José Raúl Capablanca

José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (November 19, 1888 – March 8, 1942)

was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players of all time, and was renowned for his exceptional end game skill and speed of play. Due to his achievements in the chess world, mastery over the board and his relatively simple style of play he was nicknamed the “Human Chess Machine”.

José Raúl Capablanca, the second surviving son of an army officer. According to Capablanca, he learned the rules of the game at the age of four by watching his father play, pointed out an illegal move by his father, and then beat his father twice. At the age of eight he was taken to Havana Chess Club, which had hosted many important contests, but on the advice of a doctor he was not allowed to play frequently. Between November and December 1901, he narrowly beat the Cuban Chess Champion, Juan Corzo, in a match. However in April 1902 he only came fourth out of six in the National Championship, losing both his games against Corzo.

In 1908 he left the Columbia University in New York City to concentrate on chess.

In 1911, Capablanca challenged Emanuel Lasker for the World Chess Championship. Lasker accepted his challenge while proposing seventeen conditions for the match. Capablanca objected to some of the conditions, which significantly favored Lasker, and the match did not take place.

In September 1913, Capablanca secured a job in the Cuban Foreign Office, which made him financially secure throughout his life.

The St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament was the first in which Capablanca played World Champion Emanuel Lasker under normal tournament conditions^. The St. Petersburg event was arranged in an unusual way: after a preliminary single round-robin tournament involving eleven players, the top five were to play a second stage in double round-robin format, with scores from the preliminary tournament carried forward to the second contest. Capablanca placed first in the preliminary tournament, 1½ points ahead of Lasker, who was out of practice and made a shaky start. Despite a determined effort by Lasker, Capablanca still seemed on course for ultimate victory. However, in their second game of the final, Lasker reduced Capablanca to a helpless position and Capablanca was so shaken by this that he blundered away his next game to Siegbert Tarrasch. Lasker thus finished half a point ahead of Capablanca and 3½ ahead of Alekhine.

World War I began in midsummer 1914, which brought international chess to a virtual halt for more than four years. Capablanca won tournaments in New York in 1914, 1915, 1916 (with preliminary and final round-robin stages) and 1918, losing only one game in this sequence.

In the 1918 event Frank James Marshall, playing Black against Capablanca, unleashed a complicated counter-attack, later known as the Marshall Attack, against the Ruy Lopez opening. It is often said that Marshall had kept this secret for use against Capablanca since his defeat in their 1909 match; Nevertheless, Capablanca found a way through the complications and won. Capablanca was challenged to a match in 1919 by Borislav Kostić, who had come through the 1918 tournament undefeated to take second place. The match was to go to the first player to win eight games, but Kostić resigned the match after losing five straight games. Capablanca considered that he was at his strongest around this time.

The Hastings Victory tournament of 1919 was the first international competition on Allied soil since 1914. The field was not strong, and Capablanca won with 10½ points out of 11, one point ahead of Kostić.

In January 1920, Emanuel Lasker and Capablanca signed an agreement to play a World Championship match in 1921, noting that Capablanca was not free to play in 1920.  Lasker then resigned the title on June 27, 1920, saying, “You have earned the title not by the formality of a challenge, but by your brilliant mastery.” When Cuban enthusiasts raised $20,000 to fund the match provided it was played in Havana, Lasker agreed in August 1920 to play there, but insisted that he was the challenger as Capablanca was now the champion. Capablanca signed an agreement that accepted this point, and soon afterwards published a letter confirming it.

The press regarded neither Lasker’s 1920 resignation of the championship, nor Capablanca’s acceptance, as legitimate.The match was played in March–April 1921; Lasker resigned it after just fourteen games, having lost four games and won none

The only challenger besides Capablanca to win the title without losing a game is Kramnik, in the Classical World Chess Championship 2000 against Garry Kasparov.

On 7 March 1942, Capablanca was observing a skittles game and chatting with friends at the Manhattan Chess Club in New York City, when he asked for help removing his coat, and collapsed shortly afterwards. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died at 6 a.m. the next morning. The cause of death was given as “a cerebral haemorrhage provoked by hypertension”. Capablanca’s great rival Emanuel Lasker had died in the same hospital only a year earlier.

Emanuel Lasker once said: “I have known many chess players, but only one chess genius: Capablanca.”

An annual Capablanca Memorial tournament has been held in Cuba, most often in Havana, since 1962.

Games of Capablanca