14 August 2006

Capablanca's Games 'To be studied very carefully'

Capablanca did not leave a large body of annotated games. When he did annotate a game, he often left more out than he put in. His book 'My Chess Career' is full of comments like 'each move should now be studied with care' with little or no further analysis. This is particularly true of his endgame analysis.

While flipping through the book I noted ten games where the Cuban leaves it to the reader to analyze the play...

p.032 1909 USA m (New York), Marshall - Capablanca
p.053 1911 San Sebastian, Capablanca - Bernstein
p.061 1911 San Sebastian, Capablanca - Janowski
p.091 1913 St.Petersburg exhibition, Capablanca - Dus Chotimirsky
p.096 1913 St.Petersburg exhibition, Capablanca - Alekhine
p.107 1914 Riga, Nimzowitsch - Capablanca
p.115 1914 Vienna, Kaufmann & Fahndrich - Capablanca
p.123 1914 St.Petersburg prel, Capablanca - Bernstein
p.129 1914 St.Petersburg prel, Nimzowitsch - Capablanca
p.133 1914 Buenos Aires, Capablanca - Molina & Ruiz

...Most of these concern endgames, but several refer to middlegame combinations. In future posts I'm going to tackle the list with the help of computer analysis. Since Capablanca's games and ideas were extremely profound, it may take more than one post to cover a single game.

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