A Century of Chess: Hastings 1919

Around here, the commentary starts to get pretty repetitive. Capablanca was, as he later reflected, at his absolute peak around this time and his games have all the joy of watching some chess super-computer crush anyone who plays it.

Capablanca’s last loss was in 1916 against Chajes; his next would be in 1924 against Réti. In that period he posted a score of +43=23-0, including a world championship match and a major international tournament.

Hastings 1919, his first appearance in a European tournament since before the war, was, essentially, an exhibition. He had an undefeated score and won the tournament by a point. 

Intimidation played a major factor in the tournament — both for and against Capablanca. In an important game against Thomas, the joint third-place finish, Capablanca seemed constantly on the verge of a breakthrough but kept running into a determined defense from Thomas. Capablanca kept pressing and, "with an air of finality," as The New York Times wrote, played 29.Qa8, to which Thomas resigned. Afterwards, though, spectators pointed out that the position was actually a draw. Thomas had to find the problem-like 29…Rxa2 and then he would reach an equal ending. Against other players, Thomas may well have found the move, but against Capablanca, and Capablanca’s maestro-like gesture, Thomas just took him at his word. 

Less consequentially, Capablanca’s intimidation factor also worked a bit against him. For his game against Yates, who shared third place with Thomas, Capablanca showed up in tennis clothes and with a pair of tennis rackets — obviously intending to make quick work of the game and then hit the courts. Yates was so incensed that, after being outplayed in the middlegame, he hung on and, for the sole purpose of ruining Capablanca's afternoon, refused to resign. 

The rest of his games are best treated like an instructional clinic — the feeling of watching a master surgeon perform an operation in an ampitheater. In two of his more interesting games in the tournament — against Conde and Winter — the sense is that the game was over ten or twenty moves before his opponent realized it. Quiet, simple-looking positions turned out to be anything but, and Capablanca would attain some sort of permanent strategic advantage (often one that was nearly inconspicuous) and then cash in on it at the right moment.

Borislav Kostić redeemed himself for his disastrous match performance against Capablanca earlier in the year by finishing a strong second, also with an undefeated score — a near-repeat of his performance at New York 1918. 

The tournament wasn’t very encouraging for British chess. Yates and Thomas were both internationally-viable players but lost their games to Capablanca. The usual motley assortment of British amateurs (knights, Communist radicals, preeminent civil servants) produced some interesting games — as in the barnburner between Wahltuch and Michell — but clearly weren’t at Capablanca’s level.

Sources: Edward Winter has a nice discussion of the Capablanca-Thomas game. Miquel Sanchez analyzes the tournament from Capablanca's perspective in his Capablanca biography.