks. Then, in his Candidates’ Final match (the match which determines who will challenge the reigning world champion for the title) against Mikhail Tal the legendary tactician (Tbilisi 1965), Spassky often managed to steer play into quieter positions, either avoiding former champion Tal’s tactical strength, or extracting too high a price for complications. This led to his first World Championship match against Tigran Petrosian in 1966. Spassky lost the match with 3 wins against Petrosian’s 4 wins, with the two sharing 17 draws. In the next two years, his playing success again gained the right to challenge Petrosian, as he won three Candidates’ matches, over Geller, Bent Larsen, and Viktor Korchnoi. Spassky’s flexibility of style was the key to his eventual victory over Petrosian by two points in the 1969 World Championship, by adopting Petrosian’s negative style.

Spassky’s reign as a world champion only lasted for three years, as he lost to Bobby Fischer of the United States in 1972 in the “Match of the Century”. The contest took place in Reykjavík, Iceland, at the height of the Cold War, and consequently was seen as symbolic of the political confrontation between the two superpowers. Going into the match, Fischer had never won a game from Spassky in five attempts, while losing three times. In addition, Spassky had secured Geller as his coach, and Geller also had a plus score against Fischer. However Fischer was in excellent form, and won the title match convincingly.

Continues to challenge

Spassky continued to play, winning several championships, including the 1973 Soviet championship, which was a very important tournament for him. In the 1974 Candidates’ matches, Spassky first defeated American Robert Byrne, but then lost the semi-final match to the up-and-coming Anatoly Karpov in Leningrad, +1 -4 =6. Karpov had publicly acknowledged that Spassky was superior, but had nevertheless outplayed him over the board. In 1977 he reached the Candidates’ final, but lost to Korchnoi, +4 -7 =7. This was the last time he would be a serious contender for the world championship, although he remained one of the world’s elite players through to the mid-1980’s, and reached the Candidates’ matches in 1980 and 1985.

Later career

Spassky’s later years showed a reluctance to totally devote himself to chess. He relied on his natural talent for the game, and sometimes would rather play a game of tennis than work hard at the board. Since 1976, Spassky has been happily settled in France with his third wife; he became a French citizen in 1978, and has competed for France in the Chess Olympiads.

In 1992, Fischer, after a 20-year hiatus from chess, re-emerged to arrange a “Revenge Match of the 20th century” against Spassky in Montenegro and Belgrade; this was a re-enactment of the 1972 World Championship. At the time, Spassky was rated 106th in the FIDE rankings, and Fischer didn’t appear on the list at all (owing to his 20-year inactivity). This match was essentially Spassky’s last major challenge. Spassky lost the match with a score of +5 -10 =15.

On October 1, 2006, Spassky suffered a stroke during a chess lecture in San Francisco; his wife Marina reported several days later that Spassky was doing well. [1]

Legacy

Spassky’s best years were as a youthful prodigy in the mid 1950s, and then again as a mature warrior in the mid to late 1960s. He seemed to lose ambition once he became World Champion. Perhaps since the climb had been so difficult, through so many super-strong Soviet players, he had little left at that stage. The first match with Fischer took a severe nervous toll; his preparation was largely bypassed by Fischer. He keenly felt the disappointment of his nation for losing the title.

Never a true openings maven, at least when compared to contemporaries such as Geller and Fischer, he excelled in the middlegame with highly imaginitive yet usually sound and deeply planned play, which could erupt into tactical violence as needed.

Spassky succeeded with a wide variety of openings, including the King’s Gambit, an aggressive line rarely seen at the top level. His contributions to opening theory extend to reviving the Marshall Attack in the Ruy Lopez, developing the Leningrad Variation for White in the Nimzo-Indian Defence, the Spassky Variation on the Black side of the Nimzo-Indian, and the Closed Variation of the Sicilian Defence for White. Spassky is respected as a universal player, one of the classiest gentlemen in the history of chess, a great storyteller, a bon vivant on occasion, and someone who is rarely afraid to speak his mind on controversial chess issues, and who usually has something important to relate.

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license
 

Tigran Petrosian (Armenian: Տիգրան ÕŠÕ¥Õ¿Ö€Õ¸Õ½ÕµÕ¡Õ¶; June 17, 1929 – August 13, 1984) was a world chess champion. He is often known by the Russian version of his name, Tigran [Vartanovich] Petrosyan (Russian: Тигран Вартанович Петросян). His nickname was “Iron Tigran”, because of his almost impenetrable defense, which guaranteed safety above all else[1].

Biography

An ethnic Armenian, Petrosian was born in the village Mulki of Aragatsotn region, Armenia, and lived during his childhood in the city of Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR. Most of his life he lived in the Russian capital, Moscow. He learned the game of chess at the age of eight. A significant step for Petrosian was moving to Moscow in 1949, and he began to play and win many tournaments there. He won the 1951 tournament in Moscow, and began to show steady progress. Prior to taking up chess full time, he was a caretaker and a roadsweeper[2].

His results in the triennial Candidates Tournament, held to determine the challenger to the world champion, showed a steady improvement: fifth at Zürich in 1953, equal third at Amsterdam in 1956, third in Yugoslavia in 1959, and first at Curaçao in 1962. In 1963 he defeated Mikhail Botvinnik 12.5–9.5 to become world chess champion. His patient, defensive style frustrated Botvinnik, who only needed to make one risky move for Petrosian to punish him. Petrosian is the only player to go through the Interzonal and the Candidates process undefeated on the way to the world championship match.

Petrosian defended his title in 1966, defeating Boris Spassky 12.5–11.5, the first World Champion to win a title match while champion since Alekhine beat Bogoljubov in 1934. In 1968, he was granted an M.Phil. from Yerevan State University for his thesis, “Chess Logic”. In 1969 Spassky got his revenge, winning by 12.5–10.5 and taking the title.

He was the only player to win a game against Bobby Fischer during the latter’s 1971 Candidates matches, finally bringing an end to Fischer’s amazing streak of twenty consecutive wins (seven to finish the 1970 Palma de Mallorca Interzonal, six against Taimanov, six against Larsen, and the first game in their match).

Along with a number of other Soviet champions, he signed a petition condemning the actions of the defector Viktor Korchnoi in July 1976. It was the continuation of a bitter feud between the two. His match with Korchnoi in 1977 saw the two former colleagues refuse to shake hands or speak to each other. They even demanded separate eating and toilet facilities. Petrosian went on to lose the match and was subsequently fired as editor of “64”, Russia’s largest chess magazine. His detractors condemned his reluctance to attack and some put it down to a lack of courage. At this point however, Botvinnik spoke out on his behalf, stating that he only attacked when he felt secure and his greatest strength was in defence[3].

Some of his late successes included victory in the 1979 Paul Keres Memorial tournament in Tallinn (12/16 without a loss, ahead of Tal, Bronstein and others), shared first place (with Portisch and Huebner) in the Rio de Janeiro Interzonal the same year, and 2nd place in Tilburg in 1981, half a point behind the winner Beliavsky. It was here that he played his last famous victory, a miraculous escape vs. the young Garry Kasparov[4]. Petrosian died of cancer of the stomach in 1984.

Chess heritage

He has two major opening systems named after him: the Petrosian variation of the King’s Indian Defence (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. d5) and the Petrosian system in the Queen’s Indian Defense (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. a3).

He is most famous for being one of the best players pioneering the theory of prophylaxis, years after Aron Nimzowitsch. His style of play was often highly strategical, notable for anticipating opponent’s possible attacks, and he based many of his games on avoidance of error, content with accumulating small advantages. His games are now widely used for instruction in chess schools around the world. He was also the chief editor of the chess magazine, “Shakhmatnaya Moskva” (“The Chess Moscow”) from 1963–66.

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Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal Latvian: Mihails Tāls; Russian: Михаил Нехемьевич Таль) (November 9, 1936–June 28, 1992) was a Jewish Latvian chess player and the eighth World Chess Champion.

Career

Early years

Tal was born in Riga, Latvia. At the age of eight, Mikhail learned to play chess while watching his father, a doctor. Shortly thereafter he joined the Riga Palace of Young Pioneers chess club. His play was not exceptional at first but he worked hard to improve. Alexander Koblencs began tutoring Tal in 1949. Tal’s game improved rapidly thereafter and by 1951 he had qualified for the Latvian Championship. In the 1952 Latvian Championship Tal finished ahead of his trainer. Tal won his first Latvian title in 1953 and was awarded the title of candidate master. He became a Soviet master in 1954 by defeating Vladimir Saigin in a qualifying match. Tal graduated in Literature from the University of Riga, and taught school in Riga for a time in his early 20s. He was a member of the Daugava Sports Society, and represented Latvia in internal Soviet team competitions.

Soviet champion

Tal qualified for the USSR Chess Championship final in 1956, finishing joint fifth, and became the youngest player to win it the following year, at the age of twenty. He had not played in enough international tournaments to qualify for the title of Grandmaster, but FIDE decided to waive the normal restrictions and award him the title anyway because of his achievement in winning the Soviet Championship.[1]

He retained the Soviet Championship title the following year, and competed in the World Chess Championship for the first time. He won the 1958 Interzonal tournament at Portorož, then helped the Soviet Union to retain the Chess Olympiad.

World champion

Tal won a very strong tournament at Zurich, 1959. Following the Interzonal, the top players carried on to the Candidates’ Tournament, Yugoslavia 1959. Tal showed superior form by winning with 20 / 28 points, ahead of Paul Keres with 18.5, followed by Tigran Petrosian, Vasily Smyslov, Fischer, Svetozar Gligoric, Fridrik Olafsson and Pal Benko. Tal’s victory was much attributed to his dominance over the lower half of the field—winning all four individual games against Bobby Fischer, and taking 3½ from Gligoric, Olafsson, and Benko.

In 1960, at the age of 23, Tal thoroughly defeated the relatively staid and strategic Mikhail Botvinnik in a World Championship match, held in Moscow, by 12.5–8.5 (six wins to two with 13 draws), making him the youngest ever world champion (a record later broken by Garry Kasparov, who earned the title at 22). Botvinnik won the return match against Tal in 1961, also held in Moscow, after a lengthy study of Tal’s style. Botvinnik’s margin was 13-8 (ten wins to five with six draws). Tal’s chronic kidney problems may also have contributed to his defeat. His short reign atop the chess world made him one of the two so-called “winter kings” (the other was Smyslov) that broke up Botvinnik’s long domination (1948–1963).

His highest ELO rating was 2705 achieved in 1980. His highest Historical Chessmetrics Rating was 2799, in September 1960. This capped his torrid stretch which had begun in early 1957.

Later achievements

After he lost his title back to Botvinnik, Tal played in several Candidates’ Tournaments. In 1965, he lost the final match against Boris Spassky, after defeating Lajos Portisch and Bent Larsen. He lost the 1968 semi-final against Viktor Korchnoi, after defeating Gligoric. Health worries caused a slump in his play from late 1968 to late 1969, but he recovered his form after having a kidney removed. In 1980 he lost the quarter-final against Lev Polugaevsky. He had won the 1979 Riga Interzonal with a dominant score of 14 / 17. He also played in the 1985 Montpellier Candidates’ Tournament, a round-robin of 16 qualifiers, finishing in a tie for third and fourth places, and narrowly missing further advancement after drawing a playoff match with Jan Timman. He later defeated Timman in a 1988 exhibition match.

He was a six-time winner of the Soviet Championship (1957, 1958, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1978), a number that is only equalled by Botvinnik. He won the 1961 Bled supertournament, ahead of a star-studded field which included Fischer, Petrosian, Keres, Gligoric, Efim Geller, and Miguel Najdorf. He was also a five-time winner of the International Chess Tournament in Tallinn, Estonia, with victories in 1971, 1973, 1977, 1981, and 1983.

One of Tal’s greatest achievements during his later career was an equal first place with Anatoly Karpov in the 1979 Montreal “Tournament of Stars”, at the time the strongest event ever held. In 1988, at the age of 51, he became World Champion in Blitz chess at Saint John.

In Olympiad play, Mikhail Tal was a member of eight gold medal winning Soviet teams (1958, 1960, 1962, 1966, 1972, 1974, 1980, and 1982), won 59 games, drew 32 games, and lost only 2 games. He played close to 3,000 tournament games, winning over 65 percent of the time.

Health problems

Tal suffered from bad health, and had to be hospitalized frequently throughout his career. Tal was a chain smoker and a heavy drinker; he was also briefly addicted to morphine[2]. Tal’s untimely death was likely related to these problems, e.g. at the Hastings tournament of 1973, which he won, he drank the hotel dry of brandy.

On June 28, 1992, Mikhail Tal died in a Moscow hospital, officially of kidney failure. But his friend and fellow Soviet Grandmaster Genna Sosonko reported that “in reality, all his organs had stopped functioning.”

Playing style

Tal loved the game in itself and considered that “Chess, first of all, is Art.” He was capable of playing numerous blitz games against unknown or relatively weak players purely for the joy of playing.

Known as “The Magician from Riga”, Tal can be considered as the archetype of the attacking player, developing an extremely powerful and imaginative style of play. His approach over the board was very pragmatic—in that respect, he is one of the heirs of the ex-World Champion Emanuel Lasker. He often sacrificed material in search for the initiative in chess, which is defined by the ability to make threats to which the opponent must respond. With such intuitive sacrifices, he created vast complications, and many masters found it impossible to solve all the problems he created over the board, though deeper post-game analysis found flaws in some of his conceptions. Although this playing style was scorned by ex-World Champion Vasily Smyslov as nothing more than “tricks”, Tal convincingly beat virtually every notable grandmaster with his trademark aggression. Viktor Korchnoi and Paul Keres are two of the very few with a significant plus record against him.

Of the current top-level players, the Latvian-born Spaniard Alexei Shirov has probably been most influenced or inspired by Tal’s sacrificial style. In fact he studied with Tal as a youth. Many other Latvian grandmasters and masters, for instance Alexander Shabalov and Alvis Vitolins, have played in a similar vein, causing some to speak of a “Latvian School of Chess”.

He remained to the end of his shortened life an immensely popular figure in the world of chess.

Quotes on chess

“Some sacrifices are sound; the rest are mine.”[3]
“To play for a draw, at any rate with White, is to some degree a crime against chess.”[4]
“If (Black) is going for victory, he is practically forced to allow his opponent to get some kind of well-known positional advantage.”
“It is also important to remember that he was a real chess gentleman during games. He was always very fair and very correct.” (On Bobby Fischer)
“I drink, I smoke, I gamble, I chase girls—but postal chess is one vice I don’t have.”[5]
“They compare me to Lasker, which is an exagerated honor. He made mistakes in every game and I in only every second one!”

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Vasily Vasiliyevich Smyslov (Russian: Васи́лий Васильевич Смысло́в) (born March 24, 1921) is a Russian chess grandmaster, and was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958.

He is known for his positional style and, in particular, for his precise handling of the endgame, but many of his games feature spectacular tactical shots as well. He has made enormous contributions to chess opening theory in many openings, including the English Opening, Grünfeld Defence, Ruy Lopez, and Sicilian Defense.

Smyslov was a fine baritone singer, only deciding on a career in chess after a failed audition for the Bolshoi Theatre in 1950. Later, he sometimes gave recitals during chess tournaments, often accompanied by fellow Grandmaster and pianist Mark Taimanov.

Smyslov played in the 1948 World Chess Championship tournament to determine who should succeed the late Alexander Alekhine as champion, finishing second behind Mikhail Botvinnik. (Since Botvinnik’s death in 1995, Smyslov has been the last survivor of this tournament.) After winning the Candidates Tournament in Zurich 1953, he played a match with Botvinnik for the title the following year. It ended in a draw, meaning that Botvinnik retained his title. Smyslov had again won the Candidates Tournament at Amsterdam in 1956, which led to another world championship match against Botvinnik in 1957. Assisted by trainers Vladimir Makogonov and Vladimir Simagin, Smyslov won by the score 12.5-9.5. The following year, Botvinnik exercised his right to a rematch, and won the title back with a final score of 12.5-10.5.

Smyslov didn’t qualify for another World Championship, but continued to play in World Championship qualifying events. In 1983, at the age of 62, he went through to the Candidates’ Final (the match to determine who plays the champion, in that case Anatoly Karpov), losing 8.5 – 4.5 to Garry Kasparov, who was 42 years younger, and who went on beat Karpov to become world champion in 1985. He had beaten Zoltan Ribli 6.5 -4.5 in the semifinal, but drew his quarter-final match against Robert Hübner 7 -7, with the advancing player (Smyslov) determined only by the spin of a roulette wheel.

In 1991 Smyslov won the inaugural Senior World Chess Championship. He has played no competitive games since the 2001 Klompendans Veterans versus Ladies tournament in Amsterdam. His Elo rating following this event was 2494. Nowadays, his eyesight is very bad.

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik (August 17 [O.S. August 4] 1911 – May 5, 1995) was a Russian International Grandmaster and long-time World Champion of chess.

Early years

Born in Kuokkala, near Vyborg, the son of a dental technician, he first came to the notice of the chess world at the age of 14, when he defeated the world champion, José Raúl Capablanca, in a simultaneous exhibition.

Botvinnik vs Lasker in 1936

Progress was fairly rapid and by the age of 20, Botvinnik, already a Soviet Master of some years standing, won his first Soviet Championship in 1931. This feat was to be repeated in 1933, 1939, 1941, 1945 and 1952.

Capablanca vs Botvinnik in 1936

At 24 years of age, Botvinnik was competing on equal terms with the world’s elite, chalking up international tournament successes in some of the strongest tournaments of the day: First (equal with Salo Flohr) at Moscow 1935, ahead of Emanuel Lasker and Capablanca; First (equal with Capablanca) at Nottingham in 1936, and third (behind Reuben Fine and Paul Keres) at the prestigious AVRO tournament of 1938. In 1941, he won a tournament designating him the title of “Absolute Champion of the U.S.S.R”. Botvinnik defeated Paul Keres and future world champion Vasily Smyslov, amongst other strong Soviet grandmasters such as Isaac Boleslavsky, Igor Bondarevsky, and Andor Lilienthal, to win the title.

World champion

Botvinnik competes with Bronstein for the World Championship in 1951. Not surprisingly, Botvinnik continued to build on these successes. He won the 1948 World Chess Championship, and went on to hold the title of World Champion on three separate occasions (1948-57, 1958-60, 1961-63).

His longevity at the top level of chess is attributed to his extreme dedication to study. Pre-match preparation and post-match analysis had not featured quite so prominently in the armoury of many of his predecessors, but this was Botvinnik’s real strength. Technique over tactics, endgame mastery over opening traps. His adoption and development of solid opening lines in the Nimzo-Indian Defence, Slav Defence, English Opening and Winawer French Defence stood up to the severest scrutiny, and he was able to focus on a narrow repertoire of openings during his most important matches, frequently guiding the game into well chosen areas of preparation. There were many “secret” training matches against masters of the calibre of Salo Flohr, Yuri Averbakh and Viacheslav Ragozin. It was the unveiling, many years later, of the details of these matches that provided chess historians with a fascinating new insight into Botvinnik’s reign.

It is perhaps surprising that Mikhail Botvinnik is not widely regarded as a contender for the title of best player of all time. On the one hand, his achievements were undoubtedly impressive and it should be remembered that his main rivals, the younger Paul Keres, David Bronstein, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal and Tigran Petrosian were all formidable players in their own right. He also inaugurated a new trend with his deep opening preparation and training system.

On the other hand, critics point to his rare appearances in post-World War II tournaments while world champion, and his mediocre record in world title defence matches — out of five title defences, he lost three matches (to Smyslov in 1957, Tal in 1960 and Petrosian in 1963), and struggled to draw the other two (against David Bronstein in 1951 and Smyslov in 1954). He did, however, win two world title matches as the challenger, beating the reigning world champions Smyslov in 1958 and Tal in 1961.

There is also a popular perception that Botvinnik’s play was based on correctness rather than the intuitive or the spectacular, an opinion not improved by accounts of his often gruff demeanour and seemingly cold, calculating personality when compared to the genial Bronstein and Tal — although Reuben Fine, one of the strongest players in history not to have won the world title, wrote that Botvinnik’s collection of best games was one of “the three most beautiful”.

Mikhail Botvinnik in 1933

Three factors contributed to his patchy record. Firstly, World War II broke out just as Botvinnik was entering his prime Рhad the war not interrupted international chess competition, Botvinnik would almost certainly have challenged Alexander Alekhine to a world championship match in the early 1940s, and might therefore have won the title as many as eight years before he eventually claimed the crown in 1948. Secondly, he was one of the few world-class chess players who at the same time had a long and distinguished career in another field. He earned his doctorate in electrical engineering in 1951, the Soviet government decorated him for his achievements in engineering, and Fine has recounted stories which strongly imply that Botvinnik was as committed to engineering as he was to chess. Finally, previous world champions had been free to avoid their strongest competitors, in much the same way heavyweight boxers do today; Emanuel Lasker became notorious for holding on to his title for as long as possible, repeatedly ducking title matches from the likes of Jos̩ Ra̼l Capablanca. When FIDE took control of the world championship in 1948, Botvinnik became the first world champion who was forced to play his strongest opponent every three years; even with this added challenge, Botvinnik still held the world title longer than any of the players who followed him, other than Garry Kasparov.

Late career

After losing the world title to Tigran Petrosian for the final time in Moscow in 1963, Botvinnik withdrew from the World Championship cycle. But 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’; the famous three K’s (Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, and Vladimir Kramnik) were just three of the many future grandmasters to have studied under Botvinnik. The young Kasparov in particular seems to have formed a close relationship with Botvinnik; his 2004 book On My Great Predecessors II dedicates several pages to Kasparov’s own personal fond memories of his former tutor and friend. Kasparov’s account, in which Botvinnik appears almost as a kind of father figure, goes some way towards providing a warm and human side to balance the previous public perception of Botvinnik’s dour personality.

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. Botvinnik died of cancer in 1995.

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Machgielis (Max) Euwe (last name is pronounced /ø:wə/) (May 20, 1901 – November 26, 1981) was a Dutch chess player. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion (1935–1937).

Biography

Dr Max Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam. He studied mathematics at the University of Amsterdam, earning his doctorate, and taught mathematics, first in Rotterdam, and later at a girls’ Lyceum in Amsterdam. He applied his knowledge of mathematics to the question of infinite chess games, using the Thue-Morse sequence.

He won every Dutch chess championship that he participated in from 1921 until 1952, and additionally won the title in 1955. The only other winners during this period were Salo Landau (1936) and Hein Donner (1954). Altogether he won the title a record 12 times. He became the world amateur chess champion in 1928.

On December 15, 1935 after 30 games played in 13 different cities around The Netherlands over a period of 80 days, he defeated reigning world champion Alexander Alekhine, becoming the 5th World Chess Champion. His title gave a huge boost to chess in The Netherlands.

Euwe’s win was a major upset, and is sometimes attributed to Alekhine’s alcoholism. However, Euwe’s performances in the great tournaments of Nottingham, 1936 and the AVRO 1938 indicate he was a worthy champion, even if he was not as dominant as his predecessors.

He lost the title to Alekhine in a rematch in 1937, also played in The Netherlands. After Alekhine’s death in 1946, Euwe was considered by some to have a moral right to the position of world champion, based at least partially on his joint second place finish in the great tournament at Groningen 1946, behind Mikhail Botvinnik. But Euwe graciously consented to participate in the five-contestant tournament to select the new world champion held in 1948. However, by then Euwe was well past his prime, and finished last.

His final major tournament was the Candidates’ Tournament in Zurich, 1953, in which he finished next to last.

In 1957 Euwe played a short match against 14-year-old future world champion Bobby Fischer, winning one game and drawing the other. His lifetime score against Fischer was +1-1=1.

From 1970 (when he was 69 years old) until 1978, he was president of the FIDE, and played an important role in organising the famous Boris Spassky–-Bobby Fischer title match in Iceland. He died in 1981, age 80, revered around the chess world for his many deep, wide, and long contributions.

He also wrote many books on chess, of which the most famous are Oordeel en Plan (Judgement and Planning), and a series about the opening (Chess Archives).

In Amsterdam there is a Max Euwe Plein (square) (near the Leidseplein), where the ‘Max Euwe Stichting’ is located in an old jailhouse. It has a Max Euwe museum and a large collection of chess books. NOTE: a recent visit to Amsterdam (Oct/2006) shows that while the large chess set and statue is still at Max Euwe Plein, the museum no longer is. Brief web research shows that it moved to a new location in Amsterdam due to a large rent increase.

His granddaughter, Esmee Lammers, has written a children’s book called Lang Leve de Koningin (Long live the Queen), which is popular among the youth. It is a fairytale about a young girl who learns to play chess and at the same time finds her father. Lammers filmed the story in 1995. (IMDB Entry)

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine (sometimes spelled “Aljechin or Alechin”) (October 31 or November 1, 1892 – March 24, 1946) was a Russian-born naturalized French chess grandmaster (officially naturalized in 1927 only three days before the World Champion title), and the fourth World Chess Champion. He was known for his fierce and imaginative attacking style.

Early life

Alekhine was born into a wealthy family in Moscow, Russia. His father Alexander Ivanovich Alekhine was a landowner and a member of the legislative Duma. His mother, Anisya Ivanovna Alekhina (née Prokhorova), was the daughter of a rich industrialist. Alekhine was first introduced to chess by his mother, an older brother Alexei, and an older sister Varvara.

Chess career

Alekhine’s first known game was from a correspondence tournament that began on December 3, 1902. He participated in several correspondence chess tournaments, sponsored by Shakhmatnoe Obozrenie chess magazine, in 1902-1911. In Autumn 1907, Alexander, at the age of 14, tied for 11th-13th at Moscow. His older brother, Alexei, tied for 4th-6th place. In Spring 1908, Alekhine won at Moscow. In August 1908, he took 4th-5th at Düsseldorf – B. In August 1908, he defeated Curt von Bardeleben in a match at Düsseldorf. In September 1908, he drew a match with Hans Fahrni at Munich. In October 1908, he won a match with Benjamin Blumenfeld at Moscow. In October 1908, he lost a match against Vladimir Nenarokov at Moscow (+0 –3 =0). In January 1909, he won at Moscow. In February 1909, he won at St. Petersburg (the All Russian Amateur Tournament). In August 1909, he won a tournament at Sevastopol. In March 1910, he won at Moscow. In July-August, 1910, he tied for 7th-8th at Hamburg. The event was won by Carl Schlechter. In May 1911, he won at Moscow. In August-September 1911, he took 8th-11th at Karlsbad. The event was won by Richard Teichmann. In February 1912, he won at St. Petersburg. In July, 1912 he won at Stockholm. In August-September 1912, he tied for 6th-7th at Vilna (Wilno, Vilnius), the All Russian Masters Tournament. The event was won by Akiba Rubinstein. In February-March 1913, he defeated Stefan Levitsky in a match with seven wins and three losses. In April 1913, he tied for 1st with Grigory Levenfish in the St. Petersburg (Quadrangular). In August 1913, he won at Scheveningen. In 1913, he defeated Edward Lasker in a match with three wins at Paris –- London. In December 1913, Alekhine lost in an exhibition match against José Raúl Capablanca at St. Petersburg (+0 –2 =0). In January 1914, he won his first major Russian tournament when he tied for first place with Aron Nimzowitsch in St. Petersburg, the All Russian Masters Tournament. Afterward they drew in a mini match for first prize (+1 –1 =0). In April-May 1914, another major tournament was held in St. Petersburg in which he took third place behind Emanuel Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca. Czar Nicholas II conferred the title “Grandmaster of Chess” to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall after they took the top five places at St. Petersburg. In July 1914, Alekhine tied for first with Frank James Marshall at Paris.

In July-August of 1914 Alekhine was leading an international chess tournament, the 19th German Chess Federation (DSB) Congress in Mannheim, Germany, with nine wins, one draw and one loss, when World War I broke out. He and all the other Russian players were taken to Rastatt, Germany as a prisoner of war. Alekhine feigned madness and the Germans released him as unfit for military service on September 14, 1914. He made his way back to Russia (via Switzerland, Italy, London, Stockholm, and Finland). When Alekhine arrived back in Russia, he helped raise money to aid the Russian chess players who were still interned in Germany by giving simultaneous exhibitions. In 1915/16 Alekhine won at Moscow. In May, 1916, Alekhine served in the Union of Cities (Red Cross) on the Austrian front. In September 1916, he was playing five people in a blindfold display at a Russian military hospital at Tarnopol. In 1916, Alekhine won a mini-match against Alexander Evensohn with two wins and one loss at Kiev. In 1918, Alekhine won at Moscow (Triangular). In June 1919, Alekhine was briefly imprisoned in Odessa’s death cell by the Odessa Cheka, suspected of being a spy. He was charged with links with White counter-intelligence after the Russians liberated the Ukraine from German occupation. Rumors appeared in the West that Alekhine had been killed by the Bolesheviks. In January 1920, he won the Moscow City Championship (eleven wins out of eleven games). In October, 1920 Alekhine won the first USSR (retro-actively) chess championship (All-Russian Chess Olympiad) in Moscow (+9 –0 =6). His brother Alexei took third place in the tournament for amateurs.

In 1920 Alekhine married a Russian baroness, Sewerin. For a short time in 1920-1921, he worked as an interpreter for the Communist International (Komintern). In this capacity, he met a Swiss woman journalist and Comintern delegate Anneliese Rüegg (Annalisa Ruegg). Alekhine was also secretary of the Communist Education Department. On March 15, 1921, he married Anneliese Ruegg. In June 1921, Alekhine abandoned his second wife in Paris and went to Berlin; he never returned to Russia. Four years later, he became a French citizen and entered the Sorbonne Faculty of law. Although his thesis on the Chinese prison system went uncompleted, he nevertheless claimed the title of “Dr Alekhine”. In 1927 he married for the third time, to Nadezda Vasiliev (Nadezhda Vasilieff).

In 1921-1923 Alekhine played seven mini matches. In 1921, he won against Nikolay Grigoriev at Moscow, Friedrich Sämisch at Berlin, and drew with Richard Teichmann at Berlin. In 1922, he won against Ossip Bernstein at Paris, and Manuel Golmayo at Madrid. In 1923, he won against Arnold Aurbach, and Andre Muffang at Paris. From 1921 to 1927, Alekhine amassed an excellent tournament record, winning or sharing fourteen out of twenty-two first prizes in the tournaments he played. In July 1921, he won at Triberg. In September 1921, he won at Budapest. In October 1921, he won at The Hague. In April 1922, he took 2nd-3rd at Pistyan (Breyer Memorial). In August 1922, he took second place, behind José Raúl Capablanca, at London. In September 1922, he won, ahead of Akiba Rubinstein, at Hastings. In November 1922, he took 4th-6th at Vienna. In April 1923, he took 2nd-5th at Margate. In May 1923, he tied for first place with Efim Bogoljubow and Geza Maroczy, at Karlsbad. In August 1923, he won at Portsmouth. In April 1924, he took third place, behind Emanuel Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca, at New York. In February 1925, he won at Paris. In March 1925, he won at Bern. In May 1925, he won at Baden-Baden. In 1925/26, he tied for first with Milan Vidmar, at Hastings. In March 1926, he took second place, behind Rudolf Spielmann, at Semmering. In April 1926, he took second, behind Aron Nimzowitsch, at Dresden. In May 1926, he won at Scarborough. In June 1926, he won at Birmingham. In October 1926, he won at Buenos Aires. In 1926/27, he won a match against Max Euwe, played in various Dutch cities (+3 –2 =5). In March 1927, Alekhine took second, behind José Raúl Capablanca, at New York. In July 1927, he won at Kecskemét.

World Chess Champion

In September–November 1927 at Buenos Aires, Alekhine won the title of World chess champion from José Raúl Capablanca, to the surprise of almost the entire chess world. Alekhine defeated Capablanca with six wins, twenty-five draws, and three losses.

After the world championship match, Alekhine returned to Paris and spoke against Bolshevism. Afterwards, Nikolai Krylenko, president of the Soviet Chess Federation, published an official memorandum stating that Alekhine was the enemy of the Soviets and should be treated as an enemy. The Soviet Chess Federation broke all contact with Alexander Alekhine until the end of the 1930s. By 1939 the Soviets killed his older brother Alexei Aljechin in Russia.

Although Capablanca was clearly the leading challenger, Alekhine carefully avoided granting a re-match, although a right to a re-match was part of the agreement. He avoided Capablanca by insisting that the winner get $10,000 in gold, just as he got in Buenos Aires. But after the stock market crash, there were no backers. Instead, Alekhine played matches with Efim Bogoljubow, an official “Champion of FIDE”, in 1929 and 1934, winning handily both times. The first match with Efim Bogoljubow held at Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Berlin, The Hague, and Amsterdam in September through November, 1929. Alekhine won with eleven wins, nine draws, and five losses.

Alekhine traveled the world giving simultaneous exhibitions, including Hawaii, Manila, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong-Kong, and the Dutch East Indies. He was made an honorary Colonel in the Mexican army and appointed as chess instructor for the Mexican army. In July 1933, Alekhine played thirty-two people blindfold simultaneously in Chicago, winning nineteen, drawing nine, and losing four games. This was a new world record.

After defeating Capablanca, Alekhine dominated chess for quite some time. He lost only seven out of 238 games in tournament play from 1927 through 1935. In June 1929, he won at Bradley Beach. In February 1930, he won at San Remo (+13 –0 =2), ahead of Aron Nimzowitsch by a margin of 3½ points. In April 1931, he won a consultation tournament at Nice. In September 1931, he won at Bled (+15 –0 =11). He won by a margin of 5½ points (!) over his nearest rival (Efim Bogoljubow). In February 1932, he won at London. In March 1932, he tied for first-third at Bern (Quadrangular). In July 1932, he won the 36th Swiss Championship at Bern. In August 1932, he won at Pasadena. In October 1932, he tied for first with Isaac Kashdan in Mexico City. In 1933, he won a match with Rafael Cintron at San Juan. In October 1933, he won at Paris, and next he drew a match with Ossip Bernstein at Paris (+1 –1 =2). In January 1934, he tied for second, with Andor Lilienthal, at Hastings 1933/34. The event was won by Salo Flohr. In February 1934, Alekhine won at Rotterdam (Quadrangular). In July 1934, he won the 37th Swiss Championship in Zürich. In April 1935, Alekhine won at Örebro.

Alekhine played five times at Chess Olympiads on board one for France. In July 1930, at the 3rd Chess Olympiad at Hamburg, he scored his first 100% score when he won all nine games. In July 1931, at the 4th Chess Olympiad at Prague (+10 –1 =7). His loss to Latvian master Hermanis Matisons was his first loss in a serious chess event since winning the world championship. In June 1933, at the 5th Chess Olympiad at Folkestone (+8 –1 =3). He lost one game to Saviely Tartakower. In August 1935, at the 6th Chess Olympiad at Warsaw (+7 –0 =10). In August-September 1939, at the 8th Chess Olympiad at Buenos Aires (+9 –0 =7).

In April–June 1934, Alekhine defeated Efim Bogoljubow for the world championship in twelve German cities (+8 –3 =15). He then accepted a challenge from Max Euwe. On October 3, 1935 the world championship match between Dr Alekhine and Dr Euwe began in Zandvoort, The Netherlands. On December 15, 1935 Max Euwe fortunately had won with nine wins, thirteen draws, and eight losses. This was the first world championship match to officially have seconds. Alekhine had the services of Salo Landau, and Euwe had Geza Maroczy. The loss is largely attributed to Alekhine’s alcoholism as also corroborated by some players. In 1935 Alekhine married for the fourth time, to Grace Freeman Wishaar (Wishard, Wishart, Wishar), a lady sixteen years older than he. She was an American-born widow of a British tea-planter in Ceylon. She retained her British citizenship to the end of her life.

Alekhine played in ten tournaments after losing the title. In May 1936, he tied for first with Paul Keres at Bad Nauheim. In June 1936, he won at Dresden. In July 1936, he took second, behind Salo Flohr, at Poděbrady. In August 1936, he took sixth, behind Capablanca, Botvinnik, Fine, Reshevsky and Euwe, at Nottingham. In October 1936, he took third, behind Euwe and Fine, at Amsterdam, and tied for 1st with Salo Landau at Amsterdam (Quadrangular). In 1936/37, he won, ahead of Reuben Fine and Erich Eliskases, at Hastings. In March 1937, he won at Nice (Quadrangular). In April 1937, he took third, behind Paul Keres and Reuben Fine at Margate. In June–July 1937, he tied for fourth with Keres, behind Flohr, Reshevsky and Petrovs, at Kemeri. In July 1937, he tied for second with Efim Bogoljubow, behind Max Euwe, at Bad Nauheim (Quadrangular).

Alekhine gave up alcohol and regained the title from Max Euwe in December 1937 by a large margin (+10 –4 =11). In this return match, held in the Netherlands, Euwe was seconded by Reuben Fine, and Alekhine by Erich Eliskases. Alekhine played no more title matches, so he held the title until his death.

In March 1938 Alekhine won at Montevideo. In April 1938, he won at Margate. In September 1938, he tied for 1st with George Alan Thomas at Plymouth. In November 1938, he tied for 4-6th with Max Euwe and Samuel Reshevsky, behind Paul Keres, Reuben Fine, and Mikhail Botvinnik, but ahead of José Raúl Capablanca and Salo Flohr, at AVRO Tournament, the Netherlands.

Alekhine was representing France on board 1 at the chess olympiad in Buenos Aires when World War II broke out. He, as a captain of the French team, and Saviely Tartakower, as a captain of the Polish team, refused to allow their teams to play Germany. In September 1939, Alekhine won a tournament at Montevideo, afterward he won at Caracas. Supported by Latin-American financial pledges, José Raul Capablanca challenged Alexander Alekhine to a world title match in November. Tentative plans not, however, actually backed by a deposit of the required purse ($10,000 in gold), led to a virtual agreement to play at Buenos Aires, Argentina beginning April 14, 1940. In January 1940, Alekhine returned to Europe, staying first in Portugal. He later moved to France to enlist in the army and became an interpreter. When France was overrun, he tried to go to America by travelling to Lisbon and applying for an American visa. To protect his wife, Grace Wishard, who was an American Jew, and her French assets (a castle at Saint Aubin-le-Cauf, near Dieppe, which the Nazis looted), he agreed to cooperate with the Nazis. In March 1941 Alekhine signed six articles critical of Jewish chess players. He argued that there was a Jewish way of playing chess (cowardly), and an Aryan way of playing chess (aggressive and brave). He mentioned that the representatives of Aryan chess included Philidor, Labourdonnais, Anderssen, Morphy, Tchigorin, Pillsbury, Marshall, Capablanca, Bogoljubow, Euwe, Eliskases, and Keres. For Jewish players, there were Kieseritzky, Steinitz, Lasker, Janowski, Rubinstein, Nimzowitsch, Reti, Spielmann, Flohr, Fine, Reshevsky, and Botvinnik.

Alekhine participated in Nazi chess tournaments in Munich, Salzburg, Krakow/Warsaw, and Prague. In September 1941, he tied for second-third with Erik Lundin at Munich (2nd Europa Tournament). The event was won by Gösta Stoltz. In October 1941, he tied for first with Paul Felix Schmidt at Krakow/Warsaw (2nd GG Tournament). In December 1941, he won at Madrid. In 1941, he won a mini-match with Lopez Esnaola at Vitoria. In June 1942, he won at Salzburg. In September 1942, he won at Munich (styled the ‘1st European Championship’ though it had no official recognition outside Germany). In October 1942, he won at Warsaw/Lublin/Krakow (3rd GG Tournament). In December 1942, he tied for first with Klaus Junge at Prague (Duras Memorial). In March 1943, he drew a mini-match (+1 –1 =0) with Efim Bogoljubow at Warsaw. In April 1943, he won at Prague. In June 1943, he tied for 1st with Paul Keres at Salzburg. By 1943 Alekhine was spending all his time in Spain and Portugal as the German representative to chess events. In April 1944, he narrowly won a match against Ramon Rey–Ardid at Zaragoza (+1 –0 =3). In July 1944, he won at Gijon. In March 1945, he won at Madrid. In July 1945, he tied for 2nd-3rd with Antonio Medina–Garcia at Gijon. The event was won by Antonio Rico. In August 1945, he won at Sabadell. In August 1945, he tied for 1st with Lopez Nuñez at Almeria. In September 1945, he won at Melilla. In Autumn 1945, he took second at Cáceres, behind Lupi. Alekhine’s last chess match was with Francisco Lupi at Estoril, Portugal in January 1946. Alekhine won two games, lost one, and drew one.

After World War II Alekhine was not invited to chess tournaments because of his Nazi affiliation. While planning for a World championship match against Botvinnik, he died in his hotel room in Estoril, Portugal. His death, the circumstances of which are still a matter of debate, is thought to have been caused either by his choking on a piece of meat, or by a heart attack (someone wrote a letter to Chess Life stating that they had actually witnessed the autopsy and that choking on meat was the actual cause of death). Some have speculated that he was murdered, possibly by the KGB. His burial was sponsored by FIDE, and the remains were transferred to the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France in 1956.

Contributions

Alekhine was an avid student of the game. Several openings and opening variations are named after him. The Alekhine Defence (1.e4 Nf6 in algebraic notation) is the most important. There is also the Alekhine-Chatard attack (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.h4), a pawn sacrifice in the French Defence.

Many chess players were admirers of Alekhine’s style, such as Max Euwe who said, “Alekhine … is a poet who creates a work of art out of something that would hardly inspire another man to send home a picture post-card.” Gary Kasparov said that Alekhine was his early inspiration.

Nazi controversy

During World War II, Alekhine played in several tournaments held in Germany or German-occupied territory. In 1941, a number of anti-semitic articles entitled Aryan and Jewish Chess appeared under his name in the Pariser Zeitung. Extensive investigations (see Whyld) have not yielded conclusive evidence of the authenticity of the articles, but, as British chess historian Edward G. Winter writes:

Although, as things stand, it is difficult to construct much of a defence for Alekhine, only the discovery of the articles in his own handwriting will settle the matter beyond all doubt. [1]

After the war, Alekhine found that he was persona non grata to tournament organisers.

Trivia

It is less well-known that Alekhine was also an avid table tennis player, and claimed it to be his favourite way of relieving tension before a chess game. But Harry Golombek, who admired Alekhine’s chess and was personally friendly with him, claimed:

Alekhine was also a feeble table tennis player … I can still see him in my mind’s eye playing a gently clumsy game of table-tennis and spooning the ball up with his bat rather like someone participating in an egg-and-spoon race. [“World Champions I have Met.”]
Golombek also claimed in the same article:

What conclusion one should draw from the fact that Alekhine was a very weak bridge player whereas Capablanca was an efficient and capable bridge player I don’t exactly know.
Alekhine had a cat which he named “Chess”. He used to get the cat to walk over the board before he played games. One of his opponents — subsequently defeated — was quoted as saying “When I saw that damn cat I knew I was in trouble!”

Alekhine’s My Best Games of Chess was featured in the film A Matter of Life and Death (1946), notably in a scene that also included a table tennis match.

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Alekhine

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.

Chess career

Early years

Referred to by many chess historians as the Mozart of chess, Capablanca was a chess prodigy whose brilliance was noted at an early age.

According to Capablanca, he learned the rules of the game at the age of four by watching his father play. He said he noticed his father make an illegal move with his knight, accused him of cheating, and then demonstrated what he had done. Capablanca was taken to the Havana Chess Club when he was five, where the leading players found it impossible to beat the young boy when giving him the handicap of a queen. In 1901, just turned 13, he defeated Cuban national champion Juan Corzo by the score of 4 wins, 3 losses, and 6 draws. He later began a course as an undergraduate student of Chemistry at Columbia University in New York City, but did not complete it, and chess became his profession.

Rapid rise

In 1909, at the age of 20, Capablanca won a match against US champion Frank Marshall by +8-1=14. Marshall insisted that Capablanca be allowed to play in a tournament at San Sebastián, Spain in 1911. It was one of the strongest tournaments of the time. All of the world’s leading players except world champion Emanuel Lasker were in attendance. At the beginning of the tournament Ossip Bernstein and Aaron Nimzowitsch objected to Capablanca’s presence because he had not won a major tournament. But after Capablanca won his first round game against Bernstein, capturing the tournament’s brilliancy prize,[1] Bernstein quickly acknowledged Capablanca’s talent and said that he wouldn’t be surprised if Capablanca won the tournament. Nimzowitsch took offense when Capablanca made a comment while watching one of his blitz games, and remarked that unproven players should hold their tongue in the presence of their betters. Capablanca quickly challenged Nimzowitsch to a series of fast games, which he won easily. The assembled masters soon concluded that Capablanca had no equal at fast chess, a distinction which was to remain his until virtually the end of his life. Capablanca went on to win his tournament game with Nimzowitsch as well, using an opening setup much admired by Mikhail Botvinnik.[2] By tournament’s end, Capablanca had astounded the chess world by taking first place at San Sebastián, with a score of +6 -1 =7, ahead of Akiba Rubinstein, Carl Schlechter and Siegbert Tarrasch.

In 1911, Capablanca challenged Emanuel Lasker for the world championship. Lasker accepted his challenge but proposed seventeen conditions for the match. Capablanca disapproved of some of the conditions and the match did not take place.

In 1913, Capablanca played in his home town of Havana where he came in second to Frank Marshall. He lost one of their individual games after having a much better position.[3] Reuben Fine claimed that Capablanca had the mayor clear all the spectators so they wouldn’t see him resign, and this story has uncritically circulated in books and around the Internet. However, Winter’s book below (pp. 47–48) documents that Fine’s story has no basis whatever. Instead, there were 600 spectators present, who naturally favored their native hero, but sportingly gave Marshall “thunderous applause”. Marshall’s own notes corroborated this—when he heard the roar, he thought that the crowd was going to kill him, and he asked for security escort “and quickly rushed over to my hotel. Afterwards I was told they were cheering for me.”

Then Capablanca scored +13 -0 =0 in a tournament in New York, although Oldrich Duras was the only International Grandmaster class opponent. This was one of only a handful of perfect scores ever in high-level chess tournaments.

In September 1913, Capablanca secured a job in the Cuban Foreign Office. He appears not to have had any specific duties other than playing chess, but what he had he was reported to have carried out conscientiously. For many years, he was the most famous Cuban alive.

In October 1913 to March 1914 Capablanca traveled to Europe on his way to the Consulate at St Petersburg to play matches or exhibition games against their leading masters. In serious games, he scored 19 wins, 4 draws, and 1 loss during that period. First, he defeated Jacques Mieses and Richard Teichmann in Berlin, next beat Aron Nimzowitsch in an elegant opposite-colored bishop endgame.[4] in Riga. Then in Sankt Petersburg, he played a six-game series, two games against Alexander Alekhine, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky and Fyodor Dus-Chotimirsky, losing once to Znosko-Borovsky and winning the rest—his first encounters with Alekhine, who was outclassed;[5],[6] In 1914, he beat Bernstein in Moscow in a game listed in many anthologies as a brilliancy for winning move …Qb2!! and for the new strategy with hanging pawns,[7]. In Kiev, he won among others against Fedor Bogatyrchuk. Then in Vienna he defeated both Richard Réti and Savielly Tartakower 1.5-0.5 each. Capablanca also gave many simultaneous exhibitions noted for their speed and very high winning scores.

In short, Capablanca was unrivaled as a fast chess player, even by the very best players of his own time (and perhaps of later times as well)[8]. Alekhine described with awe the feat of Capablanca playing simultaneous fast games between rounds of a tournament, giving five minutes to each opponent but taking only one for himself, and winning.[citation needed]

At the great 1914 tournament in St. Petersburg, with most of the world’s leading players (except those of the Austro-Hungarian empire), Capablanca met the great Lasker across the chessboard for the first time in normal tournament play (Capablanca had won a knock-out lightning chess final game in 1906, leading to a famous joint endgame composition). Capablanca took the large lead of one and a half points in the preliminary rounds, and made Lasker fight hard to draw [9],[10]. He again won the first brilliancy prize against Bernstein [11] and had some highly regarded wins against David Janowsky[12], Nimzowitsch[13] and Alekhine.[14]

However, Capablanca fell victim to a comeback by Lasker in the second stage of the tournament, including a famous victory by Lasker.[15] Capablanca finished second to Lasker with a score of 13 points to Lasker’s 13.5, but far ahead of third-placed Alexander Alekhine. After this tournament, Tsar Nicholas II proclaimed the five prize-winners (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, Marshall) as “Grandmasters of Chess”.

World Champion

In 1919, Capablanca overwhelmed the strong Serbian Kostic with five straight wins, whereupon Kostic resigned the match. Capablanca later wrote in 1927 that he had played the best chess of his life in this match.

In 1920, Lasker saw that Capablanca was becoming too strong, and resigned the title to him, saying, “You have earned the title not by the formality of a challenge, but by your brilliant mastery.” Capablanca wanted to win it in a match, but Lasker insisted that he was now the challenger. They played a match in Havana in 1921, and Capablanca defeated Lasker +4 -0 =10. This feat of winning the world title without losing a game to the incumbent went unequalled for almost eight decades, until Vladimir Kramnik’s win over Garry Kasparov +2 -0 =13 in 2000.

The new world champion, Capablanca dominated the field at London, 1922. There was an increasing number of strong chess players and it was felt that the world champion should not be able to evade challenges to his title, as had been done in the past. At this tournament, some of the leading players of the time, including Alexander Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubov, Geza Maroczy, Richard Reti, Akiba Rubinstein, Savielly Tartakower and Milan Vidmar, met to discuss rules for the conduct of future world championships. Amongst other things, one of the conditions proposed by Capablanca was that the challenger would have to raise at least ten thousand dollars for the prize money.

In the following years, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch challenged Capablanca, but were unable to raise the stipulated funds. Alekhine’s subsequent challenge, in 1927, was backed by a group of Argentinian businessmen and the president of Argentina who guaranteed the funds.

Capablanca was second behind Lasker at New York 1924, and again ahead of third-placed Alekhine. In this tournament, his loss to Reti was his first in eight years. He was third behind Efim Bogoljubov and Lasker at Moscow 1925.

As World Champion, Capablanca also underwent major changes in his personal life. 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.

Losing the title

Capablanca had overwhelming success in New York 1927, a quadruple-round robin with six of the world’s top players. He was undefeated and 2.5 points ahead of the second-placed Alekhine. Capablanca also defeated Alekhine in their first game,[16] won the first brilliancy prize against Rudolf Spielmann[17] and won two games against Aron Nimzowitsch.[18],[19]

This made him the prohibitive favorite for his match with Alekhine, who had never defeated him, later that year. However, the challenger had prepared well, and played with patience and solidity, and the marathon match proved to be Capablanca’s undoing. Capablanca lost the first game in very lacklustre fashion,[20] then took a narrow lead by winning games 3[21] and 7[22] — attacking games more in the style of Alekhine — but then lost games 11[23] and 12.[24] He tried to get Alekhine to annul the match when both players were locked in a series of draws. Alekhine refused, and eventually prevailed +6 -3 =25.

Alekhine refused to play a return match, even though doing so had been a pre-condition of the match. Despite the collapse of the financial markets in 1929, Alekhine continued to insist on the London conditions, with a $10,000 purse to be secured by the challenger. Capablanca found it difficult to satisfy this condition. Instead, Alekhine played two matches against Efim Bogoljubov, a fine player, but one who posed no great threat in a long match. (Capablanca had a 5-0 lifetime record against him). Throughout his tenure as champion, Alekhine refused to play in the same tournaments as Capablanca.

Years after he won the title, Alekhine was asked how he had beaten Capablanca. A man of no intellectual modesty, he nevertheless responded, “Even now I cannot explain that.”

Post-championship

After Capablanca lost the title, he won a number of strong tournaments, hoping that his showing would force Alekhine to grant him a rematch, but it was not to be. In 1931 Capablanca defeated the fine Dutch player Max Euwe +2 -0 =8. Also in 1931, he took 1st in New York, with Isaac Kashdan coming in 2nd. Then he withdrew from serious chess, and played only less serious games at the Manhattan Chess Club and simultaneous displays. Reuben Fine recalls that in this period he (Fine) could fight on almost level terms with Alekhine at blitz chess, but that Capablanca beat him “mercilessly” the few times they played.

In 1934, Capablanca resumed serious play. He had begun dating Olga Chagodayev, whom he married in 1938, and she inspired him to play again. In 1935, Alekhine, plagued by problems with alcohol, lost his title to Euwe. Capablanca had renewed hopes of regaining his title, and he won Moscow 1936, ahead of Botvinnik and Lasker. Then he tied with Botvinnik in the super-tournament of Nottingham 1936, ahead of Euwe, Lasker, Alekhine, and the leading young players Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky (avenging a defeat here) and Salo Flohr.

This was Capablanca’s first game with Alekhine since their great match, and the Cuban did not miss his chance to avenge that defeat.[25] He had the worse position, but caught Alekhine in such a deep trap, allowing him to win the exchange, that none of the other players could work out where Alekhine went wrong except Lasker, who immediately saw the mistake. Capablanca recounted this episode in Capablanca’s Legacy: Capablanca’s Last Chess Lectures, pp. 111–112, expressing his admiration for Lasker’s insight even in his sixties. But Capablanca didn’t mention that his opponent was Alekhine. Their feud was still intense, so they were never seen seated together at the board for more than a few seconds. Each man made his move and then got up and walked around.

In 1937, Euwe, unlike Alekhine with respect to Capablanca, fulfilled his obligation to allow Alekhine a return match. Alekhine gave up drinking, prepared well and easily regained the title. Thereafter there was little hope for Capablanca to regain his title, and Alekhine played no more world championship matches until the time of his death in 1946. The absolute control of the title by the title-holder was a major impetus for FIDE to take control of it, and try to ensure that the best challenger has a shot at the title.

Capablanca’s health took a turn for the worse. He suffered a small stroke during the AVRO tournament of 1938, and had the worst result of his career, 7th out of 8. But even at this stage of his career he was capable of producing strong results. In the 1939 Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires, he made the best score on top board for Cuba, ahead of Alekhine and Paul Keres. More drama was missed because he refused to play Alekhine in Cuba’s match with France, due to the lack of a return World Championship match between the two long time rivals.

On 7 March 1942, he was happily kibitzing a skittles game at the Manhattan Chess Club in New York when he collapsed from a stroke. He was taken to Mount Sinai hospital, where he died the next morning. Remarkably, the Cuban’s great rival, German-born Emanuel Lasker, had died in that very hospital only a year earlier.

His bitter rival Alekhine wrote on Capablanca’s death, “With his death, we have lost a very great chess genius whose like we shall never see again.”

Assessment

In his entire chess career, Capablanca suffered fewer than 40 losses in serious games. He was undefeated for over eight years of active, world-class competition, from February 10, 1916, when he lost from a superior position against Oscar Chajes; 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.

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 was when Capablanca was 50 and Keres 22.

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.

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 — the bishop merely mimics the queen’s diagonal move, while the knight can immediately reach squares the queen cannot. Botvinnik credits Capablanca as the first with this insight.

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.

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 the merely gifted and the towering genius of Capablanca, and the contrast between a 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. 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.

“Morphy and Capablanca had enormous talent, Steinitz was very great too. Alekhine was great, but I am not a big fan of his. Maybe it’s just my taste. I’ve studied his games a lot, but I much prefer Capablanca and Morphy. Alekhine had a rather heavy style, Capablanca was much more brilliant and talented, he had a real light touch. Everyone I’ve spoken to who saw Capablanca play still speak of him with awe. If you showed him any position he would instantly tell you the right move. When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties – before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since.” — Bobby Fischer, Icelandic Radio Interview, 2006 [26]

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 a lack of deep calculation, where he occasionally relied on instinct and instead made a mistake. Also, occasionally some difficult endgame wins escaped him.

Capablanca chess

Capablanca chess. Archbishop (bishop+knight compound) is placed between knight and bishop on the queen’s side, chancellor (rook+knight compound) on the king’s side.
Capablanca predicted that chess could face major problems if the various top players chose to draw every game. To prevent this from happening, Capablanca suggested a new variation on chess, called “Capablanca chess”, to be played on a 10×8 board, with two new pieces introduced:

– a chancellor that moves as both a rook and a knight;
– an archbishop that moves as both a bishop and a knight.

His idea was that the added pieces and board size would increase the complexity of chess and allow the strongest player more opportunities to turn the game in his favor. Note that he proposed this complicated variant while he was world champion, not as sour grapes after losing his title, as some critics asserted.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca