Capablanca's 100 Best Games of Chess

by Harry Golombek

Jose Capablanca was a phenomenon who burst onto the chess world and took top prize in the first ever elite tournament in which he participated. This was at San Sebastian - otherwise known as Donostia - in the Basque country of Spain in 1911. Capablanca's style was serene - no position seemed to trouble him, and he crushed most of the established European grandmasters with seemingly little effort. Only against the mighty Lasker did he experience serious problems. Then in 1921 Capa - as he was known - obliterated Lasker in their world title match and took the championship without losing a single game. Other triumphs followed, such as London 1922, and Capablanca acquired the legend of an invincible superman when he went for 8 years without losing a game! His supreme moment was in New York 1927 - a quadruple round trial of strength between Capa himself Alekhine, Nimzowitsch and three other contenders for the crown. Capa whitewashed the field, creating a fresh masterpiece practically every day. Possibly this easy victory left him over-confident for later the same year he lost his world title to Alekhine.

Genres: Chess

267 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed playing through several of Capablanca's "100 Best Games of Chess".

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetic perfection! The beauty of what chess can be; Capablanca was not a simple master of the game, he had a simple beautiful mastery of the game. The best combinations I've ever seen, simple and fun to follow.

[Hank Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent book but dated (it's in English Descriptive notation, not Algebraic notation) and computer analysis shows many comments and variations given in the analysis to be inaccurate.

[Cesar Colina]

to know more about chess.