The game with curious moves: WCM 1921 Capablanca vs. Lasker GAME #8

White:  Lasker

Black: Capablanca

1921 Apr-03 Havana, Cub

Round 8

In this series, I will analyse all the games in the World Championship Match year 1921. First, I will play the game with guess a move -method. Then, I will prepare an analysis of the game, including some candidate lines in all positions. I will also compare my notes to Capa's own notes. All this will be done without the help of a computer. I try to do an abstract of Capa's playing style, and find some important things to learn from every game. Finally, I will check the lines with computer.

SUMMARY:

The style of Capablanca: The 8th game is the first slav opening in this WCM 1921 match. In my opinion the game is characterized with numerous surprising and strange moves. Some of them are actually objectively strong but some possibly not. I will list them here:

12. Bd2 (Lasker) A strong move.

12.-Qf6 (Capablanca) Not the strongest.

16.-Bc7 (Capablanca) Not the strongest.

17.-Nf8 (Capablanca) Weakening the position.

18. Bd2 (Lasker). Not the strongest, but a beautiful tactical try.

22. Rc1 (Lasker) Not the strongest move.

23. Re2 (Lasker) A strong move.

20.-Nd7 21.-Nb6 22.-Nc8 23.-Ne7 (Capablanca) Not the strongest series of moves, but the long and in my opinion a bit foolish knight operation is understandable.

24. Rc3 (Lasker) Weakening the position.

In this game we see Capablanca, who likes long, complicated minor piece and rook operations. He has strong self-confidence that these operations have positional justification. However, in my opinion, some of them are a bit foolish, and there would be easier and more conventional paths to play the game.

This game is also characterized by the difficult Q-side pawn play, that I seem to fail to understand fully. Stockfish has to help me many times to assess the moves correctly.

THE LESSONS learned by me:

1. (8.1) PLEASE REMEMBER THE BASIC RULE THAT YOU SHOULD AVOID PLACING YOUR PAWNS TO THE SQUARES OF THE SAME COLOR AS YOUR BISHOP. Variation 16.-a5 17. a4. Stockfish.

2. (8.2) TRY TO ALWAYS FIND THE MOST ACTIVE MOVES INSTEAD OF PASSIVE ONES. Move 19. h4. Lasker.

3 (8.3) DO NOT MAKE POSITIONAL MOVES AUTOMATICALLY (E.G. TAKE WITH A PAWN TOWARDS THE CENTER) BUT REMEMBER TO ASSESS ALL THE ASPECTS OF THE POSITION. Move 27. cxb5. Lasker.