An Alekhine Goody Bag. Some Games, Pictures and History.

Afternoon everyone. Today you get what it says in the title. A mixed bag of goodies - lessons, pictures, some great chess and a bit of fun stuff. I hope you enjoy going through it as much as I enjoyed putting it together!

Let's start with the bit of history. One thing which irritates me when Alekhine is written about is the notion that he was somehow 'unfair' to Capablanca in 'imposing' conditions on him for a rematch which were different to those under which he played Bogoljubov and Euwe. What utter tripe, as we say over here!! His conditions  for a rematch were to hold Capablanca to the latter's own 'London Rules' under which Capablanca had defended the title against him - conditions which put a major financial obstacle in the way of any potential challenger. ( see Vidmar's take on them here :- https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/the-london-rules-the-end-of-a-world-championship-dream  )

The final clause of the London Rules was that anyone winning the Championship was bound to defend the title under the same rules.

A couple of bit of documentation.

Note Capablanca's statement 'to be played under the London Rules'.

I recently found the following here :- https://www.chesswatch.in.ua/en/blog/?letter-from-a-alekhine-to-j-r-capablanca   Assuming everything stated to be correct, it would seem that Capablanca himself found that being on the challenger's side of the' London Rules' was a significant obstacle and Alekhine was not prepared to give way on the matter. No further comment. The text of the letter :-

Paris, February 29, 1928.
Dear Mr. Capablanca.
 I have received a copy of your letter addressed to Mr. Rueb and dated February 10th of this year, which you deemed necessary to send me, and I feel compelled to make the following statement to you and, in particular, to the chess community.
 
Having lost the title of world champion, you are turning to FIDE with a proposal to change the very conditions of the match for the world championship that you yourself devised, having won this title, and which you offered to your potential opponents in London in 1922. You take this step despite knowing full well that, for principled reasons, I will never agree to these changes, especially since they imply the possibility of a repeat of our match. I made all this very clear to you in our conversation immediately after the end of the match on December 12, 1927.
 
Although you assured me during our conversation that you agreed with my views (specifically, that a rematch between us could only take place under the same conditions as the first match) and that you would bring this to the attention of interested organizations, and although FIDE has existed since 1924, I never felt it necessary to make similar proposals to them, since such an appeal in my eyes would be equivalent to nullifying my signature under the London Conditions of 1922. However, despite all this, I would not have dared to give a public response to your letter to Mr. Rueb if it had not concerned the "experience" of the match in Buenos Aires. It is precisely because of this "experience" and the possible incorrect conclusions drawn from it that I feel obliged to establish the following:
 
1. Based on our overall "experience," you propose to limit the number of games in the match to 16. You understand, of course, that if I only took into account the example of Buenos Aires and only thought about my own benefits, then this "experience" could have prompted me to agree with your proposal since I became the leader in the match from the 12th game and maintained the lead until the end. Therefore, after the 16th, 20th, and 24th games (the maximum number established in your match with Dr. Lasker), I would have been considered the winner (incidentally, this shows that your argument about the possibility of influencing the outcome of the match by fatiguing opponents cannot be justified by our "experience" in Buenos Aires). But I must confess that such a victory would not have given me satisfaction, nor would it have convinced anyone else, including myself, of such a defeat.

The essence of the matter is (and you know this as well as I do) that in the current phase of development of the chess art, knowledge of openings has advanced extremely far, and this makes the game of a great master for a draw easier and easier every year. The only logical conclusion that can and should be drawn from this fact is that in a match (especially for the World Championship), only decisive games should be taken into account. In practice, this practically excludes any limitation on the number of games in a match, since it is clear that otherwise draws will, directly or indirectly, have an impact on the final result.
 
Indeed, what would a match reduced, as per your proposal, to 16 games represent? The first opponent, who luckily manages to win one game (and one game proves nothing), can play all the remaining games for a draw, thereby forcing the second opponent to give him a draw in advance.
 
In accordance with the conditions you have established, I won 6 games against you. Can you really imagine that I would agree to play a rematch with you or defend my title against someone else on conditions that turn chess into a game based solely on chance, like baccarat?
 
2.As for your proposal to change the time control and the order of play, I find it even more unfounded. The time control after five hours of play was proposed and introduced by you on your initiative at the New York tournament in 1927, where it received full recognition. As you yourself pointed out at the time, such control benefits both the public (allowing them to witness the most important part of the game - the first forty moves - in one session) and the players themselves (five hours of continuous play are less tiring than six to eight hours of play in two sessions). The opposite argument, now put forward by you and based on the "experience" of Buenos Aires, seems to me to be completely unfounded:
 
a) our 34 games, of which 25 (including five decisive games: 3 in my favor and 2 in yours) were practically already finished by the fortieth move or even earlier, show that neither "technical knowledge of openings" nor "general understanding of the game" preclude the possibility of finishing the game before the five-hour mark;

b) your statement about your unwillingness to analyze is likely to cause the greatest surprise in Buenos Aires itself, where the local press paid special attention to your chess work outside the game throughout the match.
 Here are a few examples:

 1.    After the break in the 11th game, you stayed in the club and, asking to be left alone in a separate room, analyzed the postponed position for two hours ("Critica", October 9, 1927).

2.    When you arrived at the club to continue the postponed 22nd game, you went into a room next to where the match was taking place, and while your clock was running, you analyzed the postponed position for about an hour - with the permission of the match arbiter Dr. Kverenchio (your friend, whose house you were staying in during the match).

 I can add that this last case, while permissible, perhaps from a formal point of view, was completely unusual and caused a series of interpretations in the Buenos Aires Chess Club and undoubtedly (of course, without any intention on your part) influenced my further play in this game.

 Although other examples could be added, the two already given are enough to show those who might take your proposal as an "argumentum ad hominem" that in any case it was not only the analysis that decided the fate of the match.

 What should I say about your statement that after the 40th move opponents can receive help from... books?

 If we consider a chess player of your experience and knowledge, this statement can only be regarded as a joke, and the President of FIDE, Mr. Rueb, a strong, first-class amateur, is unlikely to take it seriously.

 As for the question of the possibility of assistance in analysis from other chess players, the chess world will probably be interested to hear about your Buenos Aires "experience," which showed you that such help is "easily obtained"! My personal experience in this regard is zero - this will be clear from the fact that an atmosphere of racial sympathy towards you prevailed throughout Argentina, which is quite understandable.

 Summing it all up, I repeat:

After the match, I made it clear to you that I am willing to play a new match with you only under the same exact conditions as the first one. You stated that you fully agreed with me. Now, apparently, you have changed your mind and attempted to change the conditions of the match for the World Championship.

 You apparently do not know me well enough if you think that anyone can make me abandon what I consider to be entirely right and in line with the idea of competition.

 If you want to play a rematch with me, you must abide by the conditions that you yourself set and under which our first match was played.

 My game gave me victory over you in six games, and I will only recognize someone's superiority over me (whether it be you or someone else) when they also win six games against me.

 I am convinced that someone who, as a champion, creates difficult conditions for their competitor and who immediately after losing their title seeks to replace those conditions with others that make it easier for the challenger and introduce an element of chance, will not be met with sympathy in the sporting world.

 With utmost respect, A. Alekhine.

Source: "Chess" 1928 No. 4

Note this line. 

''If you want to play a rematch with me, you must abide by the conditions that you yourself set and under which our first match was played.''

A nice drawing from this book in my library :-

O.K. That's the serious chess history out of the way! Let's look at some chess. In recent times I have rather neglected to include some of 'the fun stuff'. So let's begin with some of that. Part of how Alekhine made a living was by giving simultaneous exhibitions - both 'normal' and 'blindfold'.

In the above book I came across this next game. Well, in simuls you can have some fun, experiment and play to the gallery. When I was giving simuls I pretty much never played any openings which were in my normal repertoire, and would sacrifice material just to see what happened.

Here's Alekhine doing the same thing - objectively it's a terrible game!! - and there is a puzzle for you to solve. Have fun!

Well, I have always said that if you only have time to study one pre-war player it has to be Alekhine. Not only is it a joy, but you learn a huge amount. a couple of posts ago :- https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/my-morphy-number-departed-friends-and-lines-across-chess-history  I gave one of my games which i won with an idea I had learned from Alekhine. so here is that lesson.

 I  learned a huge amount from studying Alekhine's games from that tournament. Before moving on I have scanned some pictures from the tournament book. They are not easily found by a google image search - which is where most modern world internet 'history writers' find their material, to be presented without credit, of course!! Given the terrible picture quality of the book that I have, I think these are safe from 'theft', but I will include them anyway.
Probably the game notes that I have ever learned the most from the notes to is this next one. I have included the relevant Alekhine comments. The whole thing - based on this seemingly irrelevant move ...a5-a4 - had a huge impact on how I played, along with a number of other games which have the same principle - a single weak square and line of penetration in the endgame which is still very much in the future. Alekhine's opponent along with Jacob Bernstein, as pictured in the tournament book.

One more picture.

Let's get back to my last blog where I mentioned that I had more pictures to share. Here's one with the game.

Some more of the pictures. Yes, I really love my old chess pictures - no apologies for that!

Time for two more Alekhine simultaneous games. This one is rather fun!!

And finally to the feature game!! yes, I know, this has been a long blog, but I have been enjoying myself! Well done if you got this far guys.
One thing to note is that there was more than one Molina - https://planetarioajedrecistico.blogspot.com/2015/12/1955-bodas-de-oro-del-club-argentino-de_46.html   
The name crops up a lot, with games involving Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine who all visited Argentina at various times. It can get a bit confusing! 

Chessgames.com gives this one as Raul Molina - as in the above link - who was strong enough to beat- deservedly - Alekhine in another simul game. This one is rather beautiful - and has another case where Alekhine may have doctored the games score when  he supplied to Bernhard Kagan. Enjoy the game and Alekhine's wonderful notes.