A Century of Chess: Savorin Cup 1913

The first meeting of Alekhine and Capablanca - and à humiliation for Alekhine. Having secured a sinecure-for-life from the Cuban government, Capablanca was dispatched to St Petersburg and played, essentially, a high-level 'simultaneous match' against three Russian masters, Alekhine, Duz-Chotimirski, and Znosko-Borovsky. The rules—which must have been mortifying to Alekhine—were that Capablanca won only if he won all six games; if any of his three challengers took even a single point they won the Savorin Cup.

Alekhine played decently-enough in his two games against Capablanca, but he lost both—“simple,” Capablanca-type positions where he was ground down. 

Duz-Chotimirski had a reputation as a giant killer based on his victories over Rubinstein and Lasker at St Petersburg 1909, but Capablanca won both his games against him without too much difficulty. 

In the highlight of his career, Znosko-Borovsky won one of his two games and, with a score of +1-1, as opposed to Capablanca’s +5-1, was, with some irony, named the winner of the Savorin Cup.

Capablanca’s chess here was a little more colorful than usual —he twice directly attacked an opponent’s king (which backfired in the loss to Znosko-Borovsky).

 The Savorin Cup is mostly remembered as the high point of Alekhine and Capablanca’s personal relations—they were great friends at this time before rivalry soured their relationship.

Sources: Capablanca annotates games from the Cup in My Chess Career and Chess Fundamentals. The soirée photo comes from introuble2's post on Capablanca's 1913 chess tour.