Alekhine-capablanca remath myths and facts

Many say Alekhine did not accept the rematch and avoided Capablanca and many say he did accept but other reasons prevented the match. which is true? share your knowledge on the issue. enlighten us, I do not know much about remach, I do not know what happened. I read somewhere that they agreed on 30 november 1930 and then Capablanca postponed match and wanted delay. I do not know how true is it.

 

share what you know and let the truth be known.

Hope anyone will reply back with some facts regarding this :-)

In London 1922 all leading grandmasters including Alekhine agreed with Capablanca's proposal that a challenger for the world championship title should bring $10,000, of which $2,000 was for the world champion while the remainder was split 60% for the winner and 40% for the loser. Also the challenger needed to take care of all the traveling costs and so forth. These are known as the London Rules. It took Alekhine five years to get the money, where others like Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch failed to do so. For the rematch, Alekhine simply sticked to the same London Rules. Capablanca however now wanted different rules and arrangements, obviously rejected by Alekhine.

In a sentence, a rematch would have taken place in 1930 or 1931 had Capablanca not sought (for good reasons) a postponement. As revealed in correspondence between A. and C., Alekhine received Capablanca’s formal challenge on November 14, 1929, which he accepted in a letter of November 28, 1929, and in which he also fixed the start of the match between October 15 and December 15, 1930. Capa put down a deposit of $500 and tried unsuccessfully to organize a match for those dates in the United States. In a letter to Alekhine of June 1, 1930, the Cuban requested that the match be moved to early 1931; and Alekhine promptly agreed in a letter of June 18, to a new date of February 15, 1931. Capablanca then dropped a bombshell. In a letter dated June 18, 1930 - the same date as Alekhine’s letter - he wrote, “I find a clerical error was made in my letter of June 1, 1930. My proposal for the match is for the Winter 1931 - 32.” Which is to say, for a starting date NOT in early 1931 but a year thence in early 1932. Alekhine responded on July 3, 1930, stating that he would not entertain future challenges from Capablanca unless they were “formally supported by a Federation or backers known in the chess world, in each case guaranteeing the financial side of the match.” 

Kasparov writes about this in his Great Predecessor books as well and he also claimed that Capablanca was unable to raise the funds necessary to play a rematch and that Alekhine was insistent that Capablanca meet the same demands that he had been required to meet in order to play Capa in the first match .  Capa was not able to meet the financial demands and so Alekhine didnt play . 

And $10,000 in 1930 would be $137,000 today.

http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=10000&year=1930

An astonishing requirement IMO to play the WC.

Yes, but three or four years earlier, so in 1926 or 1927, the same $10,000 was still something like $132,000 - $134,000 according to the same (nice) website. Somehow, Alekhine was able to convince the Argentine Chess Federation to pay the $10,000. Capablanca was a chess hero in Argentina and apparently they wanted to see him defending his title. They probably didn't expect he would lose!

 

I don't think that Alekhine enforced these "London Rules" on Bugoljubov in 1929 and 1934, and on Max Euwe in 1935 when they played him for the championship. So it seems he just insisted on these rules only against Capablanca, which seemed fair since Capa enforced them on him.

Yes, the Great Depression is an important factor, but that's not Alekhines fault. Also, they already had some kind of agreement for another match in 1928, but that was unexpectedly postponed by Capacblanca himself for about a year.

The match in 1927 must have been extremely demanding for both players. It was by far the longest match to date - of course, they couldn't know what Karpov and Kasparov were going to do in the nineteen eighties...

The very human desire to avoid another such excruciating effort, might have also played a part, for both contestants. Alekhine couldn't be sure that he would win again, and for Capablanca another defeat would cement Alekhine's superiority and could spoil the legend around him. 

They both had an interest, in my view, not to play another match. The rest is more one-upmanship from both. 

considering your post after this one, is what Garry Kasparov wrote your source? or do we have more 'reliable' source?  what Kasparov wrote in 2000s or may be 90s does not qualify to be reliable for the event that took place between 1927-1932.

if we have sources of that time like newspapers tracking this events or books written by close allies of them.

p.s: I am not asserting what you wrote is wrong and I am not defending Capablanca. I want to open wiki page for this event and wanna use reliable, objective sources.

a good arguement but we cant blame Alexander for doing so. 

may be he did it to avoid Jose Raul or may be he did to show Jose Raul what difficult it was to challenge the title with 10 000 dollars. we do not know.

 

somewhere on the internet I read "Alekhine told to one of his mates "the rematch is not going to happen somehow" but I do not recall where it was and not sure it was a reliable source.

this hypothesis sounds pretty well :D if they played and Jose Raul lost (or even if he won) he would not have been as legendary as he is cracked up to be.

now, for many "Jose Raul was a guy whom the great champion Alexander ALekhine avoided from."

and for statisticians Alexander Alekhine remained champion for 17 years and is the only one to die with the crown.

they both could not have gained this fame if they played again, may be even though they both were agreeing to play in front of public may be they wanted not to play. :D

I do not know where I read it but "Jose Raul did not propose changes for their rematch match, he proposed it for next championship matches except their rematch. He even explained it Alexander through a letter."

I hope Garry cited sources in his book, if you have that book (I assume you have since you are National master) please check what he cited for this part of his book.

On the rematch purse requirement of 10,000 US dollars, Capablanca already had 5,200 US dollars (20% of the 1927 fee as the “champion’s fee” plus 40% of the residual). He only needed to raise 4,800 US dollars and, given that he was guaranteed a minimum of 3,200 US dollars from the rematch purse, this should have been possible.