José Raúl Capablanca: Most instructive chess games 1901-1918
Improve your chess skills with this course on the games of José Raúl Capablanca, the world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. Learn about his mastery of positional play and endgame strategies, and gain insights from his brilliant and clear style of chess. Suitable for beginners to intermediate players looking to enhance their endgame, positional understanding, and overall chess skills.
What you’ll learn
- Ability to play “simple positional chess” and reduce complexity
- Ability to appreciate Chess “Fundamentals” (time independent insights) that Capablanca was gifted with at very young age – he never opened a book on Openings 🙂
- Ability to appreciate Boris Spassky’s view that Capablanca was the best player of all time
- Ability to improve and appreciate endgame play
- Ability to enrich positional judgement
- Ability to appreciate simple positions more
- Ability to use aggressive tactical play to drive home positional advantages providing it is safe and efficient to do so
- Ability to appreciate Capablanca’s influence on future world champions Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov
- Ability to pick up Colle-Zukertort model games – a great attacking system for White
- Ability to appreciate why Capablanca was nicknamed “The Cuban Morphy” after his match with Frank Marshall in 1909
- Ability to improve endgame transitions well in advance by accurate middlegame play and understanding of endgames
- Ability to see major King safety prophylaxis especially when playing against attacking players like Frank Marshall
- Ability to understand more what Bobby Fischer alluded to about Capablanca in terms of middlegame accuracy to get winning endgames in the first place on arrival
- Ability to improve locking down counterplay in endgame – freezing pawns and opponent’s King with virtual walls
- Ability to appreciate Capablanca’s influence on future World champions Tigran Petrosian and Anatoly Karpov in terms of positional play and prophylaxis
- Ability to win with minimal opening imbalances – so winning in effect with minimal risks in opening taken
- Ability to make use of very tiny advantages from minimal imbalance openings to still try and win
- Ability to improve opening theory and tiny advantage independence – still being able to win with minimal sharp theory or tiny advantages
- Ability to transcend if-then style analysis in favour of knowing endgame wins, exploiting passed pawns and higher goals
- Ability to appreciate the amazing tactical abilities of Capablanca as well as his legendary positional and endgame skills
- Ability to appreciate Capablanca’s use of opening “systems” like the Colle System to get good opening positions and use middlegame and endgame strengths to win
- Ability to appreciate the strengths of the three knights and four knight variations which Capablanca nearly one third of time in preference to Ruy Lopez
- Ability to appreciate the “Old Indian” defence but also the “Old Indian” attack with White as a solid system
- Ability to simplify with advantage from complex positions using Capablanca’s excellent examples
- Ability to appreciate Capablanca’s alertness in opening phase for nuanced advantage gaining opportunities despite claiming not to have read many chess books
- Ability to appreciate Capablanca often playing against two weaknesses or targets to overwhelm opponents in Endgames
- Ability to appreciate the humanity of Capablanca – sometimes missing Back rank tactical resources in the middlegame
- Ability to appreciate Capablanca’s ability to see many of the little ‘petit’ combinations and tactical shots hidden in complex positions
- Ability to appreciate in-depth some key game examples in Capablanca’s “Chess Fundamentals” as many games are from this course’s date range
- Ability to be inspired for major endgame themes such as Aggressive King, Rook on 7th, power of passed pawns and their hooks, Switching attacks, etc
- Ability to see Capablanca as brilliant in middlegame and tactics especially x-ray tactics as well as a virtuoso in endgame play
- Ability to see key turning points and mistakes of games – not just telling the story of games but trying to get an objective analysis of where things went wrong
- Ability to make use of Capablanca’s level of pedanticness even in opening moves to extend knowledge of Opening theory and give a modern perspective
- Ability to emulate Capablanca more than more complex world champions because of his apparent simplicity, elegance and desire to keep positions relatively simple
- Ability to strengthen middlegame evaluations even losing a piece when put in context of powerful endgame transitions where passed pawns are dangerous
- Ability to appreciate a positional style which Kasparov indicates that Magnus Carlsen is similar to
- Ability to appreciate why Capablanca is thought to be one of the most naturally talented players of all time
- Ability to improve endgame strength and middlegame to endgame transitions which is becoming a rarer commodity skill in today’s blitz chess and end scrambles
- Ability to appreciate that an Encyclopedic opening repertoire is not needed to be a top player – Capablanca showed that he could play quiet but sound openings
- Ability to appreciate super instructive chess games where every idea has high visibility, and clarity. The games are not as “muddy” as Tal or Alekhine games
- Ability to appreciate clear logically flowing games where the winner did not have to calculate a huge amount of variations
- Ability to appreciate Capablanca’s “small combinations” which very simply underlined the strategic strengths and positional advantages of his position
- Ability to appreciate a quality of a good fighter in the Art of War – efficiency and simplicity of winning – which helps others learn from later 🙂
- Ability to appreciate many instructive endgames – and accuracy needed. The chess equivalent of eating vegetables as good for one’s chess nutritional diet 🙂
- Ability to appreciate the nickname earned by Capablanca of “The Human Chess Machine” for sheer accuracy and lack of major mistakes
- Ability to appreciate what Bobby Fischer described as a “Light touch” and find the right move very quickly
- Ability to appreciate the sheer beauty of silky smooth game accuracy e.g. black vs Albert Whiting Fox
- Ability to witness makings of a legend later in 1936 Moscow coming ahead of future world champion Botvinnik despite apparent bias towards Botvinnik
- Ability to play more “principled chess” based on the “fundamentals” (founding principles) that Capablanca expresses in his games and general principled play
- Ability to appreciate why some Capablanca games are held in hundreds of game collections and Capa fans play over them hundreds of times enjoying them greatly
- Ability to appreciate and remember many aesthetic concepts even if most of the concrete variations are forgotten
- Ability to appreciate inconspicuous subtle moves, which are the difference between smooth technical victories and allowing opponent messy counterplay
- Ability to study one of the clearest world champions – older classic games is often where the greatest fun and insights come from for many studying chess
- Ability to appreciate interest “centers” of many important and lesser well known Capablanca games through the instructive index that shortens Capablanca to C
- Ability to appreciate Steinitz “accumulation of small advantage” theory combined with minimisation of complexity which Capablanca adds – like code refactoring
- Ability to appreciate why Garry Kasparov considers Capablanca to have one of the purest most crystal-clear logical styles in the entire history of chess
- Ability to appreciate why Vladimir Kramnik considers Capablanca a genius and an exception that did not obey any rule
- Ability to appreciate why Vladimir Kramnik compares Capablanca with Mozart whos charming music appeared to have a smooth flow
- Ability to appreciate why Emanuel Lasker considered Capablanca as a genius – and the only genius revealing itself in the probing of opponent’s weak points
- Ability to appreciate why Mikhail Botvinnik indicated that you cannot play chess until you have studied Capablanca’s games
- Ability to appreciate why Max Euwe indicated about being humbled when studying Capablanca’s games
- Ability to appreciate why Garry Kasparov indicates that Capablanca invariably chooses the right option no matter how intricate the position
- Ability to appreciate why Bobby Fischer considered Capablanca as possibly the greatest player in the entire history of chess
- Ability to appreciate Magnus Carlsen’s comment that Capablanca came out of nowhere and just played very clear, simple, yet brilliant chess -“genius”
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José Raúl Capablanca was a Cuban chess player who was the world chess champion from 1921 to 1927.
His games are among the clearest of the World champions to understand the fundamentals of positional play and endgame mastery.
This course checks out his most important games from early in his career between 1901 and 1918.
From the outset, Capablanca’s strength in endgame play is particularly evident, and his ability to make use of very simple openings emphasises his middlegame and endgame strengths.
He defeated very early in his career one of the strongest players in the United States – Frank Marshall in a crushing eight wins. 1 loss, 18 draw match which took the world by surprise. Even more surprising is Capablacan’s victory at the international San Sebastián tournament of 1918 which had very strict entry criteria of having won previous tournaments. Capablanca had only a match victory against Marshall and some players protested at his entry. Capablanca showed he was extremely capable of playing at their level and beyond and won the tournament, defeating his fiercest critics such as Ossip Berstein and Aron Nimzovich in the process in brilliant fashion.
The course tries to provide an objective analysis of the games without too much bias for the winner. The concept here is that with the “truth” of games we can use such games to really improve our play to the maximum. We can also pick up opening theory, middlegame tactics and strategy, and of course endgame strengths through the inspiration of the key Capablanca games chosen in this course. The course bypasses the hundreds of Simul games Capablanca played – perhaps they can be in another course in the future. Instead, the course focuses on the most important tournament and match games of the time period the course has scope for.
In the process of creating the course, Kingscrusher himself has experienced more powerful confidence for endgame transitioning and “small combinations” – and believes any attentive student will too – and find many inspirational concepts and philosophies to enrich your chess through game example after example.
Who this course is for:
- Beginner to intermediate players who want to improve their endgames
- Beginner to intermediate players who want to improve their positional understanding
- Beginner to intermediate players who want to improve their “simple chess” which is a way of playing in an effective and efficient and safe manner
