José Raúl Capablanca

Cuban chess grandmaster

• Born: November 19, 1888
• Birthplace: Havana, Cuba
• Died: March 8, 1942
• Place of death: New York, New York

Capablanca helped modernize the game of chess both in playing tactics and in the organization of its world championships. His book on chess fundamentals brought clarity to the game’s tactics and strategies for the ordinary chess player. Moreover, his international victories brought diversity to high-level chess, which was dominated at the time by European players.

Early Life

José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (kah-pah-BLAHN-kah) was born on November 19, 1888, in Cuba, which was then a Spanish colony. His father was attached to the Spanish military, and Capablanca was his second surviving son. Capablanca learned to play chess at four years old by watching his father, a rather poor player, and was able to pick up the moves of the game very quickly without any formal instruction. He was taken to the Havana Chess Club, where he became something of a child prodigy. However, on the advice of his doctor, Capablanca’s father kept him from becoming too absorbed in the game.

The political situation in Cuba became precarious, and the family had to move several times before settling in Matanzas, where he attended school for two years. From the ages of eleven to thirteen, Capablanca apparently had little formal education and devoted himself to chess, although he was also a keen baseball player.

On returning to Havana, he played the leading Cuban chess player of the time, Juan Corzo, often beating him, but was unable to win the Cuban championship in 1902. A rich sponsor, who wanted Capablanca to enter his sugar business, sponsored him to travel to the United States to prepare himself for study at Colombia University, New York. Capablanca went to a school in New Jersey and made contact with the Manhattan Chess Club, one of the leading American clubs. His genius soon was recognized, and he became one of the club’s best players. Capablanca did enroll at Columbia, but did not complete his studies, deciding to devote himself to chess, a decision that put an end to his sponsorship. From then on, Capablanca had to make much of his living as a professional chess player.

Life’s Work

In order to launch Capablanca’s professional career, The American Chess Bulletin arranged a tour for him throughout the United States, in which he would play a number of simultaneous chess matches with the leading local amateurs. Already, Capablanca was noted for his quickness of play, a skill required for simultaneous exhibitions. This quickness was based on an intuitive understanding of position and an exceptional knowledge of endgame tactics. The 1909 tour became the first of many such tours. As a result of his astounding triumph, winning more than 96 percent of his games, a match was set up against the longstanding U.S. champion, F. J. Marshall. Capablanca beat Marshall convincingly, 8-1, with fourteen matches drawn.

On the strength of this victory, Marshall insisted that Capablanca be invited to play at a major international tournament to be held in San Sebastian, Spain, in 1911, even though he did not stricly qualify. Most of the European masters present had little regard for the Latino chess player and so were shocked when Capablanca convincingly won the tournament, beating such grandmasters as Ossip Bernstein and Aron Nimzowitsch. Capablanca suddenly was considered a possible challenger for Dr. Emanuel Lasker, the world champion since 1894. However, Lasker demanded large purses and difficult conditions unacceptable to Capablanca.

Capablanca, meanwhile, consolidated his position as the leading chess player in the Americas, playing tournaments in New York, Havana, and Buenos Aires, Argentina; however, he needed more European victories to stake his claim as Lasker’s challenger. The most significant of these matches came at the St.Petersburg, Russia, tournament of 1914. For the first time, Capablanca had the opportunity to play Lasker. It was a long, drawn-out tournament, with a preliminary round and a final round. Capablanca led after the preliminary round but tired rapidly, and Lasker was able to overtake him to win the tournament by half a point. The leading Russian, Alexander Alekhine, was third.

European chess came to an abrupt halt with the outbreak of World War I, and Capablanca had to confine himself to competing in the Americas for the next five years. At the close of the war, the longstanding Hastings Chess Tournament in England was revived in 1919. Capablanca won, dropping only one-half point. This triumph enabled him to sign an agreement with Lasker in 1920 for a world championship match. Cuban sponsors arranged for the match to take place in Havana. Lasker surprisingly resigned the world championship before the tournament, acknowledging Capablanca as world champion, and thus entered the tournament as the challenger. The match was played in the spring of 1921, and Lasker resigned after failing to win in fourteen straight games.

Capablanca remained world champion until 1927, enjoying a successful international playing career throughout this period. In 1927, he accepted a challenge by Alekhine. Capablanca was widely expected to win. The match was played in Buenos Aires, and Alekhine finally won by a score of 6-3 with twenty-five draws, one of the longest-ever world championships. A return challenge never took place as Alekhine demanded too large a purse.

In 1931, Capablanca, perhaps disheartened by his inability to challenge Alekhine again, withdrew somewhat from top-class international events for a few years. He returned to play significant tournaments at Hastings, Moscow, and Nottingham, England. His health began to decline, and in a 1938 tournament in Holland, he finished nearly last. However, representing Cuba in the eighth Chess Olympiad held in Buenos Aires a few months later, he won the prize for best top board. The start of World War II broke off international tournaments again, and Capablanca died of heart failure in New York in 1942.

Significance

Despite great interest in chess in many Latin American countries at the beginning of the twentieth century, particularly in Cuba, Argentina, and Mexico, there was no great international recognition of standards of chess there. Occasional visits of European masters and small torunaments were all that existed to encourage Latino chess players. There was not even a Spanish-language chess magazine. Capablanca’s success changed this considerably. High-class tournaments were held in Havana and Buenos Aires; Capablanca himself started a Spanish-language chess magazine. Europeans’ near monopoly on the world championship was broken. Capablanca himself helped to reform the world championship rules to what are recognized today as standard procedures. His understanding of middle-game combinations and endgames entered chess wisdom, paving the way for modern chess geniuses such as Mikhail Botvinnik, Bobby Fischer, and Anatoly Karpov.

Bibliography

Capablanca, José Raúl. José Raúl Capablanca: World’s Championship Matches, 1921 and 1927. New York: Dover, 1977. Capablanca recounts his championship matches against Lasker and Alekhine.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. My Chess Career. 1920. Reprint. New York: Dover, 1966. Capablanca’s autobiography, written before he became world champion, covers his early career and offers commentaries on many of his best early games.

Linder, Isaak, and Vladimir Linder. José Raúl Capablanca: Third World Chess Champion. Milford, Conn.: Russell, 2010. One of the Chesscafe World Chess Champions Series. It is the most up-to-date account of Capablanca’s life and acgievements.

Reinfeld, Fred. The Immortal Games of Capablanca. New York: Dover, 1990. Probably the best collection of Capablanca’s most famous games, with commentaries on each one.

Winter, Edward. Capablanca: A Compendium of Games, Notes, Articles, Correspondence, Illustrations, and Other Rare Archival Materials on the Cuban Chess Genius José Raúl Capablanca, 1888-1942. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1989. A very full collection of previously unpublished notes, letters, and memoirs. Winter also has collected a number of newspaper and magazine articles.