José Raúl Capablanca
Serious chess players are very familiar with José Raúl Capablanca (1888-1942). To many, he has epitomized a nearly 'perfect' chess player.
One dimension of Capablanca’s appeal is captured by Bill Price who wrote that “if anybody can be described as a natural chess player then it is José Raúl Capablanca, who over the course of his career demonstrated an intuitive grasp of the game that has rarely, if ever, been equaled” [Bill Price, The History of Chess in Fifty Moves (Hove, England: Firefly Books, 2015), 140].
Capablanca became World Champion (1921). Unlike many chess players, wrote Price, “Capablanca did almost no studying at all, in chess or anything else, relying instead on beating whoever he played by simply being better than them” (140). Price continues:
He was also very different from the stereotypical idea of a chess player; he was easy-going, enjoyed all sorts of other pastimes as well as chess, particularly baseball and often preferred to associate with people outside the game rather than remain within it. His engaging personality, together with his remarkable ability, would lead to him becoming well-known around the world and adored in his native Cuba, becoming famous far beyond the world of chess in a way that would only later be matched in the game by Bobby Fischer (140).
As Capablanca’s biographer, Miguel Sánchez put it, “Capablanca took chess out of confinement and into the highest levels of the social life of his time.” [Miguel A. Sánchez, Capablanca: A Chess Biography, Foreword by Andy Soltis (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015), 3].
Said Reuben Fine: “In the constellation Caissa there has never been a more brilliant star than Capablanca” [Reuben Fine, ed., The World’s Great Chess Games (London: Andre Deutsch, 1952), 109]. Again, Sánchez captured Capablanca when he wrote: “The praise ‘play like Capablanca’ has become his most distinguished eulogy, a compliment that captures the concept of developing a masterpiece of simplicity, harmony and extreme elegance on the board” [Sánchez, 3].
Through all the years, till today, “Capablanca’s footprint is still very visible in the world of chess” [Sánchez, 3]. What Fine wrote decades ago, still stands: “Capablanca is and will always remain one of the really imposing figures in chess history. With his amazing intuition, his lightning vision, his keen mastery of the essentials, his numberless virtually faultless achievements, his name will be known and revered as long as chess is played” (Fine, 113).
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There are many Capablanca resources at hand. First are the books he wrote. Then there are studies of his chessplaying—for example: Cyrus Lakdawala, Capablanca Move by Move (Everyman Chess, 2012) and studies throughout the Articles and Blogs at Chess.com such as: https://www.chess.com/players/jose-raul-capablanca. Also, see the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca.
The indispensable work is from Sánchez, mentioned above. For my review of this masterful biography see https://www.chess.com/blog/DonMcKim/our-chess-napoleon-a-review-of-sanchez-jose-raul-capablanca-a-chess-biography.
Of importance too is Edward Winter, 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, NC: McFarland & Company, 1989].
PS--For Capablanca tee-shirts see: https://fineartamerica.com/shop/tshirts/capablanca
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This Crossword focuses on a number of dimensions of the remarkable José Raúl Capablanca.
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