Capablanca the Great Minimalist – Volume 2: 1919-1928 - Cyrus Lakdawala

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Capablanca the Great Minimalist – Volume II: 1919-1928 by Cyrus Lakdawala

José Raúl Capablanca (1888-1942, World Champion 1921-1927) had a way of posting his pieces on exactly the perfect squares at the perfect time. For his opponents, it almost felt as if Capa’s pieces had a gift for condescension, since they had no need to look for opportunity. Opportunity instead came to them. The position’s optimal plan would magically and instantaneously arrange itself into coherent order within Capa’s chess mind.

Capablanca raised the bar on strategic understanding by at least one full generation. Only a handful of players in chess history were a generation ahead in strategic understanding: Morphy, Steinitz, Capablanca, Fischer, Karpov and Carlsen. The subject of this book and series is the third player on the list. While Capablanca was a player of his time, so advanced were his strategic ideas that he was simultaneously a person of our time as well.

There has never been a chess player who played blemish-free chess, yet some came close. At its best, Capa’s play appears free from obstacles of any kind. To players of that engine-free era, it sometimes felt as if Capablanca played perfect chess. The first time Emanuel Lasker met Capablanca and played blitz against him, he remarked that to his eyes, Capa never appeared to make a mistake.

Beginners often believe that quiet positions and endings are dead, lifeless realms. Play through Capablanca’s games and we see that they teem with life and possibility, since Capa saw hidden meanings in positions where his rivals were blind. He was especially deadly in quiet positions, since he had the unique ability to kill without seeming to strike a blow. By the time his opponents realized the danger, it was often too late to save themselves.

Few of us associate Capablanca with tactics, but maybe we should. He was one of the most tactically aware players of his era, rivaling both Lasker and Alekhine in this metric. Capa’s specialty was short-range combinations, which he almost never missed.

The present volume, number II, contains 107 freshly annotated games and fragments incorporating 103 exercises. It covers Capablanca’s world championship matches against Emanuel Lasker and Alexander Alekhine, famous tournaments including Hastings 1919, London 1922, New York 1924, Moscow 1925, New York 1927, and Bad Kissingen, Budapest and Berlin 1928 among others, as well as a host of other high-quality games. Other great opponents included Euwe, Bogoljubov, Maroczy, Nimzowitsch, Spielmann, Tarrasch, Rubenstein, Reti, Marshall, Edward Lasker, Tartakower, Thomas and Yates.

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ISBN Paperback: 9781916839519 / Hardback: , 356 pages, Elk and Ruby